tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-266663042024-03-04T20:41:29.288-08:00this radiant worldeverything glorious is around us alreadyAbbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.comBlogger296125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-72430729574301247522023-06-21T02:50:00.008-07:002023-06-28T04:58:23.890-07:00To MomWho would have thought, when years had passed, <div>and you had left this world for good,<div>I'd find such comfort remembering</div><div>the way it felt to braid your hair.</div><div><br /></div><div>To gather thick handfuls away from your nape,</div></div><div>smoothing down all the flyaways, </div><div>then dividing the whole into three separate strands</div><div>to crisscross them into a simple plait.</div><div><br /></div><div>All the while, Mom, your voice is purling</div><div>among the sounds of the dining room, </div><div>and your hands are clasped on the table top</div><div>while family life flows around us two.</div><div><br /></div><div>And even though I may not see your face</div><div>or really be thinking about you at all,</div><div>you are always the unsung focal point:</div><div>present, fully embodied, and - for the moment - at rest.</div>Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-91878563736140476712022-12-20T05:36:00.003-08:002022-12-20T05:39:38.558-08:00How My Children Play, 2022(7 years) Our daughter loves to draw "photographs": mommas holding babies near stoves with cast iron skillets, huge smiling faces in sudsy bathtubs beside hooks of robes and towels, groups of beaming children vaulting into water parks. Their ages and relationships, hairstyles and fashion choices are chosen and announced with care. She devises hammocks and nests for her "pet" squirrel ornament, placing teacups of water tenderly beside him, then leaving him to rest while she dashes over to coax her live pet bird onto her wrist with his mirror and bell. <div><br /></div><div>(6 years) Our oldest son engrosses himself in origami folds, games of strategy and patterns, the infinite possibilities (negative numbers!) of a basic calculator he purchased at Goodwill. He hunches over his allotted thirty minutes of Candy Crush, advancing through the levels with the volume blasting. When not gaming, he dons boxing gloves and dukes it out with his brother in the attic, or fires snowballs in the yard. </div><div><br /></div><div>(4 years) Our youngest stages battles between animal figures from his perch on the wooden built-ins that divide the living areas. The floorboards beneath are pock-marked with tiny dents from fallen good guys and bad guys. He zooms his styrofoam airplane ("Far-Flyer") across the room, or involves it in contests of speed and strength against numerous toy foes, or offers it a snack from the toy kitchen. He builds elaborate forts of pillows and blankets and furniture that never quite measure up to his lofty ambitions. </div><div><br /></div><div>(29 weeks) And all day and all night the child in my womb practices squirms and kicks, readying himself to enter these chaotic playscapes in his own right. </div><div><br /></div>Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-42822652987852027262022-01-01T20:36:00.007-08:002022-01-04T06:27:19.242-08:00What I Have Learned About Hospitality<p>Folding others into a welcoming space of genuine love and fellowship is the true hospitality to which I aspire. This cannot be achieved by sacrificing the very qualities of peace and order and attention that make such an atmosphere possible. This means limiting choices that in the past, wishing to avoid seemingly arbitrary restrictions and refusals, I would permit others to make in our home: small choices that did no harm in their own right other than the cumulative damage of trending us away from discipline and harmony, toward pandemonium and conflict.</p><p>This lesson is hard-won, after a year of unstinted hospitality that left us depleted and scarred, and likely did less good to those we welcomed in than we would have hoped. </p><p>Entering a new year, I am first revoking the standing consent that held too many doors open to our guests, thereby allowing chaos and predation to slink in alongside fellowship and compassion. Then I will work to restore a nourishing home atmosphere within my family. After this is reasonably established, I look forward to again flinging open the front door and welcoming. </p><p>But this time I will vigilantly guard the homeostasis of what Sarah Vap calls our "family animal." And that homeostasis is preserved by foundational habits (<i> rules</i>) of mind and body which encourage us towards virtue and health. Hopefully I will be able to safeguard these habits with flexibility, warmth, and tact, which will prevent us from lapsing into rigid legalism.</p>Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-85131671935433969982022-01-01T19:47:00.011-08:002022-01-13T05:25:44.823-08:00Year's End in Minneapolis<p> It was late afternoon of New Year's Eve 2021. I was pouring scalding hot cocoa into thermoses so we could prolong our planned sledding excursion despite the single digit cold, nagging the children into their snow gear. Jonathan, phone held up to his ear, motioned me to him and said in a low voice, "There is somebody hurt in the alley, don't let the kids outside. I will warm the car up." </p><p>We didn't go sledding after all. A fifteen year old boy was killed that afternoon in our alley, his death the third homicide on the block in 2021. </p><p>Yellow caution tape and flashing police cars barred the passage in and out of our drive. A red vehicle with deployed airbags was battered against a garage on one end of the alley, a lifeless body and a handful of bystanders and cops at the other. As we unbundled from our minivan, a woman's keening wail hung in the air for a long minute or two. Jonathan and I shared a wince and herded our crestfallen children into the backyard. </p><p>We attempted to salvage the outing by starting a little fire in our yard, chatting with our neighbor over her fence, soaking up the scent of campfire and sipping the mugs of cocoa we'd packed while tiny snowflakes drifted in the failing daylight. </p><p>The lights continued flickering blue and red against the neighbors' houses in the gloaming and long past nightfall. Bursts of automatic gunfire vied with fireworks deep into the night as the city turned into a new year.</p><p>So we find ourselves taking stock, the faces of our children and the faces of our neighbors cycling through our minds against the backdrop of gunshots, squealing tires, and neon lights.