On Eagle's Wings

One of my mother's favorite songs of all time is On Eagles Wings.  I have heard this hymn more times than I can count but each time it takes me to the familiar place of being 10 years old standing in the aisle after mass and humming the chorus to myself while I wait for my mother to finish talking to the other mothers that have congregated in the aisle. Fast forward about 27 years and I am now the mother.  I am the one who loves the song and hopes it is part of mass every now and again.  As I was leaving mass with my husband and son my son started humming the chorus to this familiar tune while we were walking out to our car.  It made me smile, but it also made me think.  These are the traditions and things we hope our children pick up and remember as they become adults.  These are the kinds of things we hope they will cherish 27 years from now when they are the parents.  These are the words I hope my children will always keep close to them, especially in times of great need.

And He will raise you up on eagle's wings,
Bear you on the breath of dawn,
Make you to shine like the sun,
And hold you in the palm of His Hand.


For I do believe he will raise us up.  That he will make each of us shine like the sun.  And that he does hold each of us in the palm of his hand.

It is in this belief that I am truly like my Mother.

Ugly

To the average person living next to the next average person "ugly" may seem like a very easy way to describe superficial features. Fat. Big eyes. Flat nose. Short. Wrong clothes. Wrong hair. Wrong color.  But all of those things can be changed, can be made beautiful, even without a fairy Godmother.  As a child I couldn't wait to grow up to be blonde haired and blue eyed, I always figured once that happened, my transformation would be complete and then I would be beautiful.  Being Asian was ugly to me.  Who would want brown slanted eyes, a flat nose, and dark, straight hair when they could have blonde wavy hair and blue eyes, maybe green?  Who would want to be short and stalky, when they could be tall, leggy, and thin.  

As a teenager I did everything I could to change my hair color, my eye color, my height (wearing 6" heels, no surgery was involved).  I wanted to be the least amount of Korean I could possibly be.  I wanted to be someone else.  I wanted to be beautiful.  Despite all my protesting against being Korean, and failed attempts at being a blonde, blue eyed, tall, thin, leggy model, my mother's unwavering echo was always in the back of my mind.  "You are beautiful when you let the people on the outside, see what is on the inside.  Let your light shine and you will bring beauty to the world".  

Being the moody, selfish, eye rolling, heavy sighing, annoyed teenager that I was, I rolled my eyes, made a deep sigh, crossed my arms in annoyance and put my headphones back on and ignored my mother.  I mean really, what did she know?  I'm pretty sure she was never a teenager and if she were, teenagers back in the "olden days" didn't have the same issues we had to deal with.  We had it much harder.    

Fast forward to the present and I now stand on the opposite side of the equation.  I am the Mom, and find that as a parent helping your children make the world believe they are beautiful is virtually impossible to achieve. That being said my job is to never stop trying to make them believe in the best parts about themselves.  Our children are each very different.  Our oldest has thick brown hair, brown eyes, and is thin.  She has an infectious laugh and is warm and loving.  She finds great joy in spending time with her Grandparents and being surrounded by family.    Our middle daughter has straight, thin brown hair, she is shorter, and every ounce of her is the definition of "petite".  She has an extremely quick wit,  like her Father, and is smarter than most adults.  She is daring and bold in her own quiet and unassuming way.  She is a lot of "POW" wrapped up on one tiny little peanut.  Our youngest daughter is has blonde, wavy hair, blue eyes and the gift of height.  She is honest and fearless and has a strong sense of self.  She is our creative writer and artist - often making costumes for her brother, which he loves.  Our son is tall, thin, with big brown eyes and creamy brown skin.  He is funny and has a tender soul.  He is unselfish and kind.  He loves his sisters more than anything on the face of the earth and feels lost without them.  

This summer our children went from accepting their physical appearances, talents, and capabilities to questioning them.  They all hit the age of wanting to know why they ended up with the short end of the "genetic" stick.  Thomas would say, "I hate being brown.  My skin is ugly".  To which the girls would say, "Don't say that I LOVE YOUR BROWN SKIN!  IT'S Beautiful".  Our oldest daughter started to compare her intellect to those around her.  Our middle daughter is afraid of upsetting anyone and fears sharing her feelings in complete truth.  Our youngest daughter wishes she had tan skin and straighter hair and that she were smarter.

Anyone who is a parent will understand when I say it is the most painful thing in the world to hear your child criticize themselves.  To parents our children are the most beautiful, treasured gift we have and are beautiful in every way possible.  After listening my kids criticize themselves a couple of times I decided we needed to talk about "beautiful, smart, capable" and what that means as well as "UGLY, stupid, dumb" and what that means.  Luckily for me the book (and the movie) "The Help", helped.  There is a place in the book (and movie) when the one of the characters reflects back on her youth and how she was seen as being "ugly" and out of place because she wanted an education, because she had career goals and didn't just want to play bridge and have babies.  She tells her maid Constantine that no boys wanted to ask her to the dance to which Constantine responds "Ugly live up on the inside.  Ugly be a hurtful, mean person.  Every day you’re not dead in the ground, when you wake up in the morning, you’re gonna have to make some decisions. Got to ask yourself this question: “Am I gonna believe all them bad things them fools say about me today?” You hear me? “Am I gonna believe all them bad things them fools say about me today? You hear me?”  

For our children sometimes we need to help them tell themselves that they need to stop listening to the internal talk.  That the person we see on the outside is physical and will change over time. That being book smart doesn't make you better than anyone, or being unable to draw or sing doesn't make you less worthy or untalented. We have to remind them that physical beauty can, and will, change.  That smart and intelligent people are smart and intelligent in different ways.  Artists might not be able to do calculus but we need them to make beautiful paintings and statues.  That doctors might not be able to paint a sunrise but we need them to take care of our sick.  That true beauty, comes from a place deep down inside a person.  It is part of who someone is from the time they are born until the time they die.  It is what makes someone beautiful.  Helping our children understand that their worth is far beyond what we see on the outside is one of the most important things parents, and adults, can do for their children.  

In this way I am most like my parents.