Living Mothers Day

May 12, 2012

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day.  Your sister sent me a Mother’s Day card.  It is the first in many years.  I bought myself a bouquet of pink roses from you and put her card in front of it.

Happy Mother’s Day to me.

Tomorrow.

Aunt Karen called me earlier this week.  “We are going to Tillicum Village for a salmon bake on Sunday.  Want to go with us.?”  “Us” being your cousins Lisa and Ryan.  Lisa’s kids, Tanner, Alicia and baby Annalise.  Annalise you have not met. 

“We take a boat to Blake Island for a fun filled day.” 

“A boat to Blake Island for a fun filled day?”  I asked.

“Yep.”  She answered. 

“Count me in.” 

This morning my heart was beating funny in my chest.  It does that sometimes.  I thought “What if this is my last morning, my last afternoon, my last evening?”

Do you know how when someone asks you a question you really have to think about it?  You are shocked at the frankness of the question?  You have to spend a few moments with the question?

I did not want to answer. 

I did not want to accept the implication.

Taking a deep breath, willing my heart to find its rhythm, a thought rises up in me. 

Answer the question.  Be the question.

Live the question.

I hug my pillow around my head as the tears fall. 

First, I must take a moment to mourn.  Mourn my childhood.  Mourn the mother I never had. Mourn the years of adulthood that I lost fighting for survival.  Mourn the years I spent in marriages that kept me down.  Mourn the death of you.  Mourn your sister’s anger and estrangement.  Mourn my father and that I cannot be with him.

Nested in my bed, my home, sun shining through the blinds, birds chirping over morning seed the question persists.

“What if this is my last morning, my last afternoon, my last evening?”

What if?

First I let the tears finish falling.  Accept the grace of feeling.  Let myself linger there until I have had enough.

Sadie, laying next to me, shifts her weight against me.

This is a day of sunshine.  A day for planting seeds and seedlings.  For watering things that will grow, provide color, a place for butterflies, birds, bunnies, and a little tree frog.  This is a day to build cages around new growth, allowing it every chance of survival. 

This is a day I will plant things that will nourish me through fall and winter.

I bought my dad a Martha Stewart Contour Pillow for his neck.  The hospital pillows and the pillows at the rehab center are like hard stones. 

On Friday I asked him, “Are those pillows uncomfortable for you dad?”

“Yes.”  He answered.

“Would you like me to bring you one more comfortable?” 

“That would be nice.”  He smiled.

After I finish planting, I will drop the pillow off to him.  I know his wife will go ballistic.  I cannot help that. 

I have not interfered with her relationship with my father.  She is his wife.   

Why is she interfering with my relationship with him?  I am his daughter. 

I cannot ponder questions that have no answers. 

But this “what if”?  It speaks of possibilities.

My tears water seedlings of change, of choice, of mindfulness this mourning.

Mourning.

Morning.

I’m about to come alive.

I can’t cry hard enough.

My life is brilliant this morning. 

Because I am going to spend the day living.

What if.

I love you baby girl.  My heart is full of you.

Mom

Spiraling

May 5, 2012

Spiraling

Falling

Trying to catch

Myself

Grab

for branches

Hope

for a safe landing.

…………………

The wind has been knocked out of me.

Breathe again.  

It may feel like white hot briquettes are being fanned in your chest. 

My heavy chest rises. 

Breathe.  Deeper this time.

Steve is talking to me.  I try to focus on the words.  Dinosaurs.  Bugging you.  In the back of your mind.

“Hey kid.”  The  sound of snapped fingers, I am back to him.  I look up, meet his eyes.

“Yes?”  I linger on the word, melt it from my mouth.

“You o.k.?”  He asks.

“I am.”  In that one moment I am certain of that.  I am fully aware of o.k.ness. 

Steve smiles, goes back to the orchestra of sound he creates in the kitchen.  Teaspoons dropping on each other in a drawer.  Oatmeal transferred from the cardboard Quaker Oats box into a plastic container.  The whisper of a cotton dishtowel over a porcelain plate.  Water running.  The sound of the tomato flesh giving way to serrated blade.

