Tag: Parenting

Adventure with Engagement AWE · Family travel · Hope · Motherhood

A wonderful gift waiting for us in China!

dawnhirn2 Comments

Molly could be weighed against feathers.

She is so little for all the machines surrounding in the burn hospital, giving and taking.

China ward
Shanghai General Hospital , China

She had suffered through God knows how many surgeries, not to mention the endless skin-graphs.

Did I tell you we met her in China at the burn hospital in Bejing?

So many children, so little time!

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Molly

You know the feeling of wanting to take them home with us in.

We brought a big white stuffed dog for Molly.

 

When our Tyler bent down eye-to-eye with Molly he gave her his high-beam smile (a wonderful gift in itself); then, he took the big dog out of it’s red package and handed it to her.

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Tyler

We were all happy-surprised when she reached out on her own to take it from Tyler.

She turned to her mother and hugged her with her dog between them.

Every door in my heart blew open.

I was full of love for Molly, but I had some questions. 

When she leaves here will she be stroller’d out into the great outdoors?

As she grows, will she pedal down neighborhood streets on her two-wheeler? 

Will the other children accept her?

Will she swing around the pole of parking meters?

When she sleeps will she reach out for stars?

I look at her mother and remembered every emotion rocking her heart.

All I want to do is to sweep Molly up and rock her for a solid month-and-a-half.

dawn

BTW-(If this is something that you would like to support, please visit us at www.ryanshines.com or follow us on FB and IG @dawnraymondhirn)

Encouragement · Family · Hope · wounded healer

Seen through her baby’s eyes

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I’m Dawn.

The mother in this story is me. Our little family was boxed-in by a fire in our car.

We skidded across the access road off the Interstate and rolled the car three times.

Three of us survived. My seven-year-old son, Ryan, was burned alive, to death.

I realized last night that I haven’t told you very much about our baby boy, Tyler, who was freed from the flames along with Ron, and me. (We three were burned over 25% of our bodies).

This was–no-contest–the worst experience of my life.

Everything in me died on a slab that day, but my breathing wouldn’t quit.

I only wanted one thing . . . to be with my Ry-Ry immediately.

About Tyler.

My 2-year-old gave me the best Gifts of my life. (He’s a sophomore at Auburn now).

He gave his gift every morning of every month of every year after “the accident.”

 

He saw me beyond his own pain. He saw beneath my scars.

He saw the heart of a mother who didn’t deserve to be called “mother” anymore.

For him, nothing had changed.

We were still Team Tyler!

And every morning he pushed my bedroom door open, he saw the one thing he needed most. Mommy-Me! I was all he needed.

I was haunted by my consummate failure at the ‘’scene,’’ Tyler wasn’t.

I was more than my scars.

That’s what he taught me again and again, and he hardly knew how to talk.

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Forget words he knew me ‘by heart.’

I was all-mother, not his ‘scarred’ mother.

I was the mother who knew just what he needed, and when.

He showed me I still had the Goods.

He never once bailed on me while I was bailing on myself every day.

How can a 2-year-old do that?

I think about the ”Little Prince” and what he said, “

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.

What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Tyler saw me rightly and I grew into his vision of me.

He took me every day by the hand into the kitchen for breakfast.

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Tyler

He led me to the window to show me, in a loving way, that Life goes on.

It didn’t matter to him if I was ready to see it or not. God only knows how saw my strength. God only knows how he knew me.

Tyler will always be God’s best Gift to me!

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me and tyler

dawn

BTW-(If this is something that you would like to support, please visit us at www.ryanshines.com or follow us on FB and IG @dawnraymondhirn)

Family · Hope · Relationship

One more kiss

dawnhirn4 Comments

After Ryan died, I was desperate for one more look at him, one more hug, one more word, one more kiss, but that was not to be.

The only thing that I could do was to be more intentional, more emotionally available, in loving our other children.img_6210.jpg

(Wait! I forgot our move from “I” to “We”.

Do you see it 2 sentences above? “I was desperate…The only thing I could do…”

I need help, too, in making the life transition from “I” to “We”.

So, here’s how it goes; ‘’WE  were desperate …” “All WE could do is be more intentional.”)

It’s ‘’WE, WE, WE, all the way home!’’

When the thoughts of my heart turn to our other three boys, I realize that Ron and I (copilots of our Family Adventure) will have around eighteen years with them.

Imagine only having eighteen years out of ninety with our kids at home.

We’re getting one-fourth of our lifetime at home them.

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Ryan’s Montessori graduation

Think about that when you can’t stand having your children around.

I figured out a way to make up for all the love I lost with Ryan.

I’m constantly giving my boys one more look, one more hug, one more word, and one more kiss.

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Cape Town, S. Africa

dawn

These are my thoughts today. Join on my daily Instagram @dawnraymondhirn

 

Family · Perfecting Dysfunction · Relationship

It’s not too late

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What I want to show you today is how Ron and I are making the leap between “I”

and “we” in our family.

Our quality time with our children happens without a screen staring back at us.

Sometimes we play cards and board games together (my favorite is “Bananagrams”).images-1

We try to have weekly family nites, and one-on-one ‘date nights’ with each one of them.

We are consciously and constantly working to fill their “love buckets,” and to honor their life as it is, right where they are.

It feels natural for parents to insist that their child meet them at their level. (“Grow up!” or “You’re my little  man.”)

But children aren’t adults.

Another thing we try to do at our house, and, believe me, it’s not as easy as it sounds, is to bend down to our children’s level, get eye-to-eye with them.

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Life at its best is lived horizontally, not vertically as if parenting is a ‘’pyramid scheme,’’ lived from the top down.

That starts with the copilots of the family, the two adult partners. We must relate to each other on the level of mutual respect.

And frankly, I’m often too tired to do what I know is best.

We’ve all made our mistakes, you and I, said things we wish we could take back, but here’s the bottom line: it’s never too late to make a happy childhood, even if you’re kids are grown.IMG_3235

And it’s not too late for us to have a happy childhood either.

dawn

These are my thoughts today. Is there anything–dreams, thoughts or adventures–that I’ve missed?

Badges of Love
Encouragement · Family · Motherhood

Badges of Love

dawnhirnLeave a comment

old woman hands:piano

Take a look at these hands. They could be the hands of your mother. Hands that carried you, changed you and nurtured you. These are hands that have been lovingly lived in.  If you look carefully at them, they look like a MAP. With veins like highways and age spots like Scars collected along the way. Hands that have been somewhere and I don’t mean on vacation.

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Don’t be taken in by that silly commercial.

The one where a mom and daughter are holding out their hands while the “hypster” asks us if we can tell which is the mother and which is the daughter.

And their point is you shouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

I say that if you’ve completely invested yourself in the life of your family, your hands will tell the truth about you. If you’re a mother, your hands will tell a hundred or more stories.

They get cut and bruised. Scarred. The idea that a mother’s hands should look as young as a daughter’s hands is crazy-sad. In the name of beauty, we try to erase the wear and tear of a person’s body as they grow older. I get that.

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Ry and me

But when I look at my hands, I see the evidence of the sacrifices I’ve made, and my Scars are somehow transformed into Badges of Love.

dawn

#myscars, #badgesoflove, #motherhood