</p>Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-14466348891273079512021-12-26T14:39:00.014-08:002021-12-31T11:37:08.289-08:00Musings from Mount Moriah<div>You won't find this recorded in your birthday book your fourth year, though it was the biggest thing that happened to you. It was the week of Thanksgiving, ten days before your fifth birthday, that you finally said you were ready to tell us what was wrong. After a day of explosive rage. After you burst into tears in the hallway following yet another time out and wailed, "I feel sad!", first leaning into my bewildered embrace and then yanking away. After you kept demanding water, saying your tummy hurt, that you were so thirsty, punching whoever was within range of your little fist, unable to keep still. We were so proud that you found the courage to speak.</div><div><br /></div><div>He was a daredevil nine-year-old who had been living with us for two and a half months. His nerf gun and football skills and cool kid mannerisms made your eyes shine. You couldn't wait for him to return home from school in the afternoon to play racecar games on his computer for you, or include you in a wild neighborhood game of catch, tag, or hide 'n seek. </div><div><br /></div><div><div>Your dad and I had begun to notice how your energy would increasingly surge into combativeness when he was around, how you veered between adoration and hostility in his presence. We supposed you were merely adopting his kinesics, imitating your turbulent hero. Hindsight is heartbreaking. </div></div><div><br /></div><div>The night we moved your abuser and his family out of our attic and into a hotel, you and your dad and little brother went upstairs to play good guys versus bad guys. You led the charge into their quarters, calling, "The <i>most</i> bad guys live in here!"</div><div><br /></div><div>Aunt Emily tried some play therapy with you. She shared with us that in your pretend world your dad and I are superheroes who always know when something bad is happening. This was supposed to console us, and it did a little, but it also underscored my failure to realize that, in the small but numerous attention gaps that punctuated our home life, something very bad was happening to you. Even your superhero dad, who does 150 pushups five days a week, did not know you needed rescuing. </div><div><br /></div><div>Thanksgiving was the following day. Your Poppy and aunt with five of your cousins drove to our afflicted area of Minneapolis to visit. After dinner we decided on a trip to the nearest park. It was bitter cold. Two underdressed kids, snickering unhappily, were stuffing a third child--mute and stiff--into a trashcan when we arrived. My niece told me she found vomit in the grass at the top of the hill. "I didn't touch it," she added. You fell hard from the top of the play equipment onto your back on the woodchips, sealing the end of a miserable outing. "Of course it had to be <i>him</i>, " your Dad shook his head, carrying you in his strong arms to the van.</div><div><br /></div><div>But the fact is, my dear, you were better equipped to handle this than almost any child I could have picked at random in our neighborhood. Better equipped than your abuser, who almost certainly was himself abused at a similarly tender age. Better equipped than the many other children within his circles, boys like him with absent or imprisoned fathers and working moms who barely manage to keep their children housed and fed. In a neighborhood of diseased family animals, ours was sleek and healthy, able to sustain this wound.</div><div><br /></div><div>It was the beginning of Advent. For the first time I experienced how jarring and even offensive the lamppost wreathes and joymongering billboards could feel to a heart still venom-shocked by an evil thing. </div><div><br /></div><div>We marked your birthday with family members who understood that you were struggling with incoherent rage, who looked you kindly in the eye and played card games with you and made you feel seen and loved. You began to fall asleep every night wearing headphones, your birthday Walkman filling your mind with Jesus songs. </div><div><br /></div><div>We hung Christmas lights, set up the Jesse Tree with its felt ornaments. On the fourth day of Advent I found myself holding up the ram ornament and retelling to you and your siblings the story of Abraham's call to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah. My memory flashed back to the moment in Aldi several months before when I was bagging my groceries and asking God if I should invite this homeless family into my home. A shout rang out behind me, raising the hair on my forearms : "DO NOT neglect to show hospitality to the strangers!" I thought it was the voice of God directly answering my question, His mouthpiece a preaching weekday shopper with dreads and sunglasses. </div><div><br /></div><div>As I cast my mind back on that moment, my heart twisted with Abraham's bewilderment, for had not following that Voice meant laying our beloved firstborn son on the altar of our obedience? And yet in my bafflement I kept holding onto the soft symbol, telling the rest of the supernatural story. And there was your childish face, sticky with jam, sleep in your eyes, listening to how God so loved the world.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have been reciting Psalm 103 constantly in my heart since you told us about it. At first, sick with doubt and anger, muttering the words inwardly as one desperate for warmth would rub two dry sticks together. And here is the miracle, my love: those dead words have sparked to life. They have kindled this burden of sorrow on the altar of my heart. The fire is overwhelming the darkness of doubt and bathing in warmth the bone-ache of anguish. It sends praise incense wafting heavenward.</div><div><br /></div><div>He heals all your diseases. Your rages are less frequent, happy moments are multiplying. You are reclaiming calm. When your helper inquires during a therapy session if you ever feel angry or sad, you say, beaming and flapping your hands in the air, "Right now I feel really happy." Oh, He renews my youth like the eagle's. </div><div><br /></div><div>Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannnot heal. </div><div><br /></div><div>Merry Christmas, my firstborn son, the son that I love. </div><div><br /></div><div>Happy New Year.</div>Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-58072340110697335592021-05-10T06:01:00.001-07:002021-05-26T18:55:55.242-07:00<p>Yesterday was Mother's Day. It hasn't yet been two weeks since the evening that I did not know I was both pregnant and bleeding internally, hours away from an emergency surgery and the end of that inner flicker of life. Before the revelation and the crisis, Jonathan brought our kids to my bedside to wish me goodnight. They sang me original lullabies embellished with elements from the latest chapter of "Prince Caspian," then rode to bed on their dad's shoulders. </p><p>In all the pain and confusion and the little death that followed, the memory of that rambunctious parting kept filling my mind, a heartening <i>memento vivere.