October 8, 2008

• INVISIBLE????

  Invisible Mother

  It all began
  to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the
  way
  one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the
  phone and ask to be
  taken to the store.

  Inside I'm
  thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?'

  Obviously,
  not.

  No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or
  sweeping the floor, or
  even standing on my head in the corner,
  because no one can see me at all.

  I'm invisible. The
  invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands,
  nothing
  more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open
  this?

  Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a
  human being. I'm a clock
  to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a
  satellite guide to answer, 'What number is
  the Disney Channel?'
  I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'

  I was
  certain that these were the hands that once held books and the
  eyes
  that studied history and the mind that graduated sum a cum
  laude - but now
  they had disappeared into the peanut butter,
  never to be seen again. She's
  going; she's going; she is
  gone!

  One night, a group of us were having dinner,
  celebrating the return of a
  friend from England.  Janice
  had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and
  she was going on
  and on about the hotel she stayed in.

  I was sitting there,
  looking around at the others all put together so well.
  It was
  hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself.  I was feeling
  pretty
  pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully
  wrapped package, and
  said, 'I brought you this.'

  It was
  a book on the great cathedrals of Europe .

  I wasn't exactly
  sure why she'd given it to me until I read her
  inscription:

  'To Charlotte, with admiration for the
  greatness of what you are building
  when no one
  sees.'

  In the days ahead I would read - no, devour -
  the book. And I would discover
  what would become for me, four
  life-changing truths, after which I could
  pattern my
  work:

  No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we
  have no record of their
  names.

  These builders gave their
  whole lives for a work they would never
  see
  finished.

  They made great sacrifices and expected no
  credit.

  The passion of their building was fueled by their
  faith that the eyes of God
  saw everything.

  A legendary
  story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit
  the
  cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman
  carving a tiny bird
  on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and
  asked the man, 'Why are you
  spending so much time carving that
  bird into a beam that will be covered by
  the roof? No one will
  ever see it.' And the workman replied, 'Because
  God
  sees.'

  I closed the book, feeling the missing piece
  fall into place.

  It was almost as if I heard God whispering
  to me, 'I see you, Charlotte. I
  see the sacrifices you make
  every day, even when no one around you does. No
  act of kindness
  you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've
  baked,
  is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building
  a
  great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will
  become.'

  At times, my invisibility feels like an
  affliction. But it is not a disease
  that is erasing my life.
   It is the cure for the disease of my
  own
  self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong,
  stubborn pride.

  I keep the right perspective when I see
  myself as a great builder. As one of
  the people who show up at
  a job that they will never see finished, to work
  on something
  that their name will never be on.

  The writer of the book
  went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever
  be built in
  our lifetime because there are so few people willing
  to
  sacrifice to that degree

  As mothers, we are building great
  cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're
  doing it
  right.

  And one day, it is very possible that the world will
  marvel, not only at
  what we have built, but at the beauty that
  has been added to the world by
  the sacrifices of invisible
  women.

  • 3:42 pm
  • 11 Comments