Parenting - An Exercise in Learning about Powerlessness

If I have learned in the past few years, it is essentially that I am powerless to fix all that I wish I could fix when it comes to all that my dear children have had to deal with in their adult lives.

During times when my adult children have gone through difficult times, I am that mom who has tried to sit by the wayside attempting to stay calm, trying to be supportive, trying to lend help that I hope is helpful.

I have tried to be that mom that does not rob my children of their own ability to take care of the trials they are going through while also offering resources that I can provide if they feel they can accept them.

I try to have answers IF they ask questions, but honestly, I don’t have answers much of the time. And I have realized the questions I hear from my children are often rhetorical or just expressions of their own confusion, and in that confusion, they don’t want me to answer, they just want me to hear their dilemmas as they sort through options.

I certainly don’t have fixes, though I wish I did, and I am determined, unsuccessfully much of time, not to spin my wheels trying to fix things. I know for certain, the last thing my kids want is for me to fix them. They aren’t broken. They just want a mom that listens and is supportive.

The human soul doesn’t want to be advised or fixed or saved. It simply wants to be witnessed exactly as it is. ~ Parker Palmer

Don’t all of us just want to be heard when we struggle with problems we never thought we would encounter?

We don’t want someone’s trite euphemisms, nor do we want their vapid, canned, insipid responses that try to assure us everything will be ok.

We just want to be heard.

We want others to see our pain, our sense of confusion, our worry about what to do next, but we do not want pity.

What we really want during the hard times is for someone to enter into our pain without looking away.

Henri Nouwen says it best:

The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing, and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

Parenting is truly and exercise in accepting our powerlessness.

Friends, being a mom is so very often an exercise is facing the reality of our own powerlessness. This is especially true when we are parents of adult children.

If there is anything I have learned in the past few years, it is essentially that I am powerless to fix all that I wish I could fix when it comes to all that my dear children have had to deal with in their adult lives.

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In March and April of 2024, as my daughter Amy was becoming increasingly ill and as it became ever more evident that she was going to need not just one transplant to save her life, but two, my most pressing questions became: how do I as a mom navigate such uncertainty? How have other moms handled this? How did they face such unknowing? How did they come to accept how little power they had to make their children well? How did they find the right role to play in the life as mom to a seriously ill, adult child who is married?

I’m not sure I ever found the answers to any these questions. Somehow, I just muddled along, taking my cues from my daughter herself, trying to listen for what she needed or wanted from me, or what she did not want. What she did not want was usually voiced quite clearly and firmly, and while I was often frustrated by her boundaries, I respected them and tried to keep my door open by keeping my ears and heart open and attuned as best I could to all she was saying (or not saying) to me during many uncertain days and months.

The inner work of another human being is a work only they can do.

By stepping out of the way, I was, over time, able to witness how my daughter’s illness was refining her in beautiful ways. I began to see her being more present in her life than I had seen her for many years as she took care of the flowers she was growing, sending me photos, and sometimes asking for gardening advice.

I was the one consumed with the unknown outcome for her illness, or so it seemed. She was simply living her life the best she could as she was in that liminal space of needing a kidney and a liver transplant yet not yet being sick enough to get one.

In accepting my powerlessness of being able to make everything better for an ill adult child, I was able to witness the resilience, the grace, and the wisdom she had to truly create beauty as she lived the life she had, not the one I would have given anything not to have her experience.

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2025 - August gives way to September

The phone rang early on September 1, and I was still asleep when I peeked at my phone and saw the call was from my daughter Amy.¹ “This can’t be good if she is calling right after rounds,” I thought as I reached for my phone. Sure enough, she was crying. Jewett’s condition had changed. He’d had a setback. Could I come up to her side?²

We were on day fifty-seven of his hospitalization, I think. I’ve lost track of time. We thought he was soon getting out of ICU. This setback was devastating.

I quickly threw together an overnight bag and made the seventy mile drive north to the Anshutz Medical Center in Denver. I know those streets, the parking lots, the paths around the hospital, and the hallways much too well, but on the first day of September, Labor Day, it all seemed a bit off. In fact the door I tried to enter was locked, which shocked me until I realized the door to the outpatient part of the hospital would be unused because it was a holiday.

I tried to prepare myself for the worst as I had not seen Jewett in over a month. As I walked into the main part of the hospital, I was grateful for the piano player in the lobby. “I wonder if he knows how comforting it is to hear him play beautiful music in places where people are dealing with such uncertainty, such trauma, such worry.

Respecting my daughter’s privacy and her husband’s, I don’t take photos of them as they deal with illness and frailty, but this day, I wanted a photo to bear witness to the strength and the constancy of my daughter as she has stayed by her husband’s side advocating for him and his care.

Not long after I got to the hospital, we headed to the cafeteria so Amy could get some food. We then went outside to the plaza so she could eat. She filled me in on all the latest medical updates as she ate.