</i></p>Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-18651466916714817212021-05-08T22:13:00.008-07:002021-05-26T18:58:54.943-07:00"But not you, to whom I need to talk"<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #555555; font-family: Marcellus, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5rem 0.5rem 30px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">In three weeks it will be the sixth anniversary of my firstborn's birth, the anniversary of the time my mom dropped everything and entrusted her life to a dicey vehicle the nine hour drive to Minneapolis. She, mother of eight, knew a woman craves her mother over those first exalted and miserable days; that I would need to be mothered a little too. She swaddled Florence, set her under a sunny window to cure a touch of jaundice, smiled and crooned to her staring little face, cleaned my fridge, baked rhubarb pie, hosted well-wishers on my behalf, reminisced comfortably, and chuckled over how much she'd forgotten of her own early parenting days.</div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #555555; font-family: Marcellus, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5rem 0.5rem 30px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">This year it grieves me that the potted African violet on my coffee table is still abloom six years later as it was the week of that visit, but my mom has been transplanted beyond reach of all my senses, except memory.<br /><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #555555; font-family: Marcellus, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5rem 0.5rem 30px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">I want you back, I want you here,<br />even though April’s loss brings on the flowers,<br />trees forming new buds along each branch.<br />But there’s no turning back for us,<br />whose calyx, pistil, ovary blooms in flesh.<br />And each tree has a different seed: wings, pods, cones.<br /><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">It’s an old story, . . .replacement, </em>a way back<br />as a grandchild wears your eyes, your chin, your mouth.<br />But it’s not you, to whom I need to talk.<br />I want to call you on the telephone.<br />A woman <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">is</em> her mother, but alone.<br />(Barbara Crooker)</div>Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-70066234716869891382020-12-31T16:12:00.005-08:002021-01-28T07:27:32.616-08:00Decade<div>As another year draws to a close, I sing this textured garment of life rubbing rubbing rubbing against our tender human skin. </div><div><br /></div><div>Ten years ago I was preparing to move back to my Michigan hometown from my college town in Tennessee. When I think of that time, my memory unravels a variegated yarn spun of daily moments compressed into vivid composites. My car's engine ticking behind me in the hospital parking ramp's oblique shadows. Scarfing down the day's unsold cafeteria fare on the winding drive up the mountain after work. Inhaling the tar scent of Incline Railway timbers on morning jogs beneath them. Mockingbird song from the Craven House's antebellum wooden porch. That one tight sun-struck curve on I-95. The breathtaking freefall into sky and city alongside Scenic Highway. Coffee steamer and barista banter blurring into white noise around my table while I scribble in my journal at Barnes & Noble. </div><div><br /></div><div>All of these memories and a thousand like them have a certain texture: solitary, inward, uninterrupted. They are notably devoid of technology, and contemporary me is staggered by its absence, and the consequent absence of politics and pop culture in my life at this time. I had a company flip phone and a landline, and blogged and emailed on a big stuttering desktop. My unfolding romance livened these outdated channels with the thrill of waiting for a new email to load, of mustering guts to return the missed call blinking on the caller ID. I kept in an oft-visited compartment in my mind the thought of my early December plane ticket to visit this guy from college I was getting to know. A decade later, a handful of songs from mixes he gave me then still usher me back to that mental chamber of possibilities that haloed my 2010 retreat with a gracious shimmer of newness and nerves. </div><div><br /></div><div>I packed my '87 Chevrolet Cavalier, settled my dog in the passenger seat, and drove. </div><div><br /></div><div>I had barely unpacked my bags in my childhood home before I was watching Jonathan's Toyota pull into sight through the snow-flecked gloom of MSP airport twilight. He squinted out a foggy windshield that his arm periodically wiped clear as he scanned the curb for the spot where I waited, shivering with cold and excitement. </div><div><br /></div><div>The ensuing week I toured rural and urban Minnesota on his arm. On the drive across stubbled fields to the Twineball Museum I giggled over Weird Al's "Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota." We chatted, building Legos, while Nirvana played beneath the alligator wallpaper of his childhood room. I eavesdropped from the church pews while he and the Christmas choir rehearsed their carols, attuning my ear to his voice's steady strain. My city memories are slightly different, less auditory, full of vapor and shine. Watching sunlight wink off the saliva escaping from the cloud of Jonathan's breath while he performatively hocked phlegm at the Mississippi River. Fog filling my glasses as we entered the Minneapolis Art Institute, where we shyly wandered through aisles of art before descending the vast front steps an hour later into winter's enormous sparkle and dark. Jonathan's chandelier-lit company Christmas party that weekend, when the season conspired to deliver a storm that shrank attendance and made for a memorable drive downtown. I can still see the lumberjack of a man who sauntered across our headlight beams in the middle of the street, his shovel spanning his shoulders under fluffy twirls of snow as we crawled along at the speed of his boots. </div><div><br /></div><div>Into this setting, a flurry of firsts filled in blanks of experience I hadn't known existed. First interactions with future in-laws and friends, first telling of now familiar anecdotes, first assembling and dining on the famous family enchiladas, first group listen to Peter Gabriel through the fine living room speakers. First Broadway Pizza chair across from Jonathan, first time he debuted a surprise mustache, first twining our fingers, first worship at his side, first sips of coffee together in the white morning glare that follows a night of snows. </div><div><br /></div><div><div>Though I didn't predict that these moments, their texture at this time exquisitely new to me, would eventually become the homespun of my life, I enjoyed wrapping myself in them during my unexpected overnight at the airport that weekend, and over the blizzard-prolonged return journey, the weeks of finding my footing back in Michigan. And they did indeed become my happy quotidian: three Decembers later on a glittery winter morning Jonathan