They're Not Broken

The last few years have been tough, and the distance has taken a toll. Still, if we’re honest, we like to pause every now and then to just be in a quiet space where we do not have to explain ourselves to everyone, or solve problems all day, or stay active until the sun (and the kids) are down for the day… and we have no energy left. When possible, we accomplish it in a very simple way:

We leave town without them.

We are blessed to have my mom and stepdad who are willing to be there on the rare occasions when we do take extended weekends. The kids are all old enough to be OK with not seeing us for a few days, though our youngest makes it clear that he doesn’t love that we leave him behind. Now in third grade and recently diagnosed with combined ADHD, it makes him uncomfortable to see us go. This time around, we were able to make a deal that worked for everybody. We’d enjoy a weekend of sun and sand, and he’d get real seashells when we returned. Done. 

Among the things we have come to savor about the brief jaunts to our favorite beach town is the time we spend walking along the beach just before we leave. We leave our hotel room in the morning just before sunrise, walk the length of the strip toward the boardwalk, and time our arrival on the sand so that we get to observe the beautiful eastern sky as it becomes awash in the majestic, stirring reddish orange of the early morning sun. With some chop in the water on this particular morning, the dolphins came out to put on a show they must have known we would enjoy. As the sun rises and waves crash, the wind and sand and smell of salty sea air remind us of the importance of taking time to breathe and enjoy each other… and these peaceful restorative moments. 

Despite that, I still walked away disappointed.

For you see, my wife and I made this promise to our youngest that we would bring him those real seashells. On this morning, our search for seashells did not yield much. We looked for a while and the options were very, very limited. We pocketed halves of some shells, fragments of others. We were disappointed, perhaps even on his behalf. We took what we could and returned to our hotel, had breakfast and began the drive home. It was hard not to feel disheartened because it seemed like a fairly reasonable request to honor. Bring shells back from the beach. Oh, well.

When we arrived home, everything was as we expected it to be. The kids were good, the house was in one piece (as were Grandma and Grandpa) and there were no visible scars. Good enough for this weekend. We took a few minutes to get unpacked and settled and my wife got a head start on giving little knickknacks to the kids. I was not in the living room when my wife presented our meager haul to our youngest son. He did not seem from a distance to have been as disappointed as we were, which I thought was cool, if somewhat surprising. A few minutes later, when I walked into the room, he was at a table exploring the shells. I sat at the chair near the table and he called my attention to the shells. I lamented that what he had was the best we could do this time. Try as we did, all the beach was willing to offer us was a few broken shells.

It was at this moment that my eight-year-old, neurodivergent third grader, dropped a most unexpected gem: 

“They’re not broken. They’re perfect. Unique.”

Looking to my right, I sat for a moment with the reality that I had sourced the wisdom of an old man directly from my youngest child. Why was I so hard on myself for not producing perfect, unbroken shells? Why did it make me so uncomfortable to be as satisfied with these as he turned out to be?

If I am honest, it was all about me. I should never have expected him to explode. Such an expectation really fails to give him credit for being the good guy he is. This was about my feeling that I had failed to do my best for him. Think about that. Seashells triggered a sense of inadequacy in me. How real is that? A great trip from start to finish ended with me wishing I had found more suitable shells on the beach, and I brought them home to a son who was quick to correct my interpretation of them being broken at all.  

You may have experienced a similar moment that humbled you. My hope is that yours left you with a humble smile, if not a grateful tear, in the realization that there is power (and even great beauty) in our imperfection. Mine left me with both. I actually began typing this a little more than three months ago just after we returned from our trip. Life happened, and it kept happening and… well, here it is, three months later.  

My wish for you is that it not only leaves you confident in your own imperfection as a parent or friend, partner or leader; it leaves you encouraged and edified – celebrating your unique awesomeness. There are so many things every day that test our resilience, our ability to endure. So many moments we reflect on wondering, “Did I get that one right?” Some answers come immediately. Others take years. Many fall somewhere in between. Either way, know that in the often-intense uncertainty of parenting, your willingness to be the most authentic, intentional parent you can be, will define you more than anything else. Go ahead.  Let them see you in your perfect uniqueness. You got this.