Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Generations

Though I was her labor nurse for three of her four children I do not know her well. I knew the set of her broad shoulders, the shine of her beautiful brown hair and the lilt in her voice but when I saw her walking down the hall to room 279 I did not know that her daughter was in labor.

I only knew her now-grown children through their medical care. First immunizations and well baby check ups. Later, appendicitis and pneumonia. And now, labor.

I went to greet her. She looked tired. Determined, but tired. And happy to see me. Mothering a laboring child is a tight rope walk. You must be strong but tender. Compassionate but not timid. And not a sissy. Being in labor yourself is easy compared to a tending a laboring daughter who is frightened and in tears.
Yes, she was happy to see a familiar face, the face of another mother.

I rubbed her shoulders as I smiled my hello. She smiled her beautiful smile back at me as she returned to her daughter and the labor nurse who would tend her.

It was a long day. Others gathered to wait. A woman, older than I, who would become a great grandmother this day, sat on a stool out side the hospital room door. She was fervently willing birth to come, and, finally, birth did come.

It is a beautiful sound, the sound of labor ending and a new life beginning.
I heard it from the hall. I went in to see a pink cherub of a baby lying in the crib surrounded by an exhausted mother and grandmother, a relieved great grandmother and a room full of siblings that I had seen come into the world.

Three generations standing at a bedside gazing at a baby. Happy. Life is good.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

The Moon

What is it about the moon?
Of all the things in nature that are commercialized- leaves, sea shells, flowers made of every product from silk to resin, it is moons that draw my attention.
When my late husband, Dennis, was sick and our daughter was leaving for college, he said to her " Don't worry, we will never be far apart, we will always have the same moon. " It might be that - the moon especially from the back yard, hanging in the sky, reminds me of him, but it is more.
The moon is not as hot or as cold feeling as the sun. It feels friendly some how. The man in the moon, playing peek a boo with the clouds on a steely gray night, feels like a play mate.
The sun is fierce and fiery. Sweetest at sunrise and sunset, but the moon is always sweet. It is sweet in its slivery stages, a tiny thread hanging down from above playfully and it is sweet when it is full, a globe of romance pulling us up up up into our best selves.
I stand taller in the moonglow than I do under the brilliance of the sunshine which makes me wilt in the heat and shrink into myself in the cold.
I compete with the sun for my place in the universe but the moon offers me support, a place and time to wrestle with my life choices, to revel in my blessings, to let my heart expand with gratitude.

AHHA! That's it. The moon makes my heart expand with gratitude - I knew it was something. Thank you moon.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Pancakes, Bacon and Walking in the Rain

They are eleven and two.
He is tall and lanky, and loosing his (baby) teeth faster than the tooth fairy can circle the globe. He is soft spoken and witty. Clever, artistic.
She is still in diapers and has lost her "inside voice"
She shouts her wants and screeches her delights. She bellows her "I love you's"

He unwinds himself from sleep in the pink room that he wants to paint green and reaches for a book hoping to escape my notice.

She chatters in her PortaCrib until I open the door to the yellow room and then raises her arms for some morning love. She wraps her legs around me as I lift her soft,warm, soggy bottomed body to mine.

They both want pancakes and bacon. I knew they would.

Breakfast behind us and the dishes left undone, she demands outside. We don long socks and rubber boots - hers purple, mine green - and lightweight sweatshirts. He disappears inside my bright yellow slicker and grabs the dog leash for the impatiently yapping Buffy Bot.

I open my enormous bright blue umbrella, but she demands her own. She wants dinosaurs, but I proffer cats and, amazingly, she acquiesces. We are a sight, these two granddarlings and I, on this rainy Saturday morning.

"Be careful Gramma, " she warns, " don't walk in the puddles!" "Oh, Nattie, " I reply, "today we CAN walk in the puddles. That is why I invited you over!"

She is two almost three and I am fifty nine almost sixty. We walk hand in hand through every puddle we can find, twirling our umbrellas as we go.

He is eleven almost twelve. He heads in the other direction.