and I were married. Seven Decembers and three children later, we still live in the same large Minneapolis home that welcomed us from our honeymoon. </div><div><br /></div></div><div>Now it is 2020, and I can't relate my love story without thinking of my dad, abruptly widowed after 33 years of marriage. I find myself imagining what it would mean, after being folded year by year into intimate habitude with another, to adjust to the texture of solitude again. The hair cloth rasp of it, symbolized by sackcloth in other times. The gauntlet of significant firsts that he is always facing do not merely fill a blank of life experience, they necessarily pose a stark negative to positives that precede them. </div><div><br /></div><div>The loss of my mom changes the texture of my days, too, coarsening and dulling areas that once held great comfort and color. I feel I am wearing cherished memories thin by compulsively reaching for them, swathing myself and my children in them over and over. How she loved lighting candles, bargain hunting, and the look of snow spuming off the top of the rushing trains at night. Her alto voice strong with praise beside us in the pew. How her head would tilt back when she wheezed with laughter. The way her knuckles creased around the curve of her coffee mug. How her thick graying hair ran through my braiding teenage fingers. </div><div><br /></div><div>As another year draws to a close, I sing this earth that wears out like a garment, and all our experiences raveled within it. </div><div><br /></div><div>I sing this textured garment of life rubbing rubbing rubbing against our tender human skin. </div><div><br /></div>
Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-50301668226927414462020-11-02T05:14:00.001-08:002020-11-02T05:14:08.117-08:00Snapshot of a million times a day<p><i>An interruption-needle so long and quick to the center-brains: the word </i>mama<i>.</i></p><p><i>That breaks all my concentration completely </i>mama<i>, I.</i></p><p>(Sarah Vap)</p>Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-14919186821560537552020-10-26T18:39:00.035-07:002020-12-15T08:00:00.998-08:00Limits of utilitarianism<p><i>if men get war, then I get abortion</i></p><p>This line from Sarah Vap's <i>Winter: Effulgences and Devotions</i> has inhabited my thoughts since the afternoon when, quelling my innate prejudice--for I believe the Golden Rule extends to intellectual hospitality--I cautiously invited it in.</p><p>Vap makes a bid here for the right to gamble her future using abortion, as men do with war. I would like to take this appeal as a launching pad to explore the reasons people contend for such tarnished prerogatives. I would like to make my case against all but a few of them. But my appraisal of means and ends will always be as persuasive as the convictions that guide it. Such conversations yield at best a gallery of irreconcilable worldviews, at worst, confusion and bitterness.</p><p>Taking that approach also bypasses two concepts which, combined, equip us to make the seemingly impossible refusal to gamble our own destiny at all. </p><p>First: that our choices yield outcomes, but the outcomes are unpredictable. Selected in the mercurial darkness of the present, our choices exert a wayward catalyzing energy of their own upon the choices faced by others, even as the choices of others keep forming our own potentialities. If this is true, then choosing for our idea of an outcome--however innocently or even nobly intended--will always be a gamble. To choose using the currency of one or many unyielded human lives raises the stakes, often in ways we are incapable of fathoming. Arguing the prudence of such a wager is difficult, and ought to be. It does not take much imagination to see ourselves, our loved ones, on someone else's table. </p><p>Second: that whatever else our choices beget, <i>we </i>will be the byproduct. When I look back at the many decisions that I have made, I see the truth about my character coming into focus. What I choose will always reveal who I am. This is where the power of volition can be harnessed towards an achievable destiny. My choices cannot incarnate my desires, but they will always incarnate my true self. </p><p>Both these concepts offer freedom: from the futile striving to wrest outcomes out of a universe that doesn't submit to our edicts, and from the moral bewilderment that sets in as we grapple with how little our choices seem to matter. </p><p>Wars and abortions would be much reduced if we trained ourselves and our children to understand the limits of choice, to wield its vast power appropriately. Not only because fewer people would avail themselves of these extreme prerogatives, but because more people would have the wisdom to reject the millions of small but self-disclosing moral failures that beget such extreme situations.</p><p>At the very least, such training allows us to transcend the power dynamics with which Vap herself resigns to participate. </p>Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-9580550278747303742020-07-26T08:15:00.002-07:002020-11-10T11:37:16.483-08:00<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<b>Sparklers </b>- Barbara Crooker</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
We’re writing our names with
sizzles of light<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
to celebrate the fourth. I use the
loops of cursive,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
make a big <i>B</i> like the
sloping hills on the west side<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
of the lake. The rest, little <i>a</i>,
<i>r</i>, one small <i>b,</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
spit and fizz as they scratch the
night. On the side<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
of the shack where we bought them,
a handmade sign:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<i>Trailer Full of Sparkles Ahead</i>,
and I imagine crazy<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
chrysanthemums, wheels of fire,
glitter bouncing<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
off metal walls. Here, we keep
tracing in tiny<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
pyrotechnics the letters we were
given at birth,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
branding them on the air. And
though my mother’s <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
name has been erased now, I write
it, too:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
a big swooping <i>I</i>, a little
hissing <i>s</i>, an <i>a</i> that sighs<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
like her last breath, and then I
ring<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<i>belle</i>, <i>belle</i>, <i>belle</i>
in the sulphuric smoky dark. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
I’m remembering the feeling of getting
that lit sparkler in your hand as a child, the sudden pressure you feel to use
