Mary DeTurris Poust's Blog, page 18

Cravings Reboot: What’s on your plate in 2018?

Bring on another new year. We are not afraid. Or are we? So often, we enter the new year disappointed by what didn’t happen the year before and overcommitted to an unrealistic set of resolutions for the year ahead. Which starts a vicious cycle of being perpetually dissatisfied and overwhelmed. This is the year to say, “Enough.” As in, YOU ARE ENOUGH. Just as you are. Sure, you might want to make some changes, maybe even some “improvements,” but that doesn’t mean you aren’t beautiful as is. Don’t let the world convince you that you won’t be good enough until you’re thinner, richer, more popular, more successful, more something. That’s a losing battle, one designed to keep you spinning your wheels and searching for a kind of perfection that doesn’t exist, at least not outside of fairytales.

During this first week of the new year, when everyone around you is making promises to themselves and others, resolve to be a beginner. That’s the only resolving we’ll be doing on this journey. Begin again. And again and again. Every day. Always. There is no shame in being a beginner. In fact, it’s the only way to grow. If you set a course and get pulled in the wrong direction, just straighten yourself out and start over. I guarantee that even when you think you’re starting from zero, you will be a few steps farther down the path than you were before. That’s how this works. With every beginning, we move a little bit closer to becoming who we truly are meant to be.

Which is what brings us to where we are today: Cravings, Chapter 1: A Deeper Hunger. What is your deeper hunger for 2018? Surely it’s more than taking off a few pounds. I’m guessing that if you’re anything like me, underneath the surface hunger for a slimmer waistline or stronger abs is a desire for inner peace, self-acceptance, and a transformation that will lead you to a place where you are not defined by the number on the scale or the size of your jeans.

As we begin our journey, some aspects may feel a little unusual since we’re talking about eating habits and diet but we’re not actually going on a diet. I’m not going to give you a list of foods you can’t eat or foods you must eat or an amount of exercise you should do. This is going to be a much deeper and interior journey than the typical kind of health plan. If you follow this path, your newly restored relationship with food will naturally bring things into balance because you won’t be stuffing or starving based on feelings of inadequacy or because of stress in your work or home life or because you’re trying to fill a void of some kind. You will be learning to move mindfully through your meals, through life, doing things with attention and INtention, which is what sets this apart from any old diet. In order to do that, we have to drop down into our heart center and make a spiritual connection.

From Chapter 1:

“When we begin to connect prayer lives to physical lives, when we look beneath the surface, we often discover just how deeply intertwined the two are and how our food issues are wound around our spiritual needs and longings. We’re not hungry for a carton of ice cream or a bag of chips. We’re hungry for acceptance — from ourselves even more than from others — for love, for fulfillment, for peace. We’re hungry for a life we think we don’t deserve or can’t have, for the person we know we can be if only we’d give ourselves the chance.

“Often it is not the fear of failure that holds us back but the fear of success. We cling to the comfortable rather than step out into the possible. So we sit at home with a container of Cookies and Cream rather than take a chance on getting our heart broken again, or we down an entire bag of chocolate-covered pretzels rather than work on that resume that might get us out of a dead-end job. Or we eat cold pasta right from the refrigerator rather than sit down in silence and listen for the whisper of the Spirit speaking to our hearts.”

Practice for the week: Rather than counting calories and fat grams, this week we’re going to try to add one spiritual practice to our daily routine. It can be five minutes of silence and deep breathing at the start of the day, or a meditative walk out in nature, or daily Mass, or a few minutes with Scripture — whatever suits your spiritual style. Do your practice daily for one week, and at week’s end, notice if there were any changes. How did it change your mood, attitude, habits, hungers, if it changed it at all? Was it hard to do? Can you keep it up, or even increase you amount of prayer time? (You’ll find some questions to prompt reflection at the end of Chapter 1, along with a meditation.)

Journaling: If you haven’t already started a journal, now is the time to begin that as well. A simple spiral notebook is fine. Again, no calorie counting. This is about noticing more than what’s on your plate. Yes, jot down what you eat, but, just as important, write down how you feel on any given day — physically, emotionally, and spiritually. What’s going on in your life that might be making you scrounge around in the pantry for cookies or stare into the fridge for a magical food that will make the pain going away?

