Hello, I could use a little help here

Do you ever get the feeling some people are blind?  No, I don’t mean physically without sight, but rather, just so absorbed in their own pursuits that they only see what they want to see?

I will never forget the time I was over 8 months pregnant and attended school registration night for my firstborn.   Upon entering the building, you were immediately directed to follow the line of tables, making your way around until you had accomplished all the necessary steps, from meeting the teacher, to arranging for after school child care, to making sure the school nurse had your current medical information.  However, in what I’m sure was a malicious marketing manipulation, the Parents And Teachers group was placed at the first table.

They greeted me with their chipper hellos.  At 8 ½ months pregnant, I did not like chipper.   In fact, I despised chipper.   So, when these bouncy, overly enthusiastic women thrust their well-thought-out pamphlets into my face and revved up their sales pitch for all the wonders that are supposedly the PTA, it was all I could do to not envision their heads, or at least their pamphlets in a chipper - a wood chipper, that is.  I do not exaggerate when I tell you that salesperson number one rattled on for a good five minutes about all the upcoming activities the PTA would sponsor, and all the benefits of said activities to the students, who by the way, were still waiting to be enrolled, while she yammered on.   At the climax of her big speech was the hook, wouldn’t I like to be involved in these activities that are sure to stimulate the young minds of our students, reinforce the love I have for my child in the way of school spirit and hands-on involvement, and most certainly secure my child’s academic and social success for years to come?  Uh, no.

But surely I could give just an hour or two of my time to oversee any of the upcoming parties right there on her list, printed up so neatly in such pretty fonts.

Uh, no.

But....

But nothing!  Did you happen to notice, while your eyes glossed over into the glory land that is the PTA, that I am roughly the combined size of three eighth graders who spent the entire summer eating Ding-Dongs at the very least, and oh, I don’t know, the size of a beached whale at the other end of the spectrum?   Did you ever once come down off your hooray-for-involvement cloud long enough to notice that I may drop this baby right here between your bullet points if you don’t hurry this line along?  Because seriously, the longer your mouth moves, the more I’m sure I felt a contraction.

And yet, being the mature adult that I am, I bit my tongue and politely called attention to my ever expanding belly and made note that as I was due to have a caesarean soon, I wouldn’t be attending any parties or other events for quite some time.

When the rest of her face glazed over to match her eyes, as though she had no comprehension of the effects of major surgery, lactating, stool softeners, or overnight feedings, I had two choices: give her a surely unforgettable speech of my own, or slip away quietly as it would seem she would never notice anyway.   Again, being the mature adult that I am, I chose the latter.  But oh how I dreamed about the former when I was exhausted from childbirth.

Unfortunately, I've found that this special breed of blindness doesn't just exist at school.  Everywhere I go, there are people who are so absorbed in their own ideas that they fail to see past their quota sheet to the nearly depleted, barely-hanging-on-most-days mother that I am.    There was another woman who suffered from this blindness, not part of the PTA, thankfully, but in a group just as aggressive in their desperation - the rotating schedule, church nursery workers, otherwise known as the Guilt Trip Troupe.  

Now granted, I feel for these women, I really do.    They’ve got their work cut out for them because people start getting that crazed squirrel look in their eyes when they see these women coming and they realize there are perpendicular walls at their backs.   And you know they know it - nobody wants to be on that schedule.   For goodness sakes, sometimes, if truth be told, we only come to church just so we can drop those little monsters, I mean angels, off for someone else to watch for 30 minutes.    We know that it will be the only 30 minutes of sanity we get all week, and since it takes at least 15 minutes to use the restroom and stop looking back to feel like we forgot something - or someone, we’re already down to 15 minutes of free time.   By the time we sit in our pew and roll through the list of things we need to do today - without interruption - praise the Lord! - we’re down to about 5 minutes left.   And we spend that remaining 5 minutes half guilt ridden for missing the entire sermon except for bits and pieces about the Proverbs woman, and half in dread because we know it will be an entire week before we get that half a minute of anything close to pure, perfect peace again.  So, I’m telling you right now clipboard lady, do not attempt to corner me!   I will have all the tact of a rabies infested rodent.