it meaningfully somehow before it’s gone, how the burning hiss of it adds audio
to your urgency. You try to get a whole word out before the first letter vanishes
or scratch out a sentence or you lose your head and race around the yard squiggling
it wildly before it is smoke and fumes, leaving you panting and dissatisfied.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Two years ago, when we were gathered
as an extended family out on the front porch lighting our own fourth of July
sparklers, I remembered this poem and shared it with you, Mom. I was thinking
then of your mom, my Oma, sweetly missed on these occasions. I scrawled <i>Oma</i> with my sparkler in the dusk, then
<i>Mom</i>, and <i>Abby</i>, and a series of messy childish hearts all swirled
together. It felt at once meaningful, playful, and silly.<br />
<br />
It didn't feel like a foreshadowing, but now that memory looms portentous and strange. I would never have thought only a year later your sparkle would be out. The smoke you left behind is recent and thick, swirling
in the air, burning my nose, and stinging my eyes.<br />
<br />
How panicked and dissatisfied I would be, if the universe was simply this: a dazzlingly chaotic Trailer Full of Sparkles, each a vivid flash that could never make the sense it should. But I believe, as you did, that this massive locked trailer full of crazy, wheeling, bouncing, glittering sparkles matters and makes sense. And I believe that each human spark will be found to have written in some glorious way, with or without trying, the same great Name that kindled it for that very purpose.<br />
<br />
When I reflect on your life, Mom, I love to see how vividly you wrote that Name, in all its forms, over and over again in this dark world. How you taught us all the worthiness of making that our life's obsession: to learn the names of God and write them using the light He kindled within us, with ever greater clarity and beauty.<br />
<br />
The best part is knowing that your spark, extinguished here, is blazing eternally in the presence of the God we both love to name.<br />
<br />
I'll keep practicing my penmanship here. See you soon!</div>
Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-88252325658097417552020-07-10T19:33:00.007-07:002020-07-10T19:53:53.809-07:00How the sadness of<br />
a single human life<br />
compounds with time.<br />
<br />
How in a generation, maybe two if we are lucky--<br />
<br />
the way our mouths wrinkle into<br />
laughter, the way we can't remember<br />
which dishes go where for the<br />
thousandth time, the way our bodies<br />
have pulsed with rage over small<br />
injustices, the way we cannot hold our<br />
liquor, hold our excitement, hold our<br />
children long enough--<br />
<br />
everything is annihilated with the<br />
delicate memories of our loved-ones.<br />
<br />
-Paul CheneyAbbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-82085530147011619392020-02-28T05:55:00.002-08:002020-02-28T05:55:49.706-08:00Snapshot #6Jonathan: "What will you do when you grow up, Florence?"<br />
Florence: "Drink beer and wine...and push buttons on my computer!"Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-781205287104444492020-02-23T12:30:00.000-08:002020-02-28T05:53:24.656-08:00Snapshot #4Out of the mouth of Bubs:<br />
<br />
"Don't you wanna pway jumping scutes upstairs with me?" (An invented name for an invented game involving plastic rings hurled skillfully at the far wall.)<br />
<br />
"MOM! Can I hold your hand!" (in a panic whenever we are out walking)<br />
<br />
"Here's your pwesent." (singsong voice, proffering a toy wrapped in a towel or blanket or paper)<br />
<br />
"My shadow looks like a gwown-up!"<br />
<br />
"Let's do our singing books, Fwowence." (each night as they begin the ritual of "singing" through the huge pile of children's books on their bedside table)<br />
<br />
"Yeah! We're on the path of LIFE!" (shouted from his bed as I descend the staircase after commending the children for their obedience before tucking them in)<br />
<br />
"Cheese-a-most-a-veetos!" (chanted loudly, often, and for no apparent reason)Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-49853135915418767892020-02-20T13:00:00.000-08:002020-02-20T13:03:02.588-08:00Snapshot #3Florence is late in her fourth year of life, my long-legged worrier, my firstborn. Her cheeks react to any exposure to sunshine, even insipid winter light, with a burst of freckles. She and her best pretend friend, Loya, have long conversations while she uses the bathroom these days, and Loya often sleeps in the bathtub, so Florence considerately scrubs the walls during her evening bath to make it nice. Her favorite toy is Baby Babette, who is often sickly, or feeling shy. When it comes to art, Florence prefers to narrate a story while she scribbles densely with various colors. If she does attempt to draw people they emerge as colorful humped ghosts with cicada eyes and, occasionally, hands. She often murmurs, "I wish I was you, Mom" or "Mom, I wish I was baby Reid" when she sees something enviable in our behavior (checking email, doing dishes...getting a diaper changed). She is drawn to shy, reserved personalities. I think her idea of paradise is a sing-along with her favorite people, or perhaps it's the moments she and her dad sit together at the piano and play "their song" together.Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-42805164940785331662020-01-03T20:02:00.000-08:002020-01-03T20:05:00.736-08:00Snapshots #2After almost two full weeks away from us, Willa and Ruthie were greeted this morning by the snowmen in our front yard holding a crude cardboard<i> Welcome Back</i> sign taped to the handle of our red shovel. No time for breakfast until after everyone had been introduced to the Christmas toys and had an icebreaking quarrel or two over them. A new game was invented involving the three new inflated rubber cows and a colorful half-dozen of children's bowling pins. Three children would straddle their cows and, giggling and shrieking, bounce across the attic floor as fast as possible, racing toward the row of pins set up by the odd kid out. First to crash through the pins won, and surrendered his steed to the pin-setter for the next round. Later on, this wild but organized pastime devolved to the barbaric practice of catapulting the cows over the attic railing and down the steep attic stairs. By the end of the day, however, the cows were dressed adorably in infant hats and fancy scarves, a teacup beneath each snout, and consigned to comfortably watch one of the innumerable shows the older girls like to put on for whatever audience they can muster.<br />
<br />
The day was so warm for January that we were able to spend two long stints of it outside, stockpiling and pitching snowballs, constructing snow forts, and trudging around the block and back and forth from front to back yard under the supervision of calling crows and unseasonably frisky squirrels.<br />
