There is a part inside me that knows what to do..

when hurt and arrows aim…..

Not the protector

Not the child that hides,

No, it’s another part.

This part of me knows the things that hurt will go away

It’s not a new part

just wiser

Through layer upon layer,

this mother in me has been watching.

Not my biological mother….

but she watches too…

It is the part of my soul that is awakening;

sharing with the other parts of me in a whisper:

“It will be ok”

My heart is learning to listen and trace steps

already walked by generations past.

Mom is now part of that…

Looking down,

she sees a sparrow

-Tamcroft

Luke 6:12 …Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings?  And not one of them is forgotten before God.

Psalms 84:3. ….even the sparrow has found a home

Psalms 48:3 -“Even the sparrow has a home”

I always wondered about what the scriptures referring to sparrows meant.  Not because of the message about a loving Heavenly Father.  No, I got that.  It was a confusing scripture for me because of my my maternal grandmother:  I think I’ll begin here…..

Virginia Dare Birchell was the 10th of  of 10 children.  My Grandmother, born in 1906 in Vernal, Utah  to a blind, schizophrenic, 50-year-old mother and an absent father who was away mining.

Ginger, as some liked to call her,  experienced a very difficult childhood. Through much trouble and neglect, grandma was finally taken away from her mom at the age of 4 when people complained about the “bizarre behavior” of her mother and the bedraggled state my young grandmother was in.

In those days, there was no child protective services out on barren lands in the rural parts of Roosevelt Utah and then Ely Nevada.  My grandmother was passed around to family members begrudgingly where she experienced neglect and sexual abuse in some of the homes. Others treated her as well as they could; namely her loving, much older brother Ephriam, or Eph as she fondly called him.  But money was scarce.  And a small family farm could only feed so many mouths at a time.

My grandma had learned not to trust people as a small child and had no real emotional connection to anyone.  She was a scared, defensive animal scratching anyone who would try to get near for most of her life, much to her family’s dismay.’

I am part of that family.  And her life is relevant to my life.  It was relevant to  my mother’s life.  Her heartaches and neglect, her abandonment and fears.  They are etched into my very being:

“What is overwhelming and unnamable is passed on to those we are closest to. Our loved ones carry what we cannot. And we do the same”

                                           Molly S. Castelloe, Ph.D 

I have been keeping a notebook(s) to write thoughts down that need to come out.  Thoughts about family: past and present.   Thoughts about my grandma and my experiences with this brilliant, but troubled woman in her later years.  Thoughts about my own mother and the emotional struggles that came from abandonment issues with my grandmother.  And last, processing my own struggles with trying to find my own place in there world with some of the same issues of these two interesting women born before me.

So what does this story or even this blog have to do with sparrows?  I will tell you in my next post……