Crushing the Quaker Oat box, Steve comments “130 years and counting.  That’s cool…………..Way Cool.”

I am 57 and counting. 

Lately I’ve been hearing you, a little voice inside of me.

“I miss you.” 

“I miss you too.”  I answer. 

And I write to you.  Because you always understood, understand.  There is a mother tongue mine, to yours.

Today is Saturday.  I have not seen my dad for two weeks and one day. 

Yesterday, a text. 

Sherry, Dad would really like a visit from you.  Charge nurse said make your appointment with the social worker right away so you may do that.  Oh need to tell, still NO outside foods.  Didn’t want you to bring something all the way from and be told no by the nurses or docs.  So make that appointment, have that meeting and go to go to visiting.

I can’t do crazy.

It took me years to separate from it.

To shield you and your sister from it.

But did I really?  Shield you from it?

My past so much a part of me. 

Always driving me.  Away.  Always running.  Away.

Even in my dreams, I was not safe.

It was hard to see, experience the world around me as I gathered speed for lift off.  My focus always forward, on some point perceived better than where I was. 

I thought motherhood would come naturally.  Instinctively.

The instinct I felt was a fierce need to protect and love you.   What was in my heart I knew.  The rest I had to learn.

Did my mom ever feel the fierce need to protect and love me?  I can’t remember. She died five years ago, and I can’t ask her.

A question haunted me months after your death, did you know how much I love you, loved you from that first moment I knew your cells were dividing, creating you in my womb?

“You should have an abortion.” You yelled at me before you died two months later.

“You never wanted me.”  You sobbed at me through the phone.

“Where ever would you get that idea?”  I asked—core melting down.  “I chose to have you.  I never wanted anything more than to hold you in my arms and see your little face.”

I chose to have you.

Gathering speed for lift off. 

Hoping instinct was enough.

Weaning you from my breast when you were two.  Holding your hand crossing the street.  Making sure your vaccinations were current.  Feeding you, bathing you, clothing you, reading you stories, teaching you, teaching you, teaching you. 

All the time learning.

My focus on points ahead.  Lifting off.  Trying to pay attention to you and Erin.

Montessori, Head Start, Girl Scouts, Blue Birds, Seattle Girls Choir, Dance Lessons, Ski Lessons, Summer Camps.  Disney World, Disney Land, Disney Cruises.  Cabbage Patch Dolls, My Little Pony, Barbie Dolls and Barbie Clothes.

The first time I left you at a daycare.  I pulled out of the parking lot, you at the window lifting a blade of the venetian blind, sobbing.  I could see you calling for me—“Mommy” as a hand appeared, pulling you from the window.  You were two.

I made it up as I went.  Mothering.  With no experiences I wanted draw on.

You and your sister expecting me to know, to be an expert.

Me trying to be mother, father, grandma, grandpa.  Filling in all the blank spaces left behind.

I have not seen my dad for two weeks.  The grandpa you did not know.  The father I ran away to Remann Hall to get away from.  The father I reconciled with and grew close to in these later years for both of us.  Forgiveness has as been as good for me as it was for him. 

          Sherry, your dad would really like a visit from you.

I am tentative about walking back into crazy. 

I can’t do crazy anymore.

And now I have a choice.

Love you—thanks for watching over me.

Mom.

April 24, 2012

You can’t remember writing these, Weekend News, by Andrea. 

My dad remains in the Critical Coronary Care Unit at TG.

I won't go back.  I don't do crazy very well anymore.

So, I start the slow process of sifting through the legal size boxes in my garage.  The ones I found in your storage unit last summer.  The ones that smell of mice, mildew and aging ink.

I pull out a handful of files, a red binder with your school work.  I work on piecing together our history.  Yours and mine.

Andrea

9/19/88

1988, you were 6 years, 9 months.  You were learning penmanship, spelling, story telling. 

Sunday I woke up and played inside and then I Went to Sunday School then came home and played outside and had my onw club And went inand ate dinner and took a bath and Went to bed.

Andrea

In the same folder, one line written by me on a pink sheet of notebook paper in that same year, 1988, my second year of law school. 

“In my family, the poverty and abuse stops here.”