Prayer: If you’re looking for something to serve as a spiritual touchstone, spend some time with Psalm 139, which you’ll find on pages 13-14 of Chapter 1 (or in your Bible). Focus on these words:

“I praise you, so wonderfully you made me; wonderful are your works!”

Can you see yourself as wonderfully made, loved unconditionally by God? This is our starting point. And our ending point. It can be hard work to get there, but we’ll tackle it together, and share our struggles here in the comment section. I can tell you with all honesty that yesterday morning, as I faced my own backsliding, I did not feel wonderfully made. Not even close. But because I’ve made this journey before, I know what that means: It’s time to slow down, to take time for some self-care, to spend time with God, to shut out the noise of our chaotic world and recapture my balance, to become more mindful. (If you’re struggling with mindfulness over multi-tasking, you can find a post on that topic HERE. We’ll talk more on that topic in the weeks ahead.)

Thank you for joining me on this journey. Feel free to ask questions, share stories, or start discussions in the comment section, and you can always find me on Facebook as well.

Musical inspiration for the week ahead: Colours by Margo Rey

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You say you want a revolution…

Happy New Year! If you’ve frequented this blog before, you know that we do not do resolutions here at Not Strictly Spiritual. Why? Because they don’t work. Why stick with a losing proposition? Think big. Think evolution. Think revolution.

We are not starting out this new year looking to drop pounds and dress sizes or simply start a new exercise routine. We are looking to go much deeper than that, to a place where we can dig into the fertile soil of our soul, a place where there are ideas and experiences and adventures trying to poke through the surface and blossom into the life we deserve, the life we’ve been dreaming of. Stop counting calories and counting steps and counting sheep and start breathing deep, sitting still, looking inward, reaching outward, living life with attention and INtention.

If you followed us on the Cravings journey last year, you’ll remember that we worked through that book chapter by chapter, week by week. I’ll be re-posting those entries so you can review and renew. If you haven’t worked through Cravings yet, now is the time! Check back here each week for posts that will not only help you develop a healthy relationship with food but will give you an opportunity to explore your own heart, mind, and soul. In addition, I’ll be posting new material that will show you how to take the mindful attitude we developed during Cravings and bring that to bear in all areas of your life. I’ll be using my book Everyday Divine as a guide. (You can get the Kindle version HERE. I do have a limited supply of print editions of this book, so shoot me an email if you’re interested.)

You’ll find the details of our Cravings journey in this post: Revolution, not resolution  (I’ll follow the same schedule as I did last year, so the dates listed there will hold. Check back Jan. 2 for our first installment.)

Still not convinced? Here’s another post that might do the trick: You are enough. No resolutions required.

The only thing you need to bring to this party is a good attitude, a sense of curiosity, and a journal. It doesn’t have to be a fancy journal. A cheap spiral notebook will do, but it’s a good idea to have a place to write down some notes along the way. In fact, journaling for even a few minutes each morning is a great way to start your day. We’ll talk more about that in the days ahead. If you don’t want to do that, no problem. This is your journey, your life. Do it your way.

See you back here soon. Here’s to another new year. Let’s make it a good one.

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We are one

We live in a divided world, where our differences are driving a wedge between us, creating an ever-widening chasm that threatens to cut us off from each other completely. Or so it seems. When we confine ourselves to what we see and read in the news or on social media, it’s easy to think we’re already standing on the edge of the precipice, staring down into the darkness that division leaves in its wake. But, if we’re willing to sit face to face with someone and listen to their story, we’re likely to find that there is no division after all; we are one. We just don’t realize it most of the time.

I had one of those Aha! moments last week, when I sat in a circle of unfamiliar faces during a class on “meditation in everyday life.” The session was designed for people of any faith, or none at all, and so we were an eclectic group: Catholic, Muslim, Buddhist, black, white, Asian, men, women, student, senior and everyone in between. I looked around at first and wondered why I was there. Why hadn’t I just stayed home and enjoyed a quiet evening with my family instead of thrusting myself headlong into this unusual group? And then, one by one, we went around the circle sharing our reasons for being there, and something wonderful rose to the surface: Although the specifics varied, our hopes and needs and hungers were incredibly similar.

