Cooter was sick with his standard Sunday evening 12 hour stomach thing two weeks ago. I don’t call it a proper bug, because there’s never any rhyme or reason to it. He doesn’t run fever or have any other symptoms. Just every so often–occasionally–he will have stomach trouble to the point of vomiting a few times. Most always on a Sunday evening. We will stay up late watching his go to “sick” movie (the original Batman), and then once he’s able to, he will make the call on whether he will go to bed or sleep on the couch, and whether or not he prefers me to be close by for the rest of the night.
This last time, I was anxious that he feel better quickly. If it ran typically, he’d be fine before morning, and we really needed for him to be. He has drama on Mondays, and he really, really doesn’t need to miss any rehearsals if he can at all help it. I’m old school, so if I had any doubts about him being well, he wouldn’t be going. That night I kept asking him if he felt okay. He did but then a second wave hit. I decided to try an oil I have that is suppose to help with stomach upset, so I applied it topically.
Things had settled a little, and then he told me that he thought he’d be okay if he didn’t have to keep smelling that smell–that it was really bothering his stomach. Interesting. Well, nothing for it but to try to gently wash it off.
He said that helped.
The next morning–as per usual–he woke up asking for his oyster crackers. And then real food. He was hungry. And he kept it down. And he ate more and was his old self. Just like all the other times.
Wow. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly his body turns around from whatever THAT was.
I was talking with him that night after drama. He was glad to feel better and more than happy that I agreed we wouldn’t use the oil for him again. He said that trying to stop the throwing up was not working. “See, Mama,” he said in that voice he uses when he is imparting the greatest of wisdom to his old Mama, “I just have to trust the process. If I’m sick and throwing up, that means I need to do that. Get the bad stuff out. Mama. Trust the process.”
A lot of the time I can see Mama in my middle child, our Princess. But in that moment, I could see and hear Mama in my little guy’s words and expression. He knows how much I worry when he’s sick, but he’s fine because he “trusts the process.” And in telling me to do it, well, that’s just like my Mama. Trying to calm me and bring me peace in the midst of chaos.
Trust the process.
That’s so hard to do sometimes, isn’t it? Because it requires letting go. Letting go of trying to “fix” things or cure them or even just guiding how it goes. Being a “scriptwriter” for my own life from way back, this is really hard.
But I look at that peace on my little guy’s face and he’s just taking it in stride. I’m sick, okay, let me do what I have to do to get better.
Trust the process.
Trust it in the midst of a new friendship. Trust the other person. Give them a chance. Trust in the middle of planning a huge project. Trust that it will all come together. Trust in the making of a long journey. Trust that we will get there, or wherever we get, it will be okay.
It sort of goes hand in hand with what Mama often said, “Do your very best. Be your best self.”
Because if you do those things, then trust the process, there is a peace in that that calls out to my soul. I want that. I need it.
It’s a Sunday again, and today Cooter was out with his best buddies building a fort with sticks and branches trimmed from the trees around their house. It took them a while, but they built a magnificent fort, and then they proceeded to spend the afternoon on into the evening in it, telling stories, imagining adventures, and making the best of memories. They took it one step at a time, did what came next, gave it their best efforts, and wound up with a great place to play.
If they’d worried about what kind of fort, or tried to count all the sticks and branches ahead of time, or worried about how it could be torn down before they were finished or how there could be critters living on the sticks or how someone might spill a Gatorade inside the fort (true story) and how that might delay their fun…..well, it could have been a long afternoon and made for some grumpy little guys.
Instead. They formed an idea, did their best, and trusted the process. In the end, their lives were all the better for it.
Okay, I know, it’s just a fort. One that will most likely be fire pit fuel in the next few weeks.
But it’s a beautiful example of trusting the process. And not nearly so…..ummm, disgusting….as the stomach trouble story.
This week I’m going to follow Cooter’s example and try trusting the process. In my days, in my conversations, in my relationships. I’m going to try giving it my best and then letting go. I’m hoping I’ll have as big a smile as these guys did this afternoon, hanging out in the midst of broken branches and limbs that their trust and hard work turned into a pretty cool place to spend a Sunday afternoon. Or a lifetime.
Love to all.
I Might Need A Nap 