A folder marked Welfare, full of  Recipient Information, Action Requests, Planned Action Notices, Requests for Fair Hearing, an old Medical Coupon.

1984 I was a welfare mother.  Had been for a few years.  No child care.  No child support.  No job skills.  Minimum wage jobs. 

In January 1984, you’d just turned 2.  I walked onto the University of Washington campus for my first day of classes.  I was pushing you in front of me in your fold up stroller.

Recipient Information or Action Request

3-22-84

You must register with the Work Incentive Program (WIN) since you are out of the home on a regular basis while in school.   Please take enclosed registration form to the WIN Unit for completion at time of interview.  Call 872-6310 for an appointment for interview with WIN Worker.

Please register before 4-3-84 to avoid having your 5/84 warrant held.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Notice of Planned Action

April 2, 1984

To date, we have not received verification that you have registered with WIN.  As you are a full time student, you are a mandatory registrant for WIN.  As such, your needs to be deleted from the grant, and grant will be just for the two children.  Please supply verification of registration by 4-12-84 to avoid being deleted from the grant.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Recipient Information or Action Request

April 27, 1984

Hurrah! Hurrah! WIN now has a way to register people like you and put them in a special status so they can go to school even tho’ the program exceeds one year and not to re required to actively seek work while they are attempting to better themselves.  SO if you get registered with WIN and put in the special status you can continue your education and be on assistance also.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Recipient Information or Action Request

February 26, 1985

When you began working last fall WIN somehow got the idea you were employed full time and off assistance.  Therefore they deregistered you from WIN.  This is in error.  You should’ve remained registered with them but in “student status” if possible.  Call WIN at 872-6310 make an appointment to re register and take enclosed form EMS 587 to the appointment.  Since you are a full time student, as defined by the school you attend, you can NOT be exempt as the primary caretaker of child(ren) under age 6.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

You can't be exempt.  That meant I had to quit school.  

With laser focus, I was going to school.  Nothing was going to stop me.  It was my only way out, my children's only way out of a past that continued to grab at my ankles, hold me up, trip me up.
 
My sister Kathy remarked I am only where I am today "because I worked the system."  Got something for free.

It is easier to believe in that than to believe someone can get someplace by working hard, never losing focus and something others call luck--I call synchronicity.  Taking risks.  Putting yourself out there and having faith it will work out.

A Notice of Award and Acceptance from the University of Washington.   Autumn, Winter, Spring 1984-1985.

College Work Study                                      2400

Univ Tuition Exemption                                 1308

National Direct Student Loan                      1100

Suggested Guaranteed Student Loan        2500

Estimated Pell Grant                                    1675

DAWN NEWSLETTER                    MAY 1987

Domestic Abuse Women’s Network.  DAWN.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

HARVARD BOUND

(see Page 4)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Page 4

* * * * * *CONGRATULATIONS!!* * * * *

To Sherry C. for getting accepted to Harvard Law School.  Sherry has worked long and hard to achieve this goal.

Sherry has been a DAWN Volunteer for 3 years.  She attended the U of W (graduating in 3 ½ years!), served as Chairwoman for the Office of Minority Affairs Student Advisory Board, and was student representative on the ASUW Child Care Advisory Committee…AND she has two daughters Erin 11 and Andrea 5.

We are proud to have had Sherry as a DAWN Volunteer and will certainly miss her.  We know she will be very successful at Harvard and we are in full support of her next goal after graduation from Harvard – “I’d like to become the first woman President.”

Sherry, CONGRATULATIONS – and thank you for all you’ve done for DAWN.

In 1987 I had dreams of being the first woman president.  You wanted to become the Tooth Fairy.

I love you Andie.

Mom.

Family Crisis

April 11, 2012

Hey Andrea—

I don’t even know where to start tonight. 

I’ll start here--your Grandpa is still in the hospital.  Still in the Critical Coronary Care Unit.

Sometime this morning he “crashed.” 

The doctors cannot explain it, do not know what happened. 

He is not responsive. 

When I whisper to him blink your eyes, with some difficulty he does.  He is trying to focus on who I am. 