Heads nodded in silent, earnest recognition as voices around the circle chimed in with struggles that felt all too familiar: easing stress, finding peace, creating balance, embracing brokenness, learning patience, escaping depression, accepting challenges, becoming mindful, staking out daily silence, reaching toward connection with the Divine.

By the end of the second class, I found myself thinking, “These are my people,” which shouldn’t surprise me at all because I encountered that same truth when I gave a retreat for a dozen women earlier this fall, and I’ve seen the same thing manifest itself whenever I’ve been part of a group of people willing to let down their guard to grow. At our core, we are more the same than we are different. We are not the divided and angry people we encounter on social media and TV, but rather a broken and unsure family that doesn’t always get along but desperately wants to find that sweet spot—the calm, peaceful place that God sets apart for each one of us.

St. Teresa of Calcutta once said, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten we belong to each other.” That quote has taken on a sense of urgency in contemporary society, when it feels as though we are hardening our collective hearts against each other. Many of us feel powerless to do anything. How can we, in our little corner of the world, turn the tide?

By starting where we are. The tide begins to turn when we withhold the harsh words or mean-spiritedness at the dinner table, in our office, on the exit ramp during a traffic jam, in line at the grocery store. We can choose to see our obvious differences and divisions, or we can choose to see our shared suffering and unity.

This season, when we celebrate the Light that overcomes all darkness, we can make a commitment to be a light for others, to listen and let down our guard, to soften the hard edges of our hearts and help heal our fractured world, remembering always that we belong to each other, that we are one.

Although we tend to think our modern world’s condition is unique or unusual, the truth is that the world has always been divided. Back in 1963, Dorothy Day said: “The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us.”

More than half a century later that challenge remains.

This column originally appeared in the Dec. 7, 2017, issue of Catholic New York.

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Self-care: Getting an expensive wake-up call

When I gave up my home-based business to start working in an outside office full time more than two years ago, I gave up a lot more than writing in my basement while wearing yoga pants and burning incense. I stopped exercising. I stopped cooking healthy dinners. I stopped eating healthy food. I stopped doing yoga. I stopped blogging. I stopped using my downtime as downtime and turned everything (even vacations) into work time, or at least work worry. That’s a lot of stopping. Did I start doing anything new? Why, yes, now that you ask. I started drinking coffee by the bucketfuls. I started eating at my desk without even noticing I was eating (exactly what I tell everyone NOT to do in my book Cravings). I started skipping prayer and meditation time. I started turning into an absolute basket of nerves. 

Which brings us to this past weekend, when severe pressure in my chest and shoulder and neck had me checking into the ER at St. Peter’s Hospital — the first time I have ever gone to an ER for myself for anything other than childbirth check-in. Between the pressure and my family history, I felt like I couldn’t take a chance. I ended up spending the night in the cardio unit for observation, and, although the cardiologist doesn’t think it’s my heart (I’ll be going for more testing this week to be sure), it certainly served as a wake-up call to me, because whether it’s a heart issue, a gastro issue (suspected at this point), a stress issue, or all of the above, the fact is that I did this to myself. An expensive way to learn this lesson, but I guess if it causes me to rethink my habits, it’s worth it. I was NOT being so philosophical about this when I was going through it, I’d like to add. Just ask my husband, Dennis, who was holding his head in his hands (literally) as I threatened to remove my own IV and check myself out after nine hours in ER and the prospect of an overnight stay looming. (Gee, I wonder why I have chest pain?)

But, on this morning after, when I’m still not feeling 100 percent and I realize this was not just some passing anxiety attack and is probably going to require medicine, treatment of some sort, and lifestyle changes, I am grateful that my miserable hospital experience has caused me to pull out my juicer and my favorite health book (Crazy Sexy Diet by Kris Carr), check out a few more clean eating cookbooks from the library, and start looking for a way back into exercise and yoga. For the record, I did sign up for a five-week meditation class three weeks ago, in part because I knew I needed a way to balance my life and calm myself down, so on some level I recognized the fact that I was speeding toward a health crisis on multiple levels: physical, mental, and spiritual.

