Earn This..............

"Earn this"   two powerful words spoken in the movie " Saving Private Ryan"   The soldier put in charge of finding this last surviving son in WWII tells the character to earn this, earn the right to live after so many died to keep you safe. Dont waste your life thinking you were not worth the price paid, just earn it, make every man who died proud, make their sacrifice worth it....... Earn IT!.
   When I first saw this film when it came out years ago, I had my own 'earn it' moment. Early in the film I watched a young soldier die and as he breathed his last breath he was crying out for his MAMA.  As the film goes on to watch young man after young man die, the circumstances of the deaths are different, some fast, some slow, some hazily floating into the next life with numbing shock helping their pain, while others scream in agony with pain too hard to bear....... but each young man had one thing in common. They each cried for their moms. Every last one of them. By the middle of the film I was screaming inside, " have I earned this?" As the mother of nine boys, have I even come close to earning the honor that if one of those precious boys ever laid on a battlefield dying , they would call for me?
   Was that swat on the butt really merited for what that one did today? Was the shhhhhhhh , while I tried to watch the last five minutes of a stupid television show really the response I wanted to give that child? Did I praise the homemade gift I recieved from him enough to let him know that it was precious in my sight because his little hands had fumbled with scissors and glue and crayons with love for me? On my best day as  a mom would I ever ever really earn the right to be the last person my child screamed for?
    What is it about boys and their moms? I know that dads play ball with them, I know that dads help them learn to ride bikes..... dads are there, doing their dad thing, being loving parents.... but yet as a soldier dies, he wants his mom. How far have I missed living up to that honor?
   By the end of the film when the character is told "earn this"   "earn it"...... I had already heard those whispers from my God, and from my own heart.
   I wonder how many moms think about that , about earning it.... about realizing that a man who looks at you and says " Mom , thanks, I love you Mom, you taught me well Mom, you were always there Mom"  , is the highest medal of honor you can recieve as a parent. I wonder if moms of those little , mud covered, mess making boys, really get that it is one day at a time. You dont wake up one day to a grown son who loves and respects you and feels like the world will never be the same if you are not there someday, or that leaving you to go to the afterlife is unbearable to him. It does not happen overnight , it happens day by day.
    I left that movie so many years ago with tears streaking down my face, not for the soldiers who died in WWII , but for my own sons. For the sons who had a mom who had not earned it. I wept for the times I chose to turn away from them for my own silly entertainment. I wept for them for the times that they were too much for me, when I thought a mistake had been made by having them in my life. I wept for the very perfect boys who had been dealt with a very imperfect mom.
   But because I know now to hear the whispers and learn from them, I made a choice that day. Not to be a perfect parent, because that would be impossible. But a parent that cherished every moment? That I could do. Even when my voice raises with frustration, something in me reminds me, its ok, that is what boys do. I still have to do the parent job, discipline when needed, but with a new direction of helping them be better men, not making them act in a way that makes my life better for the moment. A shhhhhh is not needed to hear a stupid tv show, but a shhhhhhhh is still needed if they are saying something that hurts someone.
   I will never understand why a mom is the last thing a soldier screams for as he dies, but I know one thing......... this mom is going to try to earn it as best she can, and then pray hard that it never has to happen!
T.J. James 2011

The Dance.....

                 The Dance......


You mesmerize me
   with your dance.
Twirling and moving in a flurry
   of beauty.
You skip lightly and barely touch
   the ground.
When suddenly, you fly high
   turning in circles of joy.

Suddenly you slide to your right
   and dip low, teasing me
Keeping my eyes locked on your
   every move.
I blink, and the winds die
   and with the stillness
   your dance ends.

You lay crumbled, lifeless, and still.
   My eyes are opened to see you
   as the world sees you.
I am sad for you, you had a purpose
   a plain white plastic bag
   suited for many useful things.

In your proper place you serve well...
   but someone's carelessness,
   someone's laziness...
   Makes the world see you as
Trash.

Aw, but for a moment today
   in the street where you were
   carelessly thrown.
The wind allowed you to dance...
   to enchant me, to make me smile
And once again I am shown
   that while man makes trash,
Nature in all it's raw power
   Always makes beauty.

TJ James 2011