I cup the palm of my right hand over the crown of his bald head.  I whisper in his left ear.  This is Sherry.  Close your eyes.  You need to rest.  Let your body heal.  Just know I am here.

The nurses come.  Pull the feeding tube from his nose.  My dad gags.  They poke, they prod, suction him out, he gags, they swab his mouth. He gags.  Tears fall from his eyes. 

I wipe them away with my thumbs. 

I watch his chest rise as the ventilator inflates his lungs. 

A pace line keeps his heart beating.

At 7 a.m. I got a call from his wife he was fine.

At just before 10 a.m. she called again.

“Something bad has happened with your dad.  They think he had a stroke.  I am going to the hospital.” 

“Do you need a ride?” I ask.  I feel her anxiety through the phone.  The need to be there with him NOW.  The need to see for herself what has happened, how bad it is.

“It would take too long for you to get here.” She tells me.  “Just stay where you are and I will call you when I find something out.”

Just stay where you are. 

I cannot sit still. 

I call my sisters, Karen and Linda.  Tell them the news.

I cannot sit still. 

I cannot simply sit and wait with the news my father “crashed”.  He is on a ventilator again.  He has a pace line in is heart.  He is not responsive.

I try to call my sister, Kathy who is with my dad’s wife.

No answer. 

I cannot sit still.

I have to be doing something.

I text my dad’s wife, “I am headed up.”

Meaning to the hospital.

Within seconds she calls me.

“I told you to stay home.  I do not want you there.  I had to deal with all kinds of drama yesterday.  Can’t you just do what I tell you and stay at home.”

I am 10 years old, my stepmother is yelling at me.  I shut down.

“Ok.”  I say.  “When the doctor comes could you put him on the phone so I can hear what he says, too.”

Yesterday my sister Kathy told another sister my dad was thrashing and he had a brain injury.  It was not true.  She is not a reliable source of information.

“You don’t trust me or think I’m smart enough to report back to you kids what is going on with your dad.  Fine.  I’ll put the doctor on.”

Click of the phone.

Stunned.  I sit in my big leather chair.  Paralyzed.

Afraid if that first tear begins to fall…..

Everything I have been building with my dad crumbles.  Sits like the broken bowls, plate, cup pieces, shattered on my dining room table ready to make into mosaics.

I hear nothing from the hospital.  An hour passes.

I cannot sit still.

I call my sister Kathy.  She has nothing to update, and acts snippy towards me.  I ask her if she has changed her flight. If she is going to stay longer.

My dad’s wife has been telling me for two or three days she needs her space back.  Kathy has been joined at her hip since last Thursday.  When Kathy extended her stay another day, she was not happy.  “Kathy needs to go home.”  She told me.  “I need time to myself.  I need to be alone.” 

“Kathy, have you changed your flight again.”  I ask.

“I have.”  She answers.

She is staying.

“Dad’s wife needs her space.  You need to find another place to stay or you need to go back home.”  I tell her.

Kathy answers, “She asked me to stay.”

Apparently Kathy and I have been getting different stories.

Or we interpret them differently.

Kathy has ammunition now and she will run with it.  She will tell everyone I told her she needed to leave.  She will not tell them the rest.  She will create her own drama, and then stand back, smiling, no accountability.   She plays the victim well.

I wait. 

I cannot sit still.

I cannot get information fast enough.

What I get is not what I want to believe.

I have to see for myself.

I have been told to stay at home.

I cannot do that.

Only a few people are allowed in my dad’s room at a time. 

The elevator takes me to the 8^th floor.  The doors open to a crowd of family—sisters and brothers—I have not seen in years.  Members of the motorcycle club my father belongs to are there.  The room is full.

Barely out of the elevator, my younger brother, Dale approaches me threateningly.  Jimmy, my stepbrother, flanks him.

“We don’t want no trouble here.”  Dale tells me.

Under attack, I answer.  “I have no idea what you are talking about.  And obviously you do not either.”

“You told Kathy she had to leave.”  Dale tells me.

Who knows what else they have told him. 

“You obviously do not know the whole story.” I tell him.  “You need to back away from me.  Go back over to your wife.”