So, I’m here now as a way to not only return to blogging, which is something I have always loved, but as a way to hold myself accountable. Last December, I formed the Cravings Tribe for those who wanted to journey through my own book with me toward a saner relationship with food and a more peaceful life in general. And while that lasted a few weeks, I’ll admit that I did not practice what I preached. I hope some of you did. It’s time I join you.

When I told a work colleague that I had landed in the cardio unit of the hospital, he said, “You’re too young to end up in that ward.” Not true. At 55 years old, I am exactly the right age to end up in that ward, but I don’t intend to go back any time soon. I’m hoping the doctor is right and my heart is still healthy and this is just some diet and stress issue I can handle with minimally invasive help, but, I have no intention of sitting by passively and waiting for others to figure things out. I’m going to reclaim the pieces of my life I gave away in a misguided attempt at being an above-and-beyond type of worker. The email can wait. The phone call can wait. My health cannot. (I only checked work email twice during the writing of this blog post on my sick day. That’s progress!)

If you’re dealing with similar stress and health issues, chime in. We can work through this together.

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Everything is blessing. Yes, even that.

‘Tis the season to give thanks, but what if we change things up a bit this time around? It could be a gratitude throw down of epic proportions, if we all make an effort. We already know that counting our blessings in an intentional way is good for us. It not only makes us more grateful, but more content. Suddenly the smell of fresh-brewed coffee in the morning or the sight of a hawk circling overhead serve as entry points to something much deeper. But, can we take that idea one step further, into the murky waters of struggle and sorrow, and find blessings even there? That’s our challenge.

Nothing that happens to us along life’s path exists in isolation. Oftentimes, the events we’d like to forget because of the pain and heartache they’ve caused are the very things that help shape us. I’m not referring only to those rare but brave souls who manage to find new life in a cancer diagnosis or traumatic loss, although, to be sure, they are heroes in this department. I’m also talking about those of us who have witnessed firsthand a transformation brought about through life events, from tumultuous to mundane, which leave our insides churning, sometimes due to our own missteps and sometimes at the hand of someone else.

Imagine, for example, the boss or job that made your life difficult and caused you to change careers or move to a new city, the injury that forced you to quit running or dance, the relationship that ended with both parties shattered. These are the things that don’t typically make it to a page in our gratitude journal. But what if we flipped that dynamic around? What if we look at those difficult situations, people and moments through a different lens to see how they have blessed us? Would we be where we are today without them?

If we are in a daily relationship with someone, whether at home or at work, in our parish or in our community, we cannot help but be shaped or at least influenced by those regular encounters. We are interdependent, and, whether we want to admit it or not, it is often the thing that pushes us into discomfort that offers us the most profound lessons, the greatest opportunities for growth.

Perhaps you are in one of those situations right now, experiencing something that makes you unhappy or uncomfortable, that makes you want to run for the hills or at least pull the covers over your head and hide for a few days. What if even that is a blessing? Not because of the pain it causes but because of the lesson it offers. Can we learn to be grateful for—and open to—the lessons?

Life continually gives us opportunities to learn something we don’t want to learn or face something we don’t want to face. If we’re honest, we can usually look back on those moments that stand out as the most challenging—the places where we chose to make course corrections rather than stay somewhere we shouldn’t be, as well as the times we chose to stay put rather than quit or run—and see, with 20/20 hindsight, the gift in those difficult moments. Everything is interconnected. Erase the job you hated or the relationship that failed or the move that didn’t work out and suddenly you don’t end up in the city where you met your spouse and had your children, or the job that led to the work that gives meaning to your days.

Everything is blessing, and I say that as much to convince myself as to convince you. It isn’t an easy statement. From experience, I know life throws things at us that don’t feel even remotely like a blessing. Yet, everything God asks of us eventually takes us where we need to go, if we are open to the gifts that are not always in plain sight.

This column originally appeared in the Nov. 9, 2017, issue of Catholic New York.

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With every step, say, “Jesus”

I was recently sitting in a log-cabin chapel on a beautiful lake in the lower Adirondack Mountains when the woman next to me offered a prayer intention during Mass: “For all those in the process of dying.” Although I had a dear friend who would die that very night and for whom we had been praying throughout the weekend retreat, I heard those words not only in relation to my dying friend but in relation to myself and to all those around me, because we are all in the process of dying.

