“to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.”
Ellen Bass

The Way It Is

The first thing I do
When consciousness touches me, early morning
Before I open my eyes
Is figure out what day it is.


Is it Friday?  Am I taking her away today?


No.  It's Sunday.  She's coming back.
I breathe.


Sunday morning,  better even than Sunday night.
When I tuck her in tonight I will already count
How many more tucking ins I have
Until Friday.


Call me nuts,
It's just the way it is right now.

Superfluous

When she was tiny and needy someone asked to hold her and then, when she cried for me, wouldn't give her back.  Go relax, they said.  She's fine, they said.

And now.  He decides when I have her.  When he's ready he'll give her back.  If she cries, if she needed me, the softer one when he is harsh, when Daddy needs to be stern, well that's too bad.  She'll be ok.  She'll cry without me.  She'll be perfectly fine.

And I should relax.  I should enjoy the time.  Because I do need it.  I've become the one who does the stuff.  Who gets her ready for appointments.  Who wrestles to get out the door on time.  Who makes her get to bed.  Who says no more treats.   And they are the ones who play.  Until she is too wound up and rough or unkind or overtired.  And then I'm not there.

Somewhere between asleep and awake I was telling someone about the things we'd done. The memories we shared.  "When did he die?", they asked

And I take anxiety meds to make me let go.  To let go of being Mom who I've learned for almost 7 years how to be.  The mom I need to be.  Because there's no room left to be that mom.  Now I have to be the one who says, "Yes, you're right."  Laughs.  And walks away.  She'll be fine.



Tomorrow is a holiday.  So tonight she leaves again.