Sound comes out of his mouth.  I cannot hear what he is saying—other than, “I am not backing away.  I am staying right here.”

His body threatening me.  Wanting a fight.

I see my dad’s wife out of the corner of my eye.  She sees me.  She quickly walks away with my Uncle Ken to my dad’s room.  Does not invite me.

“Back away.”  I tell him again.

He will not.

It is clear I am not wanted here.  Kathy glares at me.  My father’s wife exudes hostility towards me when I am around here.

“This is about me and your father.”  She tells me.

This is about my father.  The fact that he is laying in a bed, a machine breathing for him. 

For me, now, this is only about my father. 

And my need to know he is going to be ok.

I have done everything I can to help my father’s wife, and she turned against me.

I hear her bragging to the bike club friends how she got in to see one of the best personal injury attorneys in Tacoma because of my dad’s connection to me.

Because of who I am.

Under attack, I try to explain what happened from my perspective.

The damage has been done.

No one wants an explanation.

No one wants to put this behind them.

It is a grudge to be born with enormity.

I am the outsider again.

The voices of my childhood drown out my own.

Or try to.

I leave the hospital feeling as if my chest has been ripped open. 

Steve saves me. 

Steve knows me.

He came over, all the way from Issaquah.  Pulled me to the couch, put his arms around me. 

“Tell me what happened.”

I do.  Recount the day, same as I am doing here with you.

He holds me close to him.  Closes his eyes. Listens. 

“Breath.”  He tells me.

And when I can’t, he gives me mouth to mouth resuscitation. 

He reminds me I am a good person.

He reminds me who I have become.

“Promise me you will stay away from the hospital.  Your family is toxic.  They only use you and  hurt you.  Promise me you will work in your garden, pull weeds, harvest the last of the carrots, plant the Pacific Crabapple tree I gave you.”

“I need to be with my dad.”

“You need to be with yourself.  You need to protect yourself.”  Steve tells me. 

“Breath.”  He says.  “Hold it in.  Release.”

“You are a good person, Sherry.”

I am a good person.

I need to write  I am a good person on a page of college lined paper 100 times, 1000 times, 10,000 times, a million times.

Until I believe it.

You whisper through me.

It will be ok.

I love you Andrea--Mom

Back from Vacation

January 28, 2012

Hi Andrea,

Yes it has been awhile. 

Steve and his neighbors are out picking up tree limbs.  There is devastation from ice and snow and wind everywhere.  Last week, while the snow fell and ice covered trees breaking huge trunks and branches, froze pipes, left homes without power, Steve and I explored Kauai from the beach at Ke’e to Barking Sands.  Purposefully, I unplugged from phones, computers, televisions, newspapers.  I got lost in the pursuit of solitude and sun. 

I have not looked at the weather for Kauai, but I am certain the sun is shining there today.  The sand is pink speckled with miniscule bits of broken shells still sparkling from the receding tide, the dolphins are surfing the breaking waves, the shearwaters are diving for their daily meal, and a whale blows a plume--waves a pectoral fin, rolls over, then launches its massive body from the ocean, forms an arch and dives back in.  If I listen hard enough I can hear a rooster crowing.  A shama singing.  I hear the doves wings flutter as a tanned old man with long gray hair, held back in a ponytail sits in the sand throwing breadcrumbs in the air.

Today I spent the day with Lisa and Annalise.  Next Saturday is Annalise’s first birthday.  She has two little teeth right in the middle of her lower gums.  Her laughter opens doors in my heart that would rather stay closed.  Love is risk.

When Annalise polks her pudgy index finger in my mouth, I nibble it with my front teeth.  She giggles, pulls her finger back, puts it in my mouth again.  Then she teases me, holds her finger out, makes me come after it.  I let out a little growl. Annalise  laughs with all her being. 

Love is really all there is.

It is worth the risk.

In the end, it is all we can take with us.

………………………………………..

Last Monday night, my last night on Kauai, I slipped between cool sheets wearing nothing but Fig Leaf and Cassis lotion.  Outside, there was a breeze blowing towards the northwest--towards home.  It rattled the wood blinds as it entered the room.  Finding Steve and I curled up together, the breeze traveled the hills and valleys of our bodies.  