Yes, we are all also in the process of living, but, like it or not, the dying part is wrapped up in it, often so deep we manage to ignore it until there’s no choice. This past month, dying was front and center. I left Pyramid Life Center the next morning only to learn my childhood friend, Kari, had died late the night before. I cried for most of the drive home as I thought about her smiling face, about the children, husband, siblings, father and many friends she leaves behind, and about the stellar way she lived her life and the graceful way she lived her death.

Kari’s death followed close on the heels of the death of a Jesuit priest we knew through campus ministry at Le Moyne College in Syracuse. When our son first visited the college, it was Father John Bucki, S.J., whose broad smile, open arms and wise words drew all of us in. I have no doubt he played a big role in making Le Moyne Noah’s top choice, and he continued to be a powerful influence right to the end, not just on the students on campus but on all of us who were caught in the gravitational pull of his joy for life and for his vocation. It was a beautiful thing.

When both of these dear people died, the Facebook posts left on their pages told a story of lives well lived but, more than that, lives touched. Scrolling by on my computer screen were people expressing gratitude and recounting stories of how Kari and Father Bucki made them better people and, in some cases, changed the course of their lives through the simple act of loving first, always, no matter what.

So, when I heard those words—“For those who are in the process of dying…”—I thought not of those on death’s doorstep but of my own inevitable journey toward death, whenever that may be, and the legacy I might leave behind. I cannot hope to have the impact that either Kari or Father Bucki had, but can I, in the time I have left, love a little better, smile a little more, weave a little extra joy and compassion and grace into the process?

I got my answer on how to do that on the last morning of the retreat. Another group staying on the grounds was preparing for a full-immersion baptism in the crystal clear (and very chilly) lake. A group of us hurried down the hill to witness it. As we stood on the shore, a woman dressed in her Sunday best walked into the water, aided by friends from her church. After she was baptized, she came up out of the lake beaming with happiness. The faith and grace and power of that moment left many of us with tears running down our smiling faces. A few minutes later, another woman stepped forward, a little more tentatively. In an effort to ease her way, one of the ministers said, “With every step, say ‘Jesus.’” And suddenly the clouds in my cluttered mind parted and those words were all I could see.

We are all in the process of dying. The only way to get through that is to keep inching toward heaven, no matter what the world throws at us, and with every step, say “Jesus.”

This column first appeared in the October 12, 2017, issue of Catholic New York.

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Spiritual medicine from a wise Trappist monk

The past few months have been quite a spiritual roller-coaster for me due to an experience in early summer that pushed me past the breaking point. I couldn’t even bring myself to attend Sunday Mass, something completely out of character for me. My family would head off to church, and I would stay behind, feeling cut off, unable to rouse the slightest spark of spiritual connection.

Even this column took a markedly un-spiritual turn for a couple of months. I wrote about art and parenting from my outpost in the desert, hoping that by the time the next column came around something might have shifted. Fortunately, grace is usually at work even as we crouch in the darkness of doubt. I have to believe it was grace—and perhaps a nudge from my husband, Dennis—that made me realize that the only way things were going to shift was if I retreated into solitude and silence to sit face to face with God and myself.

So I emailed the retreat manager at the Abbey of the Genesee, booked my favorite room for the next weekend and made the four-hour drive to the Cistercian abbey just south of Rochester. Before I even checked into the retreat house, I headed to the abbey to sign up for spiritual direction and confession, knowing that I couldn’t fully participate in the liturgies with my beloved Trappist monks unless I first was absolved. There was an immediate opening, so I wrote my initials on the sign-up sheet and waited for the monk to call me in.

What unfolded over the course of that confession, the next two days and the weeks since is nothing short of miraculous, as far as I’m concerned. I arrived desperate and depressed, crying over the loss of my connection to God, and within 24 hours, I was practically floating down the hillside from the abbey, ready to tackle the difficult spiritual assignment I’d been given and overjoyed to feel not only a spark but a raging fire of God’s presence burning within.

