"Victor, are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." He sounded bright and cheerful. Since he is the only other child whose bedroom remains on the main floor of the house, I knew it couldn't be anyone else. And since he's technically not supposed to talk to anyone until 6AM (even if he wakes 2 hours earlier - can you say "Non-24 Syndrome?), I let it go.
A few minutes later, the same noise. I decided he must be pretending.
At the proper hour (6AM), I got up and got a shower. I thought I smelled oregano so I checked the essential oils bottles in my bathroom. Everything had a lid and nothing appeared to be spilled. I let it go.
Soon after, I heard a light tapping at my door. We've come a long way from just barging in...
He entered the room. I noticed that his eye was red and puffy. Constantly bumping into things must be one of the most frustrating parts of being visually impaired.
"Victor, did you bump into something? Is that why I heard crying?"
"Yeah, I bumped into the wall."
The incident, as he told it, didn't seem to fit with the location of the injury but, I let it go.
He also had bed-head so I told him he needed to get a shower. For once he didn't argue. He got in the shower and I went to his room to get his clothes.
And that's when I saw the opened bottle of oregano sitting next to his diffuser. Now it all made sense. The crying. The smell. The red eye. I even remembered that his whole face was red and he kept looking down as if he was avoiding the light.
The mom I used to be, before being a "trauma mom", before parenting kids from hard places, would have focused on the lie. She would have marched back into that bathroom and demanded the truth along with an apology, along with a consequence of some kind. She would have taken the lie personally and lectured on the need to always tell the truth.
She wouldn't have been wrong about that last part but she would have been very wrong about why it happened and what needed to come next.
But there are two important things I've learned as a trauma mama. The first is that all negative behavior has the same root cause: fear. The second is that connecting with grace needs to be my go-to, every time.
Sometimes it takes me a while to get to that grace part. This particular morning, however, I found myself filled with compassion for my little guy with so much fear and frustration.
Very gently, after he had emerged from the shower and started drying off, "Victor, can you please tell me the whole truth about what happened this morning?" No yelling. No accusations. No lecture.
The response was quick and confident, "Yeah, I was trying to fill my diffuser and I had some trouble."
"Victor, I'm sorry that you don't trust me enough to tell me the truth. I'm sorry that you felt like you had to lie. You are not in trouble. I hope that the next time you know that you can tell me the truth. I'm sorry that you hurt yourself. How are you feeling now?"
He smiled. He was fine. We hugged.
Healing for these trauma kids is slow. It often feels like 1 step forward, 5 steps back. But we're getting there and he's come so far.
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear,
because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
1 John 4:18
I'm not perfect and there's grace for that, too. As I sit here after the kids have gone to school, the house quiet yet smelling of pizza (with LOTS of oregano), I am thankful for how far he has come and hopeful for the future.
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