Back to back, I aligned by spine against Steve’s, pressed into the warmth of his sleeping body.  He did not stir.  I closed my eyes, let the sound of the outgoing tide, the eerie moan of the wedgetailed sheerwater escort me to the realm of sleep.

Tuesday morning, 6 a.m. my alarm went off for the first time in 10 days.  At noon, Alaska Airlines Flight 852 would speed down the  runway, lift in flight, travel the jet stream pushed to Sea-Tac by strong tailwinds.  After I hit the snooze button, buying five more minutes, I thought, “I could leave everything for this moment.”

The alarm rang again.  Steve stirred, rolled over, pressed his stomach into my back, tucked his knees in behind mine.

“Mmmmmm.”  He said.

I felt delicious, ripe from seven full days of sunshine.  I let out a small moan of pleasure as Steve ran his open palm over the rise of my hip.

“You have no jammies on.” 

“Mmmmmm.”  I answered.

“Let’s go for a walk on the beach.”  Steve whispered as he nuzzled his nose behind my left ear.

“Perfect.”  Because on this last morning, while the winter sun was still working its way over the southeast horizon 22 degrees from the Tropic of Cancer, a walk on the beach would be.  Perfect.

I wrapped myself in a pareo, dark blue with yellow flowers blooming on one edge.  I tied two ends criss-crossed around my neck, making it into a dress.

Hand in hand we quietly left the little cottage at the beach.  It was still dark, in front of us the planet Mars was the brightest light in the western sky leading to the place where vegetation stopped, beach began.  Right over us was Saturn with its pronounced and visible rings.  Just off to the side was the star Spica. 

Saturn and Spica.  USS Saturn and USS Spica.  I have t-shirts, baseball caps, from those two ships you served on as an able bodied seawoman.

We stopped at the picnic table, the last point before beach.  Facing the island Ni’hua, the channel where humpback whales spend winter days, where dolphins wait for the tide to change to feed in breaking waves, I turned my face toward Mars, navigated to your planet Saturn, star Spica, breathed deep. 

The wind tugged at the corners of my makeshift pareo dress.  Steve, behind me, encircled me in his arms.   

The ocean rises with a single tear. 

Crying dissolves unseen parts of me.  I taste the salt of ocean spray as it falls from my eyes, making its way to waves broken at the steep drop before shore, still moving across a polished sandy beach until worn out.

Yesterday I saw my tears pass through a humpback whale that waved a pectoral fin, then blew a plume of water.

Humbly, bare, beneath a piece of cloth tied with one knot behind my neck, I invoked a blessing from sky, ocean, sand.  From who ever, what ever, might be listening.

I turned to Steve.  Stood face to face with him under a sky still dark enough for stars and planets to show themselves as tiny specks of light.  Pulling apart the front of my makeshift dress, I exposed my most vulnerable self .

My breasts that fed you, my belly that carried you, the passage to your birth.

I am safe in a way I have never been with anyone. 

Steve pulled me close.  Burying my face in his neck, he and I danced together as the sun rose over his left shoulder. 

The stars and planets disappeared.

I accepted my blessing.

To know, to feel love, is worth the risk.

                                      Love you Andie—

                                    Mom

Happy Birthday Baby Girl

 

December 31, 2011

Two twelve a.m. December 31, 2011 I cannot sleep.  I make myself a cup of tea, pull the chair up to my desk, check Facebook.  There is a post from your friend Edwina.

Andrea would be 30 years old in less than 2 hours. I miss her so much. The tears are rolling down my face as I type this. for the 2 years before she pissed away she always told me two things,"i will never get a chance to have kids" and "i won't live to see my 30th birthday." It hurts my heart to know she was right. Andrea you are missed by many. Happy Birthday. I will love you always.

Edwina Pezoldt-Smith oops blurred vision from tears I meant passed not pissed.

3 hours ago · Like · 1

Your cousin Lisa sends you birthday wishes.  She writes

“Why is no one sleeping??”

And a birthday wish—“God has you in his arms.  We have you in our hearts.”