My confessor and spiritual director, who was taught by Thomas Merton and served as spiritual director to Henri Nouwen—two of my all-time spiritual heroes, doled out the hardest penance I’ve ever received, a penance that was the exact spiritual medicine I needed: 30 minutes of “prayer in the presence of God” every single night for six straight weeks. I recognized at once that this penance was a gift. My confessor was trying to create in me a new habit, one that I desperately wanted and needed but was too lazy or too scared to commit to. I imagine that his hope is that the six weeks will turn into a lifelong practice. It’s my hope too.

That confession and conversation, peppered with wonderful stories, and laughter and tears, launched my retreat in the best possible way, leaving me renewed, reconnected and chanting along with the monks for every hour of the Divine Office. Spiritual direction with the same monk set me on a new trajectory, so much so that I’m convinced I was meant to be in that particular place on that particular weekend with that particular monk. It was beyond a blessing. It was transcendent and transforming.

Of course, life back in the real world isn’t nearly so transcendent. As deadlines and responsibilities push back against every spiritual impulse, I find myself thinking, “Maybe I’ll skip my prayer session tonight.” And then I remember that this practice is penance and skipping it is not really an option. Again, I marvel at the wisdom of this old monk who has seen so much and counseled so many. He saw through my act as soon as he laid eyes on me, and zeroed in on what I needed so quickly that I wondered if he could read my mind. He certainly read my soul, and I’m convinced that he probably saved it.

This column originally appeared in the Aug. 31, 2017, issue of Catholic New York.

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Join me for a weekend retreat at Pyramid Life Center

If you’re within driving distance of New York’s Capital Region and/or the lower Adirondacks, you are within retreat range! There are still a few more spots open for my weekend retreat, Stillpoint: Creating Calm amid Life’s Chaos, which will be held at Pyramid Life Center in Paradox, N.Y., Sept. 8-10, 2017. This all-inclusive spiritual getaway is designed to help you nourish yourself — body, mind, and spirit. You can do as much or as little as you want. I’ll provide the program; Pyramid will provide the spectacular setting. (The photo on the left was taken during the same September weekend two years ago, so, if we’re in luck, you’ll see the same riot of colors along the shoreline.)

Here are some highlights:

Silence in the early morning through breakfast.
Mindfulness practice with your morning meals
Several spiritual talks…on the cravings that get in the way of our relationship with God, on weaving prayer into everyday life, on spiritual friendship, on embracing our own brokenness and learning to love ourselves as God loves us.
Collage as prayer
Opportunities to pray together and apart in different formats
Poetry, music, journaling, nature, creativity
Disconnecting from email, texting, social media
Opportunities to hike, kayak, nap, or do whatever it is you need most

The cost is $150 for the entire weekend, including the program, accommodations, meals and activities. Pyramid is a rustic retreat center, with a lovely lodge with two big screened porches, a big dining hall, a log cabin chapel, a small meditation house on the lake, a “tree house” looking out over the lake and lots of nooks and crannies for stealing some quiet time.

The weekend begins at 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 8, with dinner at 6 p.m. and our first introductory session at 7:30 p.m. The retreat concludes with lunch on Sunday, Sept. 10, although you are welcome to stay on the premises until 2 p.m. As of this writing, it looks like we’ll have our own priest on hand to celebrate Mass for us on Saturday evening or Sunday morning, which is a wonderful bonus.

To register, click HERE and sign up through Pyramid’s online form. Once we have our final group, I’ll send out an email with some additional info, but just to give you some ideas… Plan to bring a journal, scissors, a glue stick, some old magazines (3 should be plenty). If you’re a photographer, bring your camera (or your phone in airplane mode) and use it as a way to pray visually. If you draw, bring a sketch pad. Whatever gives you peace and helps you connect with God. We’ll talk more about it in the days ahead. I can’t wait to see you there.

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Miscarriage: love and loss 19 years later

My annual tribute to the baby I lost, the baby I call Grace:

For the past few days I’ve been looking at the numbers on the calendar, growing more and more introspective as we inched closer to August 6. It was 19 years ago today that I learned the baby I was carrying, my second baby, had died 11 weeks into my pregnancy.