And yet, I had one such lady boldly pass the “Danger: Not Afraid to Use Fangs or Claws” sign mounted to my forehead and actually begin to - gasp - speak!

I felt sorry for her, I really did.  I, like every other mother of young children, had the Rolodex file of excuses open and imprinted on the tip of my tongue before she even got within biting distance.    To her credit, she handled the dejection well.   But, it was all I could do not to say, “You’re just so young!  You have no idea!”

For this particular woman, this young lady, oh let’s face it - a kid herself next to someone of my age, was a newlywed.  The word “husband” still rolled off her tongue with all the delight of whipped cream and strawberries.   In other words, she is clueless.  

She has no idea that she will soon be in utter bewilderment as to how she could loathe this man, whose title just such a short time ago brought so much innocent pleasure.    Oh, she’ll still love him - very much, but she will surely hate him too.  It’s just inevitable.    And then, when the children arrive, and she’s been exposed to the motherhood virus for a while, and her immune system becomes more and more weak, she will finally begin to understand the fear in the eyes of the women who are being hunted by the nursery workers' rotating schedule clipboard.

But until that time, I nod and smile and let her live the dream a little bit longer.  She is blind to me.   She can only see me as a fellow woman, someone who would surely care about the spiritual welfare of our youngest congregation members.   She is blind to the haggard woman, standing - barely, before her, hoping beyond hope that the pastor’s sermon will run long today.   But her day is coming, so I smile again, making sure she knows it’s nothing personal.

But I think the biggest winner of all in the Blind-To-A-Mother’s-Needs category, is sad to say, my very own, well, let’s just say “relative” and play nice just this once.

It so happened that it was time for my annual Cancer follow-up and as usual, I had spent days upon days trying to secure the necessary child care for all my barrage of medical tests and hospital visits.  Unfortunately, at the last minute, one of my babysitters fell through due to illness.   So, it left me scrambling to find any possible way to keep from dragging a two year old along to my blood draw - because wouldn’t that just take all the fun out of the whole lab experience?

I thought of this “relative” first because she was not employed at the time, had no small children to care for, had no real concrete responsibilities of any kind - and she lived close. 

So, I called and asked if she might be able to fill in while I, you know, set tests in motion to make sure I don’t still have CANCER in my body.   Imagine my shock, no that’s too flimsy a word for what I was feeling, when she actually opened her mouth and said that no, she couldn’t help because she had a fun day planned with her friend and they were both just so excited about it.

For a split second I thought if the Cancer hadn’t gotten me yet, I may just succumb to a heart attack.  Did a Cancer patient with no one to care for her two year old for half an hour actually just get trumped by shoe shopping and lunch at Dennys?  Or was that a speed bump the Earth just hit on it’s way to a full, screeching stop?

If I’d been able to speak, I’m sure I would have asked her if she’d ever been a member of the PTA.

I wonder what it’s like to wander around in complete darkness like that.  Or maybe these women are so entranced by their own aura of light that they are oblivious to the rest of us, whose unmet needs are drifting further and further into the shadows they cast.

Either way, they are blind.

I am not a newlywed and I am not a PTA member, but at least you can outgrow or retire from either of those positions, whereas pure ignorance, in either definition of the word, would seem to be a bigger obstacle to overcome.

So, I beg you, my readers, open your eyes.   Let go of your own pursuits today, just long enough to look around and see the needs in front of you.    If you find that you’re a little out of practice, and you can’t really seem to see a need, I guarantee that any mother of children under the age of ten, and even more so if they are under the age of five, would craft your halo herself if you offered her a prepared or even pre-paid meal, a hand with the house cleaning, or jewel of all jewels in your crown - a nap!  You may have to wait until her children are in college to receive said halo, but trust me, she will not forget.    People who notice the exasperation, the unending exhaustion of parenting young children are never forgotten, and those who actually reach out to help, well, there is no word lofty enough to describe their worth.  They are priceless.

We mothers need help.   We need to know that somebody out there still has their vision intact.  And we desperately need a nap.   Your own pursuits can wait until tomorrow.  Be priceless today.