Amy needed to go home for a few things, so I went with her. She lives another 50 minutes north of the hospital. I had not been to her house since Mother’s Day Weekend when I had arrived at her home in time to see her sitting on her steps surrounding by plants and pots as she set out to plant her summer garden, her happy place.

I’d helped a little and gave my two cents worth on what to plant where. We’d gone to a street fair the next day, and I captured a photo of Amy, her husband, and mine companionably chatting as they rested in the shade as we shopped.

It was just a perfect spring day. It all felt so wonderful. I wondered at the miracle of it all. There we all were out enjoying ourselves. Amy was well and thriving after her surgery. My beautiful girl was out living life again and doing it with such happiness. Never, never, never would I ever imagine what the summer would bring into their lives and into the lives of all who love them.

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My girl hates to have her picture taken, but once we got to her house, I wanted a photo of her in her September garden, so I badgered her until she gave in.³

Amy and some of her zinnias - They are amazing.

I asked if the zinnias had been planted this year or if they were from the seeds I so carefully tried to sow last fall right after her transplant as her sister and I went to her house to help get her mums and fall flowers planted. She wasn’t sure, but I want to think they are from the seeds I sowed from last year’s plantings.

Those seeds from last fall were seeds of hope that I sowed with hope for a blooming in the season to come.

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Amy has spent this summer in the hospital where she has barely left her husband’s side, night or day, for these past two months.

As we toured my daughter’s summer garden, I found myself storing up each precious moment together.

“Life is not measured by time. It is measured by moments” -Armin Houman

I’d not expected to see her as we launched into September, and I certainly didn’t think I’d be able to visit her home when I left mine earlier that morning, but there I was in her garden marveling at the growth of the the squash. She pointed out the volunteer corn plants, and noted the impatiens I’d planted. I couldn’t get enough of seeing the zinnias, and the dahlias, and all the rest of her many plantings.

We even had a few moments of chatting over the back fence with the neighbor who has loved my daughter and her husband well by feeding her cat, and by watering, and mowing all that was growing throughout the summer. I prayed for Jewett as I saw how well his veggies were doing. How I wished he was there showing me his crops.

I photographed Amy as she told me how she needed to plant this and that in a new location next year. I didn’t get a close-up of her beautiful dahlias.

We had our rare and precious one on one mother/daughter time. What a gift that time always is to me.

We talked of the importance of entering the joys that life has to offer, even if for a few moments or hours, during times of difficulty, stress, and uncertainty.

A moment marveling at the beauty of a single flower blossom can be healing to mind needing to see something that brings joy.

I was grateful that as we drove and talked she made up her mind to leave the hospital for the night so she could go to a concert at Red Rocks where Gregory Alan Isakov would be performing. Her daughter had gifted her with tickets months ago.

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Now as I reflect back on that day when the calendar was flipped from August to September, I remember the sinking feeling I felt when I heard Jewett had a setback.

I also remember the precious moments of being present with my daughter. We solved no problems that day, and the doctors did not come up with a miracle overnight cure for the many medical problems that Jewett continues to experience.

If anything, our powerlessness to change outcomes we want to change became a bit more pronounced that day. That is not what I am carrying with me as we head into the coming days.

I am remembering zinnias that are blooming in front of Amy and Jewett’s home. I am remembering they might have sprung from those seeds of hope I planted last fall. I am remembering their beauty, and the joy we both felt as we looked at their bright colors and unique shapes. I am remembering that while I myself am powerless to make a flower grow and bloom. I am also powerless to heal another when illness strikes.

I must trust in a power beyond myself.

I continue to pray.

That is all I’ve ever really been able to do for my children when I have felt powerless and had to face unknown outcomes as we have walked through days of uncertainty.

And so the walk down this path of uncertainty continues.

Thank you for every prayer said on behalf of Amy and her husband Jewett and for all of us. Keep them coming.

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Thank you to all who have generously contributed towards the medical expenses for Jewett as he continues to be in the ICU. As I mentioned in my last post, they are having to COBRA their medical insurance because Jewett had just left his old job when he became ill and was set to begin a new job on July 14. A GoFundMe account has been established to help Amy and Jewett with their medical expenses. I have provided a link to that account.

Also, from now until the end of 2025, money from all new paid subscriptions to Strands of Silver will be go to help cover COBRA and other medical expenses for Amy and Jewett. I have already been able to donate money from paid subscriptions for this newsletter to Amy and Jewett! Thank you again for supporting me and my work AND Amy and Jewett by becoming a paid subscriber.

1. To read more about those days when she was newly ill go here: https://sallywessely.substack.com/p/i-have-a-big-ask

2. If you read my last post, you know that now, a year later, my daughter’s husband has had to have a liver transplant of his own. It has been a long and difficult summer for him and for my daughter as he remains in ICU. You can read it here.

3. She didn’t want others to see her garden when it wasn’t in its very best shape, but I honestly thought it looked quite nice considering she had not been home to care for it since the first week of July when Jewett entered the hospital.