<br />
Cobbling the pizzas together for our traditional Friday movie night while the older children whined and quibbled underfoot, I did not notice my youngest strewing leftover popcorn across the floors until it was too late. Having already mopped up two large milk spills from the same party over the course of the day, I knew it was no use crying over this either. Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-53591039982416324542020-01-02T11:56:00.002-08:002020-01-03T20:02:19.020-08:00Snapshots #1There are two snowmen in the yard. Their eyes, blueberries squirted into finger-pokes, have stained the surrounding area a disquieting magenta. Fragments of pine needles and streaks of dirt blight the lumpy contours of their snowy dermis.<br />
<br />
If you could have witnessed their creation, the sparkly-eyed concentration invested on them by two earnest children, you might feel the same tenderness I feel as I peek through my window curtains at their grotesque forms.Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-58923950269423788842019-09-12T12:05:00.001-07:002019-09-12T12:06:23.276-07:0032"May our God<i> </i><br />
<i>make you worthy of his calling</i><br />
and <i>fulfill every resolve for good </i><br />
<i>and every work of faith by his power</i>,<br />
so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you,<br />
and you in him,<br />
according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ."<br />
<br />
2 Thessalonians 1:11-12Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-46541768242154155122019-09-06T19:30:00.000-07:002019-09-19T11:19:28.560-07:00ReconciliationMy two year old son confessed to his father at the first opportunity.<br />
<br />
"Dad! I almost killed Reid today!" he shouted by way of greeting, my harsh rebuke from hours earlier turned into the day's big headline as he leaped toward my husband's approaching figure.<br />
<br />
I recalled hearing my baby's harsh wails from the bathroom just after lunch, racing outside in a panic at their unfamiliar tone, seeing him flailing on the pavement a foot and a half beneath the ledge of the cement stair. I registered Abbott's fleeing form from my periphery as I scooped his brother up. "Did you push him? On purpose?" I demanded, and he answered boldly, "Yeah! I did!"<br />
<br />
Fear and fury propelled me across the yard, and I seized Abbott's arm and yanked him back into the house. He began to scream and pull away, and our passionate tangle somehow landed us in the kitchen. "No more backyard time till after nap," I snarled, dropping the offender roughly on the kitchen floor and turning my back on him. "Oh you sweet boy. You okay, buddy?" I crooned softly into the baby's ear.<br />
<br />
He was limp and pale now, a goose egg beginning to form on his scraped forehead, a thin paste of blood and gravel under his nose. I checked his eyes for signs of dilation, eased his head into the crook of my arm, and backslid into breastfeeding after a week's effort to wean him. As he suckled, his eyes fixed on mine. Their clarity and stillness communicated themselves to me. "You're okay, aren't you?" I breathed, reassured. "You're just fine."<br />
<br />
In the kitchen, Abbott continued to weep inconsolably. I let my head fall back against the couch cushion and inhaled deeply, willing myself to calm, beginning to feel the familiar pang of regret at how I'd allowed my fury to overcome me.<br />
<br />
"Bubs, honey, can you come here?" I called. It took a few efforts, but he slowly dragged over to my side, his siren sobs growing deafening at he approached. I took his hand in mine.<br />
<br />
"Shhh, hey, shhhh. It's all right, Bubs. Shhh, I know. You know what? He is going to be okay. He is. Even though you could have killed him, doing that. You must NEVER ever push him that way again. Do you understand? You almost killed him!" My words twisted into rebuke, then accusation, as the memory washed over me again, the knowledge of how easily this could have been a tragedy. I cut myself off, studying the stubborn face, then squeezed the little hand and kissed it. It occurred to me that Reid's wellbeing was not uppermost in Abbott's self-absorbed toddler heart anyway. "You feel bad, don't you, son?"<br />
<br />
"I want to go in the backyard," was the only response he could muster, his voice shaking. I understood it to mean,<i> I want this not to have happened</i>.<br />
<i></i><i></i><br />
"I know. After nap, you may again." I cupped his cheek in my palm and smiled. "I promise."<br />
<br />
The violence I'd done him hung in the air as palpably as the violence he'd done Reid. I found I needed to go further. "I am so sorry I was rough with you, and mean. It is wrong when mama is rough and mean, just like it is wrong when you are. I'm sorry, Bubs."<br />
<br />
He sniffed. "Oh." But he snuggled nearer into the curve of my other arm, and the stubbornness began to seep out of his expression.<br />
<br />
I always expected that I'd be ready to forgive my children seventy times seven times. What I didn't foresee was that I would need their mercy so often, too. When I overreach in insisting upon my own way. When I am impatient, unkind, irritable, and resentful. When it seems as though my love does have conditions, obscure to myself as well as to them. My children lack the perspective to view a conflict through my eyes, but I am able to view it through theirs if I try. The effort reveals that my mothering is too often hypocritical, unpredictable, and harsh. So I find myself asking their forgiveness, again and again and again.<br />
<br />
And now again.<br />
<br />
It is too late to return to the backyard and do it better. Instead, as the outraged adrenaline of conflict ebbs away, I fold them close to me. Our sobered silence dissipates gently into the relief of smiles and then the silliness that in its lack of inhibition is the surest sign to me of our covenant being fully restored.<br />
<br />
I hope this unspoken affirmation of covenantal wholeness permeates them in this moment, that it reinforces all such moments from our past, lays the groundwork for all such moments in the future. I hope that they absorb the worthiness of forgiveness, every time, whether they have wronged or been wronged or (in most cases) a little of both.<br />
<br />
<i>Wherever this is sought of you in your future life, I pray you give it generously.</i><br />
<i></i><br />
<i>Wherever you seek this in your future life, I pray you find it generously given.</i>Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-49638726050966829022019-09-03T12:50:00.000-07:002019-09-03T14:00:32.388-07:00HomemakerNaptime has cast its spell over this Minneapolis home. Firm September breezes comb through the curtains. Between their strokes, sunlight stripes the furniture and the pendulum flickers lightly in its glass case. A goldfinch perches on the feeder through the kitchen window, then flashes its white tailfeathers as it lifts up and away. The crickets are insistent in the weedy side yard at my back.<br />