With a mother’s intuition, I had known something was wrong during that pregnancy from a couple of weeks before. The day Dennis and I — with Noah in tow — went to the midwife for my regular check up, I didn’t even take the little tape recorder with me to capture the sound of baby’s heartbeat, so convinced was I that I would hear only silence. I went back for the recorder only after Dennis insisted. But somehow I knew. Because when you are a mother sometimes you just know things about your children, even when there is no logical reason you should, even when they are still growing inside you.

When we went for the ultrasound to confirm the miscarriage, we saw the perfect form of our baby up on the screen. I remember Dennis looking so happy, thinking everything was okay after all, and me pointing out that the heart was still. No blinking blip. No more life.

With that same mother’s intuition, no matter how busy or stressed I am, no matter how many other things I seem to forget as I race through my life at breakneck speed, I never forget this anniversary. It is imprinted on my heart. As the date nears, I feel a stillness settling in, a quiet place amid the chaos, a space reserved just for this baby, the one I never to got hold, the one I call Grace.

In the past, I have talked about the ways Grace shaped our family by her absence rather than her presence, and that truth remains with me. I am very much aware of the fact that life would be very different had she lived. She managed to leave her mark on us, even without taking a breath. She lingers here, not only in my heart but around the edges of our lives — especially the lives of our two girls who followed her. I know them because I did not know Grace. What a sorrowful and yet beautiful impact she had on us.

So thank you, baby, for all that you were and all that you have given us without ever setting foot on this earth. The power of one small life.

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Sometimes children know best

Dennis and I were sitting around the kitchen table one morning talking with our son, Noah, who is home from college for the summer and working full time for the Diocese of Albany. Although he lives away more than he lives at home these days, when he does return for visits or extended stays, Dennis and I tend to revert to the parenting mode we favored when he was younger.

We started making “helpful” suggestions about things Noah could be doing differently in his social life, his work life, his life in general. He listened patiently, reminding us ever so gently at one point that he was doing pretty well (really well, actually) in terms of academics and everything else.

Later that same day, Dennis and I were hiking at a nearby nature preserve, when I had a revelation. There’s something about immersing myself in nature that clears my head. Suddenly, in my mind’s eye, it was 17 years ago, when Noah was only 3 and had just started attending a Montessori pre-school near our home in Austin, Texas. Although we loved everything about the Montessori method, we would get frustrated when, day after day, every time we asked Noah what he had done at school, the answer would be something along the lines of, “I did hand-washing work.”

Dennis and I—fully in first-child parenting mode—would roll our eyes and obsess over what seemed like a total waste of Noah’s time and our money. How much are we paying for him to wash his hands? Why isn’t he taking advantage of the more interesting “work” that was available? We reminded Noah that when we had been at the open house, we saw a really cool farmhouse over in the corner. We suggested he play with that when he returned to school.

When we picked Noah up after his four-hour stint the next day, we asked how things went, waiting hopefully for news of the farmhouse. Looking a little forlorn for a boy of 3, he told us he had tried to play with the farmhouse, but the teacher told him he wasn’t ready for that work yet. That was for the older children. And so, poor Noah took the correction that rightly belonged to his parents.

I recalled all of this out loud to Dennis as we stood on a wooden bridge, the words tumbling from my mouth like the water rushing over the falls below us. “This is just like what we did to Noah with Austin Montessori,” I said, somewhat stunned by my own realization. We think we know better, but sometimes our children really do know what’s best for themselves, whether they are 3 years old or nearing 21. They live in their own world, in their own skin, and if we’ve done our job as parents, they know what they need to do—or not do.

Both Noah and Olivia, 17, are navigating the difficult path of young adulthood quite nicely, not only acing their schoolwork but steering clear of the pitfalls and problems that often plague so many high school and college kids. It’s time for us to start trusting that, while they might need some occasional guidance and figurative hand-holding now and then, they really do know how to handle the day-to-day rhythm of their own life circumstances better than we do at this point.

A few nights later, with our family gathered around the kitchen table again, we explained to the kids (including Chiara, who at 12 has many years of parental instruction ahead) that we recognize our own misguided attempts to try to live their lives for them out of our own fears for their futures.

We can’t prevent the inevitable failures and heartaches—theirs or our own. And that’s OK, because we only succeed by failing now and then. We’ll all get to the farmhouse when the timing is right.

This column originally appeared in the Aug. 3, 2017, issue of Catholic New York.

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