My Magnum Opus: The Parenting Marathon

I recently volunteered at a triathlon and discovered many interesting things about these athletic beasts. Besides being insane for paying actual money to brutalize their bodies and not knowing the difference between fun and pain, I noticed that at the finish they usually fell into one of three categories: 1) The nonchalant. “Yeah, I just finished a triathlon. No big deal. I’ll probably do it again tomorrow. 2) The triumphant – “Woooooo Hooooo!!! I f****** finished!!! Hey mom – take my picture!!! And 3) The Puker. No explanation necessary.

Well, I just finished my own marathon of sorts and I see that I am clearly from the third category. I am a puker.

Last week, our fourth child moved out for the final time and now it’s just me and Paul again. It’s been 30 years since it was just the two of us and I truly feel as if we’ve just completed a 30-year marathon – running, running, running as if our life depended on it and pushing our minds and bodies to their utter limits.

I remember the day we took our first newborn home from the hospital like it was this morning. We pulled into the garage, turned off the car, and shut the garage door behind us. I looked at Paul, then into the backseat where baby Andy was all nestled comfy-cozy in his way-too-big car seat and said, “Oh shit. Here we go.”

We were so young, naive, and impulsive and I still can’t believe the good people of Zeeland Hospital felt that just because we were able to produce the proper car seat, we were able to care for a CHILD!!! But, despite our inhibitions, we unbuckled the kid, brought him inside and gave him our best effort.

Then in a flash there was baby number 2. Another flash and a blink later came child number 3. And right in the middle of diapers and sippy cups and horrific sleep schedules, we thought it’d be a good idea to adopt a child. And wham – there she came – on a TACA flight out of Guatemala in 2001. We were still relatively young and naive, and our impulsivity had only gotten worse – but at least now our resume included parenting 3 other children.

The years went by like a melting ice cream cone on a hot July day. I licked and licked and tried to savor the taste of each delicious lick – but life melted away so quickly, I’m afraid I’ve already forgotten some of the taste.

Last week was so weird. The day we moved the last child out for the last time, we returned home to a nearly unbearable quiet. I flashbacked to when little children would come running to the door to greet us whenever we came home. I felt a deep ache in my soul knowing those days are fully, completely, dreadfully behind us.  Paul and I stood in silence for a few moments as neither of us knew what to say.

We also didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know if we should run upstairs and have loud sex, have a solemn moment of prayer and build a commemorative altar from the kids’ college binders, or crank up some fantastic Queen and Bon Jovi and dance on the living room furniture.

Nothing felt right.

Except maybe a nap.

Or puking.

All I know for sure is I am not well – something deep inside of me is still longing. My head, my heart, my soul, my entire body aches and most days I feel like puking. We’re definitely going to need some time to recover, process and debrief this 30-year parenting marathon.

Some days I feel like stealing away to Figi, or Tahiti, or the Galapagos Islands and just stare at the ocean for about 30 hours. One hour for every year of parenting. And when I’m done with that I will cry, shout – no, SCREAM into those seas or to whomever else will listen (God?) for the absolute audacity of time to move so quickly. Can’t you do something about that, God? Do you not know that I am dying and I don’t have time for wasted time? Do you not know that I need more of it? Can you slow it, kind sir? Please, for the sake of the sick and the suffering, can you slow it down???

Standing in our quiet living room that post-marathon day – heaving and gasping for air as I “puked” all over Paul and the floor – I realized parenting may have been the hardest thing we’ve ever done (or will do), but it is nevertheless our magnum opus – the best we have to offer the world. We just completed a 30-year-marathon of birthing, raising, and releasing HUMANS into the world!!! We lived as large as we knew how to and gave those kids a hell of a ride all the while screwing up some parts of it royally. But one thing I do know: If I should die soon, I will not regret having poured myself out for those four kids and teaching them that, above all else, we ultimately live to give God the glory for every single one of our gifted breaths.

Well, now that I’m done puking, I guess I’ll make dinner.

My lungs still hurt and I need to take a lot of deep breaths before we get back up again and relace our shoes for whatever God has next for us. For this moment, I need to just sit for a bit. Not Figi or Tahiti or Galapagos. Just here in Grand Rapids for a bit.

Just a bit.

I’ll get up shortly. I’ll get up.

Life isn’t waiting for me. We have much to do! We have to revisit the things we used to enjoy when it was just the two of us, we must help Syrian and Central American – and now Afghanistan – refugees!! And the Hondurans, the Haitians, and Lebanese as well!!  We have no time to waste to share ALL the necessary things with our adult kids before we lose our minds and can’t remember the things. We need to spread love to our neighbors in our struggling neighborhood, and rock this grandparenting gig, and give our best gifts to our local urban school and church, and give my mom the best possible finish to this life and at least a million other things.

No, we’re no longer running the child-rearing marathon, but I sure as heck don’t want to hang up my “running shoes” yet either! Although we now run just the two of us and are navigating the course with a stupid lung disease, a few more aches and pains, and at a much slower pace, we still beg of God to help us “strip off any weight that slows us down and especially the sins that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” (Hebrews 12:1 NLT)

Time to run our next marathon, Paul. Let’s get after it.

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