I hope mommy is sleeping in heaven, she says
No. I say, she is dancing and singing in heaven
People don’t sleep in heaven
I wish I were in heaven she says
We have work here for now, I say. That is why we have God time–sing and dance
So we are ready for heaven
When it comes
When Mary talks now on the Fisher-Price phone of loss, she speaks with a five year old’s falsetto. She is breezy, upbeat even, and we exchange pleasantries through the medium of her daughter’s voice.
Mary, the girls have your laugh, I try to tell her before the line cuts off. Mary, I always wanted to be your real mom, I tell her before the line clicks off. Mary, that last day haunts me. The girls talk as though you still have the giant carnival unicorn, as though you tucked it under your arm and carried it right through
The earth will soon dissolve like snow/The sun forebear to shine/But God who called me here below/will be forever mine
Little One says
Is mommy sleeping in heaven?
No, I say
She is wide awake
Dancing and singing
I wish I were in heaven
Little One says
No, not yet dear
Let us sing and dance together as though this were the porch and the lights from the house were burning bright
Stay with me here on the porch for awhile
We will dance and sing out
grief and hope together until
These ancient gates open wide
We discuss names.
Her name was Shriver, then Lee, then Baker.
But that is not what her name is anymore, everyone in Heaven has a new last name,
I tell her oldest daughter
What is it? she asks
Beloved, I say
In Heaven everyone’s last name is the same–beloved
Over the years Mary would come and go. Often when she was gone for months I would worry she was dead. The time I worried about her the least was when she was in prison.
I counted how many numbers I had for her–eight, not counting the times she used her boyfriends’ or family’s phones, or the borrowed phones of the carceral state.
This time I decided to change my contact information for her from Mary the Beautiful or Mary the Precious to
The thinking was that this way I could keep track of how current the number was. This was a decision of pragmatism, acknowledging the ephemeral nature of my relationship to my daughter’s phones.
Now it just seems so darn hopeful. How could I have known it would be her last?
The truth be told I felt I lost you when you were twelve. That was when I had to reckon with my desire to make you like me and your desire to not-be-that
I let something die to get us through. It was hard. I wanted you to be my girl, the way that people would tell us we looked alike, despite no genetic overlay to speak of.
We got through that
Survived
For years my prayer was just let her be alive, God, please just let her be alive
Come to think of it,
Still is
If I am honest, you were often a pain in the ass. Your attachment disorder meant that I was the primary target of your anger when you were growing up, which was not fun, but good for me.
I remember you when you were little, I remember the stress, chaos and exhaustion. We would look at you and Charles when you were asleep and say, they are cute when they are asleep.
find myself trying to construct an old play fort out of this gray day, the sky folded into the quilted tent
This is heaven, I tell myself, this is Mary, she was college-aged, after all. She could be here, Heaven could be this, the thin line between the realms could be as gossamer as time itself–
Yesterday you were among the living
And now I return to the prayers I prayed when I held you as a child, fierce ball of anger
Oh, God,
Make us real
Make us vivid
Wipe away the tears, the past, the unbearable
All things made new
I don’t have time to write this blog. My house is chaos, I am behind in my “day job,” and my adopted granddaughters live with us now.
Both girls have been through fires, literally and figuratively.
As I see headlines about the Texas heartbeat law, I cannot stop thinking about what an appalling loss to me and the world entire it would be if they were not here.
They, like all my kids, light up my world. If one were missing, the loss would be unbearable.
That is what the rhetoric hides–each child saved from abortion is a
Little girl twirling in a princess dress
A little boy looking for spiny lizards
A child who knows grownup words long before they should
An irreplaceable light in the darkness.
Matthew 25:35-39 KJV
[35] For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: [36] Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. [37] Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee ? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? [38] When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee ? [39] Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
The test of the I-was-es:
Seeing Jesus in all our weakness and need
Matthew 13:38-39 KJV
[38] The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one ; [39] The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
When I was younger I would read Catcher in the Rye on a yearly basis. First I was Phoebe’s age, then Holden’s and now I am old enough to know that the narrator sounds too much like a middle aged man with a Peter Pan complex.
But the catchers in the rye are older than me and J.D.
They are the injunction of a God who saves us all from the precipice hill of Golgotha. He tells me I owe him all and I agree. He tells me, come with me into the fields
And I go
I try to go
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