A Father’s Mother Thoughts

By now, you know the STORY of the Mother Letter Project. See the FAQs for more information.

Every Friday, we would like to post a guest’s Mother Thoughts.  Today’s guest post was written by Steve Parolini, a gentleman and writer whose words I’ve come to love. In his writing, you can hear his respect for the mother of his children. There is reconcilliation in his words.

Enjoy.

________________

There is a look in his eyes that needs a name. It’s not quite “imp” and not quite “knowing,” but a delicious blend of the two. Topher smiles across the table at his mother while shuffling a deck of cards with absent ease. He is a self-taught trickster; his specialty? Sleight of hand. (See the quarter? It’s in his left hand. There, now it’s in his right. Yes, I’m sure. Wait? It’s gone!) But the greatest feat in my older son’s life is no illusion. This coming Saturday, he will be married to a beautiful inspiration of a girl, his mate for life, Jessica.  

Topher smiles when he talks about Jessica the same way he smiles at his mother during the family card games. There is a clever sense of peace in Topher’s eyes these days. And it is born of a heart that has rediscovered a faith his mother and I watched him push away years ago. 

Flash back five years and you’ll see what I mean. Defiant eyes. Rabbit-trap anger just asking to be tripped by any mention of God or His Son. Lost eyes. The despairing stare of a teenager too broken by his own fruitless search for meaning to see anything but emptiness, no matter what his father or mother parade in front of him.  

It was a dangerous time for all of us. His mother had lost her job and was wondering if her mothersense had left along with her career. His younger brother was struggling with anxiety, just the first of many challenges we didn’t know were lining up in a queue, awaiting release that would soon come.  

We felt despair then, too, Topher’s mother and I. How do you give direction to a child who isn’t ready to be found? Our answers seemed incomplete because they gave our hands so little to do. Prayer, we concluded, was the first thing. And remembering, the second. She was the better recaller of things – of moments when faith mattered, when he loved well and deep and chased hope like fireflies. We kept praying and recalling – it was all we could do.  

And in time, not ours but the Time Author’s time, he began to search again. And he began to find. He met a girl. And she helped him see the things he had forgotten how to see. Big things. Small things. Important things. God things. It was both familiar and new to him and together they began an amazing journey that will receive its photo-album stamp of approval next Saturday.  

When he looks across the game table at his mother, I hear his unspoken words. “You didn’t need to worry so much. I was always going to be fine.” His mother’s response is both sigh and inhale. The sigh is relief. The inhale is like the taking in of Spring’s fragrant first breath. Newness. Life. There might be a tear in her eye then, there surely will be next Saturday. She has not lost her mothersense. It is right there in the center of her never-ending love. 

Ah, but remember the younger brother? Remember that queue of challenges? He wanders his wilderness path in plain sight; wearing rebellion and doubt like 72-point type on a t-shirt. He is anchorless and Authorless and calls this place of angst, certainty. His mother and I are patient with him. We are impatient with him. We are firm. Then lenient.  

Mother wonders again if she is losing her mothersense. Who is she to him? And so we return to prayer and remembering, even though today, we do these things in separate homes – the sad-but-real result of separation and divorce. It would be so easy to live in despair. So easy to just give up. But one of those recollections keeps us within hoping distance.  

They are walking side by side along a Colorado mountain path, the brother and his mother. Ahead of them, Topher and I are racing down the hill, startling pebbles into tiny rockslides with every reckless step. Behind them, his aunt and his cousin have paused to look at the Columbine. Right there the midst of raw beauty – mossy rock wall to the left, evergreen-dotted drop-off to the right, he looks up to his mother and with wide-eyed innocence, says, “I want to ask Jesus into my heart.” She is startled by her five-year-old’s words. Could he really understand what that means? He does. They talk. He invites. She cries. And we all rejoice. 

It’s a beautiful memory.

Next Saturday, Topher is getting married. And as Topher and Jessica say their vows, all dressed up except for Converse tennis shoes (gotta love their style), his mother and I will cheer and celebrate their future. Sometime during the reception I’ll ask his mother if she’s seen Topher’s latest tattoo. In a moment of God-planted wisdom I’ll say, “It might as well be about the younger child.” She’ll scrunch her face into a question, then wander over to Topher so he can pull up his sleeve for her to see. The tattoo is just two words. It points me to a mountain memory. And it renews her mothersense. It says… 

“Have Faith.”