<br />
I have coffee, warm in its stainless steel container though it was brewed shortly after dawn with the children's eggs and toast. It sits on a highchair in the debris of the baby's lunch: stiffening noodles, a puddle of milk flecked by zucchini bread crumbles and cubes of cantaloupe. On the floor the recycling bin has been emptied and disassembled, and a rolling pin crusted with mottled blue and pink playdough leans against a similarly crusted chair leg. A pair of snap-up blue jeans, size 12 month, tangles with the power cord of my laptop nearby, and a lone toddler sandal waits on the coffee table. A thicket of stencils and pencils has overgrown the dining table. Blades of grass and garden scraps leave a trail from the back entry to the counter, where my daughter left a pail of under-ripe cherry tomatoes she'd plucked after breakfast.<br />
<br />
Today I attend to this all, but not in the usual way of sweeping and wiping, folding and gathering and re-ordering.<br />
<br />
It is autumn. The yellow buses again haul their cargo down our street as the naptime hour nears its end. I am in my fourth year of motherhood. I need reminding that paying attention is a way of desiring, a form of prayer. So I wait on the truth of my life here, where my children are absent yet present, and what I have made in this home has found its fulfillment in being unmade. My love for them remembers itself, flickers over every mess with tenderness.<br />
<br />
The baby has begun to fuss. Now I am ready to stand, gather him in my rested arms, and begin again.<br />
<br />Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-85908419735010198602019-08-27T19:09:00.001-07:002019-08-27T19:11:36.105-07:00EmbryoYou are trained to look ahead:<br />
Picture bright eyes blinking
morning light,<br />
The body soft and warm against your
own.<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
When was the last time you thought
of your self <br />
Before you were a ‘he’ or ‘she’ <br />
Before your body looked like what
you see when you think “Human”,<br />
When you lived cocooned within your
mother?<br />
<br />
They are everywhere in summertime:<br />
Otherworldly larval things,
tadpoles, caterpillars. <br />
You, too, were once as foreign to
yourself as they will be.<br />
<br />
Now it lives inside of you: a
sexless grub-like embryo<br />
that twitches and pulses.<br />
Its body is not like what you see
when you think “Human”<br />
But your body, too, once twitched
and pulsed,<br />
A sexless, grub-like embryo<br />
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
Cocooned within your mother as it
is cocooned within you.</div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-80801927513540292022017-12-02T19:35:00.002-08:002017-12-05T12:14:35.637-08:00The Smiling Host<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Their feet are freshly scrubbed, and now</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Their bellies will be filled--we know how<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
they feel, those quarrelsome disciples <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
gathered around the meal.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
But what must it have signified to You,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Their humble host, on brink of sacrifice? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
A foretaste of what You would win <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Your view within the room that night.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
To hold each foot, fouled and rough,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
And make the reeking flesh come clean.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
To watch them chew the broken loaf,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Their bushy beards amassing crumbs,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
And cheer their spirits with the wine<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
That stained their wagging tongues.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
The Love that animated Your travail<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Must have rejoiced to see them eat their fill.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Now, having as well been purified,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
I join my fractious family at Your board.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
In remembrance of You we sip, divide<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
The loaf. Oh let me not be inattentive, Lord,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Nor abstract this full-bodied rite to empty rote.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
I begin to see there is no better place</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Than here, where by Your favor I am brought.<br />
Here my clean soul can feast upon your grace.<br />
Here I can feel my Savior's smiling face.</div>
Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-4801552021692950352017-01-12T17:50:00.001-08:002017-01-12T17:50:20.844-08:00OmaThe houseplant you sent home with me,<br />
And called "easy" to keep alive,<br />
Did not stay green.<br />
<br />
It needed your plainspoken blend<br />
Of active love and common sense.<br />
Wisdom, I mean.<br />
<br />
That was your way. You had the knack<br />
Of calmly keeping things alive,<br />
Mostly unseen<br />
<br />
By those who flourished under it<br />
Amidst your cakes and coffee mugs<br />
And china clean.<br />
<br />
We now see that, though it may be<br />
A simple kind of daily grace,<br />
It's not "easy."Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-4846847926904208722015-07-17T11:43:00.010-07:002022-11-21T16:28:48.931-08:00Cast IronLove alloyed your heart to mine,<br />
and since we yearned to stay that way<br />
were poured in that prosaic mold<br />
<i>to have and hold</i>.<br /><br /><div>Now that ten years have filled and emptied, </div><div>heated, cooled us, </div><div>menaced us with dust and rust,</div><div>still we will see the sheen awake</div><div><div>in seasoned iron by the flame </div><div>of daily use,</div></div><div>and that cleaving elemental bond,</div><div>no longer new,</div><div>still keeps us true in rest and trust. </div><div>
<br />
From whatever comes our way,<br />
as the days we dwell unfold,</div><div>let us make new feasts always,</div><div>
and have and hold. </div>Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26666304.post-62548191600192648802015-07-15T13:19:00.001-07:002015-07-15T13:19:25.777-07:00Birth StoryThe day before you were born, your dad and I went out to Mother Earth Garden Center and purchased potted plants: Peace Lily, African Violet, Coleus. We didn't know that you'd be born the very next morning, but we knew it would be soon: you were six days past your due date. I'd been having painless contractions for months, but I did notice that day that they were seizing me more often, lasting longer. Jonathan, aware of this, teased me about going into labor, and I smilingly brushed the idea off. "I can still talk through them, " I'd explain. "Besides, I don't think I've really dropped--do you? And I haven't lost my plug yet. I definitely haven't had my water break. At this rate, it'll probably be another week!"<br />