I need to find the box of pirate paper plates and napkins for tomorrow.  They are buried somewhere in the garage, along with all your papers and possessions I am storing.  The garage is full, overwhelming.  Searching, I find a pile of notes I made, and printouts of things you posted on Facebook, MySpace, your Tweets.

I find something you wrote on April 9, 2009.  April.  Five months before you died.

Future…new option for me.  I realized during my break that I’d been living in anticipation of dying…I’ve thrown out the earlier calculations that I wouldn’t make it past 30, and at my 27^th birthday dinner, I proposed a toast to the future.  I mentioned how happy we’d all be the day I turn 31…Now there’s a milestone.  My friends dread turning 30, when I think my 30s will be the happiest decade of my life….

I am up because Steve and I were playing Scrabble serenaded by the sound of dishes in the washer.  The steady syncopated beat and swishing water.  We play a relaxed game.  Make up our own rules.  I do not know why we keep score.  Playing Scrabble with Steve is never about the winning.   He has fallen asleep in the chair in front of the fire.  Stella lays out flat as she can make herself absorbing the warmth of the tile hearth. Sadie sleeps beside me at my desk.

I also find your Beatrix Potter baby book—A Tale of Baby’s Days.  I open it and find two ultrasound photos—one taken on October 7, 1981.  The second December 28, 1981.  Your Certificate of Baptism from Saint Anthony’s Church in Kent, Washington on February 20, 1982.  A list of THINGS TO PACK FOR LAMAZE BAG (KEEP WITH YOU AT ALL TIMES).  The first thing on the list is Focal Point.

I need that focal point now.  Where is it?

In my handwriting I added to the list—extra pillows, wash cloth, footies, Baby Book. 

A card that was attached to a bouquet of pink roses from your dad.  To the Treasure of our Hearts.

An envelope.  3-16-84.  Andrea’s First haircut.  I have a few locks of your hair.  Something of you.  I held that envelope in my hand.  Could not open it.  For some reason all I can think of is my trip to Poland several years ago.  The room of hair at Auschwitz.    How I could not move, was paralyzed.  The locks of hair brought the magnitude of loss, of the atrocity home to me.  I put the envelope down.  I cannot open it. 

My hospital bracelet.  Yours.

The card they had on your bassinet.  Date of Birth 12-31-81.

Time:  7:37 a.m.

Weight 7 lbs. 2 oz.

Length 20 inches.

Valley General Hospital Certificate of Birth.  This document should be carefully preserved.  It is your family’s heirloom record of the facts pertaining to your child’s birth.

Baby’s left footprint.  Baby’s right footprint.

Your first smile was on January 29, 1982.  4 weeks old.  On March 29 you rolled over from back to front.  On May 31 your rolled over front to back.

On April 1, 1981 you laughed out loud for the first time.

On August 7 you got your first tooth.  At six months you sat up on your own.  At 7 months you crawled.  At 11 months you walked alone.

Sometimes I feel you missing me.  Or is it just me missing you?

I stop.  Close my eyes.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.

It is you missing me. 

You, holding a My Little Pony up to your face in the snow.  Smiling a smile as big as Kansas.  The caption reads “If I am smiling, you should be smiling too.”

Enough of this. 

It must be 32 degrees outside.  I hear the hot tub pump come on.  I strip.  Leave my clothes in a pile by the patio slider, wrap myself in a big beach towel. 

Immersing myself in the steaming 100 degree water, I melt.  Float in a womb of warmth, feel the breeze brushing my hair, caressing my cheeks.

30 years ago I laid alone in a hospital room at this hour, laboring, waiting to give birth to you.

Focusing on my focal point as contractions seized my body.  Breathing in.  Breathing out.  Resting in between.

7:37 a.m.  December 31, 2011.  Thirty years have come and gone. 

There is no place in your baby book to record your death.

THINGS TO PACK FOR DAUGHTER’S DEATH (KEEP WITH YOU AT ALL TIMES).

Whatever you decide to bring, pack lightly. 

The journey is a long one. 

Happy Birthday Baby Girl. 

Happy Birthday.