THE INVISIBLE WOMAN

It make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way the kids will walk into the room while I'm in the throws of dinner and ask if I know where their math book is. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm making dinner?' Obviously not; no one can see if I'm cooking, or doing laundry, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all.
I'm invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you bring my shoes to school? Can you open this? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm an expert at the rights of Americans to ask, how do I fill out an absentee ballot?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied math and the mind that was the first out of 40+ cousins to graduate from college from my father’s side - but now they had disappeared into the Thanksgiving turkey, never to be seen again. She's going, she's going, she's gone!

If you have traveled Europe you know there are great cathedrals that took so long to build that the original people who started them were not the same that finished them. Can you imagine building such greatness and knowing that you will not get anything in your lifetime in return? Some of these historic buildings have no records as to who actually built them. These builders gave their whole lives for work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. The passion of their building was produced by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction but it is not a disease. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.

I don't want my child to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 6 in the morning and makes my lunch, and then she washes the clothes and cleans the house.' That would mean I'd built a shrine to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, 'you’re gonna love it there.'

As women, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.