Perseverance

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill

Churchill knew a thing or two about adversity and perseverance. His dogged resolve and determination effectively halted the advance of the Germans across Europe until allies joined the fight to push them back into the heart of the continent, ultimately ending the war that had consumed that part of the world. Although he would lose his political position of influence at the close of the war, his legacy remains that of persistence in the face of incredible odds. Even today, his bulldog-like visage is all it takes to conjure such feelings and find inspiration to carry on.

Perseverance implies adversity, struggle, conflict. If not against something, it is against someone, individually or collectively. For those of us who characteristically avoid conflict, it could be argued that we, likewise, avoid perseverance in general, whatever the cause may be. I might have included myself among such shrinking violets, if not for the confidence that others have often had in me. We all know how we feel about ourselves. We often forget how others actually see us, however. “Perception versus reality,” as it’s typically framed. In my case, it was, lately, one of our children who offered a change in perspective.

In a recent group counseling session, we were given the opportunity at the close of our time for each of us to share one thing we genuniely appreciated about one another. We made the rounds, as did our oldest, and when it came her turn to direct her grateful observation concerning me, she fumbled at first to find the words to describe what she felt. What she eventually got across, after hinting at the significant challenges we’ve had with our unique experience of parenting via adoption, is that she is grateful, in short, that we have not given up.

Not what I was expecting to hear.

“As the body goes, so goes the mind,” it’s said. Here in my late 40s, my shell, so to speak, has begun its deliberate, gradual decline brought on by none other than time, which waits for no man. I’ve felt in recent months I’m now fighting a losing battle with my physiology more than ever before in my life, and knowledge of such has drawn my mind to follow suit and give ground, reflecting the “posture,” if you will, of retreat, frequently posing the question, “What’s the use?” There are other factors in play, but within, my mind is lately choosing to follow the flesh rather than vice versa. I have no fatal illness — don’t misunderstand — other than aging itself, but it’s begun to rear its ugly head and, well, affect my head as much as the rest of me.

The change frequently manifests itself as a poor attitude overall, and while there are pharmaceutical remedies, I’m told, which I may ultimately allow, I see there is no going back. I admit I’m having a hard time with it, though I had imagined I would welcome growing older. It seems, however, that I didn’t take into account the actual effects, and my fickle feelings, more often that not these days, counsel surrender, and I shuffle through the day as if a beaten foe.

Yet, here was our oldest pointedly appreciating perseverance, and in none other than me.

“The kids are watching.” Yes, they are. I shouldn’t have to say to any parent out there that they aren’t listening, or, at least, they rarely appear to be. We all experience this sad and exasperating reality daily with them, though a word or two occasionally takes root and is recalled. We, though, are a “watching” culture, if you will, and on select occasions their eyes drift away from one of the multitude of screens in their line of sight, and they land on us, consciously or unconsciously, unwittingly setting an example.

Feelings often translate into action, one way or another. But if our oldest’s expressed observation of a character trait in me bears any truth, then my defeatist feelings were overshadowed by someting else entirely, which, to her, resembled determination.

Maybe, just maybe, perseverance, for those of us who are parents, is less the poetic and stirring “Charge of the Light Brigade,” facing reckless odds under peril, inspiring as it may be. Perhaps it’s more just the simple act of getting out of bed each morning, again and again, to fix them breakfast and get them to school, banal and endless as the routines can honestly feel. Granted, parenting has its share of battles. I often find myself “Stormed at with shot and shell” on a daily basis by adolescence, and I fall easily into the laughable trap of believing that I’m the only one sustaining the barrage and being treated as the enemy. Nevertheless, rousing the troops out of bed and marching them out the door both fed and dressed, we know, is its own special form of victory. It may not always be “hell,” as Churchill understood it, but the kids will observe and report in the years to come whether or not you kept going. They’ll most certainly notice if you didn’t.