my angel baby,
when you were born it was with those long papery impossible to cut sharp dangerous infection carrying cornea scratching fingernails. i was supposed to use scissors or my teeth to trim them, according to baby books, but my teeth didn't work and i was afraid i would just tear into the quick and since i've never chewed my nails i really didn't get how that whole thing worked and i didn't know how to use scissors to trim nails either. despite the books i used the same nail trimmers that i use on my hands, because the little tiny ones in the drug store are so small that i couldn't control them well, and didn't want to slip, and hurt you. so in the end, the first time i cut your nails i also cut your finger and you screamed bloody murder and we both cried. i immediately began to breast feed you, and you settled in with hics and smuffled sobs, but i couldn't forgive myself, so i sat in the rocker he gave us, and called grandpa. i was 32 years old and called my dad and sobbed to him the story of my first official maternal bad deed. i wailed that i had betrayed your trust.
i was so young, angel baby.
grandpa did not laugh. to his credit. he just said it would not be the last time i would try my best and betray your trust. this caused me to stop crying, because it made me think. you are 11 now, and i'm still thinking about what grandpa said. is this my last contrary act toward grandpa, the process of proving him wrong, or is this thinking just my ongoing response to his statement, a way to live other than how he told me it just will be?
i say and try to show, all the time: i do not to lie to you. and i will always be with you, behind you, and for you. those are my promises-- and that i will always love you. those are all i have, all i will offer in the way of promises, and you can trust me with all of you.
-----
in a different city at least a half an hour away, and at the time of the earthquake, you were home alone with the others while your dad and i were at a therapist's having a non-healing and not-even-palliative session. i sat on that plaid couch and could feel my ribs being sawed separate, and everything soft inside me being bruised. ransacked. i heard the rumble first, and thought it was a semi truck driving by, but then i felt the vibration along with the roar, coming from below me. it felt like the earth was vomiting and i knew immediately that it was the natural outcome of my state--my vibe caused the earth to quiver. when the bookshelves started essing i saw it was not my rage. not unrelievedly, we realized it was an earthquake.
i had let my cell phone battery run out, and the land lines where i was didn't work now. i was glad you wouldn't know that i had let my battery run out--if the land lines were out at home there was no way for me to reach you even with a charged cell. i was already feeling the guilty mother thing, and didn't want you to see my shame. but, regardless of reason or fault, i couldn't reach you. i just hoped that the quaking hadn't reached home. i just hoped you were all still playing wii dance, and continued with the hopeless task at hand. sitting far apart, and unable to reach one another, in our family of 5, our natural disasters that day were all distinct. each of us had our own reality shift, and in some ways the only thing in common was the time and day. in other ways, the altering was universal.
at home you felt the shaking and all our paintings slid. books fell and glasses skittered. you were frightened. you were calm. you took the younger children and the puppy outside and to a neighbor's. they had you all in and gave you snacks that you are not allowed to eat, and hung out with you until i arrived home. telling me about it the next day, you told me how their attic was crammed full with christmas decorations, and i interrupted--you were in their attic?!! and you looked at me with eyes bored, annoyed, and filled with my idiocy, and said: of course! we don't have an attic so i had to go into theirs. i had to discover it, and when i asked they said i could. there was this string hanging down, and i just...
you are so young, my angel baby.
that was ago, and today i'm thinking of tomorrows, and how i am going to talk with you all about what is coming. i'll be the one telling you. i have conversations in my head and i try to anticipate how you will each be, since i've known you so long. you, angel baby, will be stoic, and logical. and afraid. but you never back down in the face of afraid, and so i will have to be vigilant in my attention to your need, as it slivers forth. cookie face will be sad that what he knows is changing, and my moon faced girl will cry, and will further develop her aversion to and mistrust of marriage. i try to key out exactly how i can give you each, during those moments, a feeling of still being secure, and what i can say to let you know--you must know--that you are secure still, i will always be here for you, behind you, and with you.
but i think of the earthquake day. i think of all that you and i discovered. about attics and promises and security and strength and
angel baby: i have tried so hard to prove him wrong on this one.
*****
october 8 is my dad's birthday, but he is long gone and so celebrating with him doesn't happen so much as celebrating him in my mind does. our relationship was quite tempestuous, with dramatic ups and downs, a lot of downs, and they seem to be on my mind a lot. anyway, but also especially since i have become a parent--a flawed, trying, failing and succeeding not super- not shitty- but rather medium mom. i seem to react to him differently now, and yet, i still seem to react to him in the same way, as well. now a mother, always a daughter.