<br />
Even so, my eyes must have mirrored the sparkle in his as we drove home. <br />
<br />
Hours later, Jonathan greeted the news of my first unmistakable harbinger of imminent labor with a droll British accent: "Aha! The bloody show!" I was so excited, I sent cheery texts to my doula, Andrea, and your grandma: <i>Early labor! Yay! </i><br />
<br />
That initial gaiety, unsurprisingly, did not persist. Around 10:30 pm I began to understand everything I'd read about the uniquely excruciating sensation of true labor: waves of it robbing me of my power of coherent speech--although not, as Jonathan and no doubt every neighbor within a block of our house would attest, my powers of incoherent vocalization. <br />
<br />
Your dad was a champion. He brought me water and pillows. He called the midwife, Diane, to inform her that labor had begun. He ran my bath and massaged my back and turned on an episode of "Brooklyn 99", all while timing my contractions. He cracked jokes to make me feel better. <br />
<br />
At several points during the night he noted that my contractions, although still a bit unpredictable, were frequently meeting the standard that meant we should start making for the hospital. <br />
<br />
"Abby, I really think we should call the hospital. We should at least have Andrea drive here." He was anxious, but I reminded him that first labors typically lasted a whole lot longer. The idea of arriving at the hospital with hours and hours of labor ahead of me so bothered me that I kept putting him off. "Not yet. I'm sure we have hours to go. I just want to be home as long as I possibly can." So I stuck it out, on my side in the dark tepid bathwater, moaning loudly through the increasingly powerful contractions. I didn't admit to myself that half my hesitation was simply because I dreaded the whole process of transitioning to the hospital in my current state.<br />
<br />
Turns out, I was IN transition. When Jonathan finally overruled me and called Andrea, she, hearing my wails in the background, ordered us to call the hospital and get ready to leave. She was on her way. Diane was alerted that we were coming. <br />
<br />
I suddenly allowed myself to realize that I was well into labor. Every time I moved position--from the tub to the toilet, pulling my clothes onto my shivering body, stumbling to the living room-- fresh contractions would debilitate me. When Andrea arrived, she gave me a rushed breath-coaching session that quieted me down significantly, and she and Jonathan supported my failing legs to the car.<br />
<br />
It was just after 5 am when Jonathan pulled into the vacant hospital entrance. I relied on him and Andrea to support me through two more contractions on the walk inside, where a security guard fetched me a wheelchair and directed us to the labor and delivery ward. <br />
<br />
I don't think the nurses there believed I was very far along at first. They showed us into the delivery room and helped me onto the bed. Jonathan mentioned my desire for a water birth as Andrea continued coaching me through the quickening contractions, and the staff started to set up the pool. Moments later, Diane and her midwife-in-training Christy entered the room, smiling hugely despite their sleepy faces.<br />
<br />
They did my first cervical check, and Diane announced, "She's a 9." That news accelerated the pace of the room considerably, and filled me with a wash of relief. Almost there! <br />
<br />
I labored on the birthing ball awhile, and then was assisted to the wonderful warm tub with the jets, where my water broke at last. Christy's face loomed over mine, and she calmly mentioned that it appeared there was meconium in the water. The birthing pool was going to be off limits. I didn't even care at that point: another contraction was seizing me. Your dad's jokes had abated but he stayed nearby, and I found his presence incredibly reassuring. He and Andrea took turns holding my hands, while the midwives reminded me to breathe, relax, breathe, relax.<br />
<br />
At this point all my energy was focused on surviving each contraction. Between them, I felt my body go limp and could sometimes muster a smile or a nod in reaction to comments or directives. Then I would feel another starting up, and would summon my reserves to meet it (one at a time, Abby, one at a time) even as part of me shrank, willing it to just please please stop. <br />
<br />
By and by it was time for another check. Back to the bed to suffer the examination, which revealed that it was time to push. I got into position on the birthing stool. Jonathan sat behind me, supporting me as I strained through each contraction. They were so much closer together now, relentless, with a new sensation of burning as the pressure increased. The midwives were smiling and telling me they could see your head. I could touch it. I found the strength each time to push harder and harder. In the next few days I would realize how much this phase had required of me by the soreness in my biceps, but in the moment all my focus and feeling were concentrated on the excruciating work of birthing you. Labor, indeed.<br />
<br />
Fifteen eternal minutes of that, and then you crowned. The little head I had touched moments before finally pushed out, and the rest of you slid after it, and you were a bright-eyed slippery perfect baby girl out in the world at last. <br />
<br />
From the start you were alert and strong, holding your head up and latching immediately to my breast so I didn't even have room in my psyche to worry about the ugly aftermath of delivery, because of the shocking all-encompassing joy that filled every cell in my body. As all my physicality moments before had been focused on birthing you, now it was completely awash in the experience of holding you, leaving no space for pain or weariness.<br />
<br />
This is when the photo documentation can take up my story far more vividly than I can tell it, and I hope you see everything I struggle to say: our joy, love, exhaustion...and your fragile beauty. 7 lb, 4 oz, and 21 inches of sweet sweet human life. <br />
<br />
It is six and a half weeks later. I have healed, and we are a family at home, developing a rhythm around your tiny life that already feels natural. I reclaim that crushing love and happiness each morning, waking beside your bright-eyed fragrant infant body.<br />
<br />
Welcome, Florence Abigail. You are so worth every bit of it.Abbyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830130160836286555noreply@blogger.com0