A Girl Starts with C
The practice of gratitude helps me survive tough times and live in good moments. I’m going through the alphabet, naming Gifts with roots (both actual, like plants, and emotional, like people):
C is for Celin:
We planned to have only two children and secretly I hoped for one of each gender. Our son was born first. I feared that if our second baby was a boy, he’d go through life feeling ‘less than’ because he wasn’t a girl. So, whenever anyone asked, I said as much to myself as to them, “I just want a healthy baby. I don’t care if it’s a girl or a boy.”
But when I was actually delivering our second baby, the on-call doctor made what must have been a pretty urgent run to the hardware store while I was in labor. The nurse settled me into the birthing chair then grabbed a phone off the wall. “If you see Dr. X, you tell him to get his little butt in here.”
A few minutes later he dashed into the room. While he snapped on gloves, he said, “Don’t you worry. That baby boy will be here soon.”
Mike squeezed my hand and said, “Becky wants a girl.” Longing for a daughter swept through me so fiercely, I couldn’t breathe for a moment. Mike’s words surprised me. He was terrified of having a daughter. During my first pregnancy, he threatened to drop the baby in a snowbank and run away if it was a girl. We called the baby Snowbank until Joe was born. Maybe Mike was less fearful now that our first kid seemed to be turning out okay. Also, it was late summer. No snowbanks available.
Then Celin was on the outside so quickly, she and I were both left breathless. I stroked her face and watched the bluish tint in her skin turn pink. We had the girl I wanted. What I didn’t understand was how much we would come to need her.
Mike and I were such wood ticks we didn’t even realize we were in need of someone with an eye for fashion and design. When she was in the three-year-old nursery school class, she told Mike he couldn’t be Helping Dad again if he wore his torn and stained Carhart pants. My girl with a flair for dresses and accessories is completely self-taught. She helped me move away from baggy wool pants and cotton button-down shirts. On the rare occasion when I look fashionable, it’s because she advised me on what to wear. Celin chose deep pink carpeting for her room when she was seven. I thought it was a terrible choice for a bedroom in a log home, but once installed, the color brightened and warmed the small, dark room.
A week after Mike died, Celin handed me an array of paint chips: red, orange, and yellow. She said, “Mom, you’re going to need some color in that house.” By then (she was eighteen), I’d learned to trust her taste. We painted the floor red and the kitchen island orange. Sounds terrible, but looked great. And she was right. The bright colors helped me through that long, dark winter and many more after that.
She’s a gifted photographer. Her avocation has become taking engagement, wedding, and baby pictures. Most of the pictures I’m using for this blog series were taken by Celin. Her design skills straightened out the mess I was making of my website. Her edits save readers from rambling negativity when I lose focus on my theme: gratitude.
And I’ve needed her perspective on so much more. Celin was often my buddy on walks or bike rides. She coaxed me to climb trees in the winter and to jump into northern Minnesota lakes before the end of May.
When she was eight, on our first bike ride that spring, she dropped her bike at a driveway that was still snowbound, ran through the yard and out onto the dock because she saw open water. I dropped my bike too and scrambled after her, yelling that we were trespassing. She looked back at me as if I was insane. Open water after months of snow and ice eclipsed imaginary property lines. And then, the drum of my boots across sun-warmed boards, the scent of mud released from winter, and my daughter’s delight dumped my fears of a disgruntled neighbor right into the icy lake. Celin pulled off her winter cap. Sunlight and breezes played with the reds in her light brown hair. She smiled at me. Winter cracked and slid off my face. A great blue heron lifted from the spill of the creek and flew over our heads. It landed in a cedar that thrust a bare arm out over the lake. “Look, Mom. It’s a pterodactyl.” We laughed, watching it balance on gangly prehistoric legs.
Celin was just eighteen on the lovely April day that Mike failed to pick me up from work. We did what Mike called a ‘bastard search’ as she gave me a ride home (Mike was #5 on the Morse/Fall Lake First Responders Team). Bastard searches are usually of bars, but for Mike it was coffee shops and friends’ houses. We found his S10 pickup truck in the parking lot of his favorite trail. Celin rallied friends to help search for him. Finally, a law enforcement officer told me Mike was found dead on the trail. They suspected a heart attack. I botched telling Celin her dad was gone. But her quiet strength steadied me as we contacted Joe and other family members. We waited hours before an investigator allowed Mike’s First Responder Team to bring his body out.
Within weeks of losing her dad, Celin went through two graduation ceremonies (high school and an AA degree from our community college). Friends helped us throw a graduation party. Our daughter’s courage gave me an example to follow. She moved off to college and then to a graduate program in Social Work. We talked each other through panic attacks, anger, and doubt. Her humor helped us, too. Sometimes people who haven’t lost a loved one have silly expectations about grief. One young counselor told Celin that she said ‘My dad died,’ too matter-of-factly. Celin replied, “Well, it IS a fact. He did die.” We laughed at this story. If you’ve lost a loved one maybe you see the humor. We found that grief has a beauty and a pain that is beyond tears. It also throws life’s joys into stark relief.
Laughter helped us re-frame many situations after that, including boyfriend situations—both hers and mine. Celin is passionate and can be very dramatic. When I blame that trait on her dad, she raises one eyebrow and says, “Uh-huh, totally Dad. You are never, ever dramatic.” So, she gives me reality sandwiches, too. Sometimes they’re funny.
Celin is now a mental health therapist. We live in a small community. She doesn’t tell me who her clients are of course, but sometimes they know I’m her mother. They approach me. A father credits his daughter making positive choices to Celin’s counsel. A woman says my daughter helped her heal a relationship with her mother. A couple improve their marriage with her suggestions.
She uses empathy and humor and what I call her flat-footed wisdom. I’ve experienced her skills myself. Within ten years after Mike’s death, we also weathered my mom’s descent into dementia, my dad’s death, and my boyfriend, David’s death. Celin loved them all, too. I call her wisdom flat-footed because she has an ability to point out firm ground for people. When I’m circling in negative thinking, she throws me a rope and pulls me out. She has a finely tuned bullshit barometer. When a teen is considering suicide because of bullying or a woman is living small because of child abuse, she helps them see the lies and counter them with firm truth.
Also, in that length of time she found Sean, a fine young man who is now my son-in-law. They were married at Camp du Nord. Mike and I would have celebrated our thirty fourth anniversary on that date. A year ago, Celin, Sean, and I formed a three-person team when Celin was in labor for three days. I thought I knew her strength, but she amazed me again. Sean proved his mettle too. And then, there was my beautiful daughter holding her own daughter. I don’t have words that are big enough and beautiful enough to describe my love for all three of them in that moment.
Raising Celin was a joy. I loved to wrap her up in her special blanket with the tattered silk edges and pull her into my lap. Now sometimes we hold her tiny daughter wrapped in a blanket between us. Joy all over again.
I’m grateful I didn’t know how much I was going to need my daughter when I held her for the first time. My heart was so full then, I thought it would burst. Turns out, my heart has a lot of Spandex in it. My two babies have grown into two fine adults*. They each found partners who I love, too. And now, I hold another little girl in my arms. She seems to be growing even faster than her mommy did. My heart has retained its elasticity better than my skin, thank goodness.
My love with roots “C”: our daughter, Celin!
*Root note: Manuscript in progress: The Dubious Mommy Manual: Raising Good Humans Accidentally. I’m writing it because of lies I told my kids. And that is another story.
