Waving Back

It happened again. This morning, waving to my son as he turned to walk into school, for a split second I wondered who in the world he was, where he had come from, and would his mother mind that I was signing "I love you" to him out the window?

When exactly did I become mother to such a brilliant force of light in this world--a thinking, cognitive human separate from me, yet from me? Possessing so much existence and future? It scared me a little.

When I became a parent, I was naive, self-centered, thoroughly caught up in how the little life I had produced through several hours of excruciating pain was going to affect my world because up until that time, it was just my world. I inhabited it, along with my husband, and various family and friends scattered along the edges. Like nearly everyone else, I spent years considering what I was going to be when I grew up, where I would go to college, what type of job I would find, who I would marry. Somehow those things were fulfilled as I was barely paying notice and so it seemed a clever thing to start our family next. And shall we just say everything from that point on was pretty much shattered.

Lately, I catch myself thinking: so I'm going to pour myself totally into these young lives, so that they can go out into the world and make a go of it themselves and then the cycle starts all over again with them. They'll spend years thinking about what they'll do with their lives, only to discover that was never the real goal. Maybe that sounds strange. I think it must have an awful lot to do with our American thinking--so centered on our own success and future. I know there's more life ahead for me (God willing). Probably more years than I will know what to do with. I don't feel bitter about this. I'm just realizing how when we're young, we're focused on one track of life. We have children and jump completely from that track to another. I suppose you might jump back later, or perhaps create a completely new track. But today you find yourself, taken aback, waving to an 11-year-old who embodies the very things you embodied just a short time ago. But these things aren't discussed ahead of time.

Can you imagine if they were? Say a high school or college course: "Plans? What Plans: The Birth of A Child 101;" "Budgeting with Children: Stop Crying Over Spilt Milk;" "Overcoming the Lunch Lady Syndrome: Breast Feeding & You;" and "You've Spent Years Thinking It's All About You: Get A Grip Childrearing I & II."

Instead, life gives you children and then daily feeds you with unavoidable (albeit humbling) moments of surprise. I could have avoided these experiences altogether; could have chosen instead to make a go at something, do well, make a mark, forge a new trail, climb a mountain, fulfill every motto of those ridiculous motivational posters, and what would I have to show for it? More frighteningly, what would I have become? I'd still be stuck on that one predictable "what I'm going to be when I grow up" track. Instead, I now understand that there are multiple tracks in life. Some will end sooner than expected. Others will resume later. Some must be followed diligently because lives are at stake here. All the while, those experiences, good or bad, are molding me into the person I was planned to be from the beginning; chipping off the edges that were narrow, self-consumed. Demanding that I love till there's nothing left and then start all over the next day. Abandoning my notion of future.

I think many of our hopes are meant to be unfulfilled. Many more become glaringly ridiculous in the reflection of our children. What then would we have to propel our children forward? I don't mean living vicariously through my child. The dream will look different, but we need some force, some passion to pass on. Think of all the immigrants, for example, who came to this country with nothing, fulfilled their one dream, and then passed the rest to their children. A better life, more opportunities were not for them but for their children. Those aren't concepts we're much acquainted with anymore.

Who but my child can deliver such surprises--shake me to the core, redefine my future, as he glances back over his shoulder, raises a waving hand and reminds me there is still so much mystery in the world. Still so much I might miss if I'm not looking intently, waving back with everything I have.

To The Better Man

This is an excerpt from a piece I wrote November 25, 1991:

I waited forever. Night and day. As I stood behind the yellow ribbon marking off the large grassy area, I was still waiting. In the past eight months, I 'd watched the world go to war and endured one of my own too. On that cool, cloudy August afternoon, it was hard to believe the waiting was nearly over. I frantically watched for the greyhound buses to appear around the corner with the Marines of the 1/24.

It was hard to believe we had all stood here months before, on a sunny, cold December day. That day started this long journey. That Tuesday, we put the men on the buses and watched them drive away. Tommy watched me from his window, signed "I love you" and was gone. We passed through Christmas. We passed through New Year's. We passed through Easter. I sat through those months watching war on T.V. along with millions of other Americans.

We passed through the first day of summer. By then, many service men and women had returned home. Then when it looked like the 1/24 might return, Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted. The guys had been stationed there since April. For three weeks we heard nothing. No letters. No phone calls. Everyday I watched the news coverage of the eruption -- for a possible glance of Tommy. Their base was decimated. The jungle surrounding the barracks disappeared, replaced with mountains of debris and ash.

One early Sunday morning the phone rang. It was him. I started believing I'd really see him again. At the same time, I wanted to lie down and sleep. Summer was long, and hot and slow.

And then it came. He was coming home. I felt cheated. He would appear as instantly as he had disappeared, and I had no power over any of it. I'd barely accepted his leaving and now he was coming home. I realized then it had nothing to do with me, or what I wanted to change. That was irrelevant. I could never be master. This was life -- the thing I'd been saying I was ready to take on. It had taken me on.

Standing there with hundreds of other people under the dark clouds of that August day, it began to feel like we were just going to wait and then go home. And then the greyhound buses appeared around the corner.

And they were there and people were screaming running toward the yellow ribbon the guys were getting off the bus and being dismissed people broke through the ribbon everywhere they were running and yelling out names I couldn't find him I yelled his name Tommy Clark! Tommy Clark! his sister calling, "Can you see him?" Tommy Clark! seeing the back of his neck his beautiful tanned neck Tommy! slamming into him crying laughing kissing face in his neck smelling it dreaming all this time of that smell him picking me up and walking away from the crowd and family all around grabbing for him his father crying taking pictures and laughing hard deliriously hard crazy with joy.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~John Stewart Mill

Ode to a Buyer's Realtor

Why will you not call, oh Buyer's Realtor?
What have we done to cause you to
toss us aside?

Did our floors not gleam? Did not the sunshine
stream unhindered through the windows?
Did we not create a balance of unhindered
possibilities for your clients?

Should I have used the Glade Scented Vanilla candle
rather than the Home For Autumn Cinnamon?
Were the pumpkin spice muffins too hot?
Perhaps the throw pillows were scattered too casually?

Oh Buyer's Realtor, why will you not call?
Did the bathrooms not shine?
Could you still detect a trace of fingerprints left the day before by
busy and anxious children who endured

Cross parents and a supper of PB&J eaten
Over the trash can?
Do you not apprehend the strain of preparation
Or does our desire to please distract you?

Oh Buyer's Realtor, we've waited 3 long days. Don't tell me:
You discovered the 4B, 3Ba, kitchen upgrade, priced to sell, ready to move in
Did you see the haphazard decorating? Did they serve warm baked goods?
Are you even a licensed realtor?

Forget that.
We'll drop the price by ten, throw in our Caymans timeshare and move out next week
Buyer's Realtor?
Why don't you call?