A Brighter Today

Women are like teabags. We don't know our true strength until we are in hot water!
Eleanor Roosevelt

What am I grateful for today? Being blessed with having a loving husband and father to a healthy son. It might seem such a simple thing, but when you don’t have any one part of that equation, things can get mighty tough.

I have felt an iota of what it is like to be a single mom these last few weeks since my husband has been traveling on business trips. It is difficult to raise a happy well adjusted little boy with just one parent providing all the mental and spiritual nourishment (let alone financial support). After the 800th time they have refused to eat their vegetables, won’t take a nap, or are incessantly crying over the torn sticker, you might not be feeling very Jesus-like and could probably use a little support. Thank goodness for all the Buddha statues in my home and my Yoga practice, to keep me a calm and sane mother (at least most of the time.)

My husband was marveling on the phone on how much I managed to get done when he was away. We agreed that it takes a big list to get people motivated to get going and once they start they don’t stop. Something about the adrenal running through you veins that propels you for 20 hours straight just plowing through the tasks. I have gone to bed at 2am the last few nights.

One of the busiest bees I know is super-achiever-single-mom Tracy Ferguson. You can’t help but shed a tear when you read her son Cooper’s miracle survival story. Here is a woman who had a great job, got married, had a baby and then her life was turned upside down on a dime. But somehow she managed to make some pretty dam strong tea out of the situation primarily based on her overwhelming and consuming love for her son.

I don’t think men can feel that same love for a child that a woman can. Afterall, we carried the little beauties in our belly for 9 months and bore them through our bones. Divorce rates are high in couples who have special needs children. There is an enormous amount of emotional and financial stress, and just when men are needed to pull it together and take the reins, they seem to be taking the wrong reins and hopping on that white horse emotionally out of there.

Sad. I must let out a big SIGH for this one.

So where does that leave mom Tracy who thought her life was all roses with a successful career, husband and family. It leaves her devastated, that is what it does. And at the ripe age of 29. At this age I was going to wine parties and traveling the world and can’t even imagine being in her shoes.

Tracy wears her shoes well and they are quite stylish (unlike my own). She had to take control or risk losing the one person in her life that mattered most, her son. Tracy’s scenario reminds me of why women are such good credit risks for micro-lending in places like Bangladesh and other third world countries. If you ask some women in these countries they will say that if you give money to the man he will spend in on liquor and gambling, if you give it to the woman, she will create a sustainable business so she can feed her children. Their survival depends on her and she knows it.

Tracy knew that for Cooper. She knew she wasn’t alone in her situation and felt if she could create a place for children to go, even just a few hours a week, to give parents a break so they could reconnect and in some cases save their marriage, that the world would be a better place. It would be a brighter tomorrow. Or even better, a brighter today.

Now she has a full time Special Needs Day Care Center for infants and toddlers that employs only teachers who have masters degrees, and experience with kids who have epilepsy and cerebral palsy. Parents can feel confident that their children is in good hands when they are at work, or the all-important date night out.

Tracy is a friend of mine and are sons are the same age. I wish her all the success and happiness in the world for her and Cooper and that special man that will come into her life one day and see what a magnificent woman she is and what a miracle Cooper is. I am attending her annual Black Tie Fundraiser this Saturday that is raising money for her non-profit – A Brighter Today. If you can’t attend, you can still make a donation.

A photo of Tracy and Cooper.