Driving home today, listening to
music, I was reminded again how tenuous are our holds on the people we love.
The life force feels so strong and so sure when they are right next to us and
we forget how suddenly things can change. As a mom, I am terrified at least
once daily about something that could separate my children from me forever,
some small act, some wrong turn, a missed stop sign, a tragedy. These things
scare me so much and make life seem dark, uncertain, paralyzing. To calm myself
down, I remember that literally the only thing we have is the here and now,
this second of this day, right now when my 20 month old is sitting on my lap,
waiting for my attention, her tiny pigtail sticking straight up and tickling my
chin.
Maybe this weak
hold on the strings of life are part of what makes it so beautiful, so rare, so
worthy of adoration. The beauty exists because we are here, we are here
together, right now. Nobody knows what
will happen tomorrow, next week, next year and that uncertainty is what stops
us in our tracks, what makes the tears come when we hear a certain song or a
certain story. But then, mercifully, we are thrown right back into the beauty
of here, the beauty of a dirty diaper to change, a busy schedule, the beauty of the strings that hold us to
each other, that recognition of an unseen bond. And, really, in the end, the
fact that the bond is unseen is what makes it so beautiful. That bond doesn’t
exist in this physical world but in the realm of the ethereal, that which we
cannot see but know with a certainty is there. The terror comes from not being
able to see it, not being able to feel it and hold it to you. When a moment
comes to stop and think, it is so crystal clear that love goes on, despite
broken strings, despite distance, despite the end of life.
My sister in law,
who held her beautiful infant son as he passed away, sent me an article about a
pediatric oncologist who is touching kids lives in more ways than one. He was
talking about dealing with the death of a child and how to prepare for it. One
of his patients was nearing the end of his life, after years of treatments and
medicines, and his mom was in his hospital room. The boy asked her what death
would be like and she stood up, closed the curtain and talked to him from
behind it. “It will be like this, you won’t be able to see me, but you can
still hear my voice and feel that I love you. I am still here.” What a gift to
be able to give your child when you are in the throes of the greatest terror a
mom has. I’m sure she went home and cried; I’m sure at some point she had
railed against the unfairness, the fragility of life. But in that moment, she
saw those strings of life and how the thing that holds us here is not
physicality but love.
At the
end of my teary solo car rides, I get out and am greeted by smiling faces, a
thousand questions, and sticky hands. Life comes clearly through in full force
and I am surrounded by its richness, its texture, the glory of it all around
me. Mostly, I am thankful that for now, our paths run together, I can see my
loved ones on it all around me and it is beautiful. Love in all its terror and its
glory is beautiful, and I am eternally grateful for this moment.
No comments:
Post a Comment