The Miracle

Let me preface this by saying that every time I talk to Dottie, my mother, I can't always hear what she is saying because my brain is just going FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK. Here's a prime example why.  This is an actual conversation.  I am not making it up.

Dottie asks me if I want to hear about a miracle.  "I know you'll love this, being so religious and all."

I, of course, can't fucking wait to hear.  Hell, Lot's wife could have very well absorbed all the moisture in the basement and walked her salty ass right up through the holes in the floor.

Dottie: "So I'm working in my studio and the sun is setting and it's the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen.  So I get my camera and go outside... (here she sidetracks into some story about all the cats sitting on the other side of the road...fffffffffffuuuuuuuucccccckkkkkk... "and they look so peaceful just grooming themselves"......FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKK...) "and then I see this vision.  It's the Virgin Mother and her baby."

Me: "Uh-huh."

Dottie:  "They're sitting on those pieces of wood, over by the bike trail."

Me: "Uh-huh."

Dottie: "They're statuary."

Me: "Uh-huh."

Dottie: "So I get the neighbors to help me move them."

Me: "Uh-huh."

Dottie: "So now I've got Mary sitting on the hill, watching over my gourds I'm growing."

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKK

Me: "So you stole the Virgin Mary?"

Dottie: " No, I didn't steal her.  She's in a very public place.  Besides, you know what those kids would do to her around here."

Um, steal her?

pages 3 &4

After hiding the letters, it had been time to make macaroni and cheese, and take Mama a plate she wasn't going to eat anyway.  By the time she'd gotten the kitchen cleaned up and did  her homework for school the next day, she'd almost forgotten about those old papers from last summer.  Or at least she'd made herself believe that she had.

Except now it was the next morning and she couldn't stop thinking about them.  All through the long bus ride to the new middle school, and the confusion of trying to find her homeroom and get her locker open, and she still couldn't seem to get those purple squiggles out of her mind.  She was scared this was how things went for Mama.  Maybe she saw one thing and she couldn't let that one thing go, no matter how hard she tried to , until the only thing that made it go away was sleep.  Maybe she could swallow a whole rainbow of pills and it still wouldn't make that one little thing go away.

"Earth to Gracie, hellooo?"

It took her a second to realize someone was actually talking out loud to her.

"Wow, Anne, your hair got really long this summer."

Anne turned in a circle so Gracie could admire the blond hair touching halfway down her back.  They had be best friends since elementary school, but Anne spent summers at her dad's house in California, so they hadn't seen each other in three months.  A lot could change in three months.

"How was your Dad's?"

Anne started chattering, all about her stepmother, and how she couldn't stand her younger stepbrother, and how much fun she had at the beach.  Anne was always full of news after these trips, so Gracie leaned back against her locker, knowing she wasn't going to be able to to say anything except "mmhmm" for a few minutes.  It was actually refreshing, having Anne's voice fill her head instead of her own thoughts, and Gracie relaxed for the first time all day.  She didn't even try to make sense of what she was hearing; instead just let all those syllables fill her up like a fizzy soda on a summer day. It was a minute before she realized Anne was watching her strangely.

"Gracie? Are you even listening?  I said, can you believe she did that?  And then I had to share a room with him while they replaced the carpets from the leak and he's such a dork.  Ugh, I don't
 know how you can stand having a little sister around you all the time,"  Anne clapped her hands over her mouth. "Oh God, I didn't mean that.  I'm so stupid. I'm so sorry, Gracie, really, I just forgot and.."

She tapered off, her face red from embarrassment.

"It's okay, Anne, really.  You haven't been here all summer.  It's no big deal, okay? So tell me some more about the beach--did you go a lot?"

But Anne suddenly remarked that she wasn't sure how to find her next class, and hurried off to look for it to avoid being late.

The summer soda fizzy feeling disappeared as she watched Anne's back hurry down the hallway. She was stuck in her own thoughts again, with Polaroids of Mama in bed, and purple crayon L's,  and of course Layla.  Always there were thoughts of Layla.  She was carrying Layla around like her old backpack from last year and everyone knew it.  That's when Gracie realized what sixth grade was really going to be like for her.  It wouldn't matter what she said or did in school.  She was always going to be known as the girl whose little sister drowned in Cooper's Pond over the summer.

Chapter 1

It was the first day of school and Gracie still couldn't get Mama out of bed.

"Come on, Mama, it's real pretty outside. Won't you just look?" Gracie pulled the curtains open, but Mama just rolled over and faced the wall.

"Okay, Mama, maybe tomorrow. I made you a sandwich and some sweet tea. It's next to your medicine on the table. I've gotta go to school now, but I'll be home real soon and then we can maybe look at some TV together, okay?"

There was no answer, but Gracie didn't expect one. It had been like this for weeks now, and all the medicines the new doctor kept giving her weren't making any difference. Gracie wondered if maybe Mama had gotten worse since she started taking all those pills, but she figured something had to start working soon. You didn't go to school to be a doctor for all those years and get so smart just to let people stay in bed all day. At least she hoped so.

Gracie gave Mama's room a quick glance to make sure she hadn't forgotten to leave anything for her. The pill bottles were lined up like spices next to the sandwich plate; the blue pill for sleep, the big pink ones and little white ones to make Mama smile again, and the perfect round yellow one that was stamped with a smiley face to help her stay calm. That was how the doctor explained it to Gracie, telling her by color instead of name, as if she were some kind of little kid who couldn't even read yet. It was almost time for Mama to go back to the clinic and get more pills. Gracie wasn't even sure she could get Mama out of bed to catch the county bus for her appointment. If nothing else, the yellow pills were working a little too well, not that the doctor ever asked for her opinion.

Gracie sighed and stood still, her eyes caught on the sunlight pouring through the tea pitcher. This had always been her favorite room; with the bright east light coming in the window in the morning and then filtering through the loblolly trees that shaded the western window as the day grew longer. It was a small room, with just a twin bed, the old, stained dresser, and a night table, but Mama had filled the dresser top with all these little picture frames. If you came in at just the right time, the light would ripple over the pictures and stream like water. It was like being inside a fish tank filled with faded reflections of who you used to be at one, or two, or three years old; missing teeth and crooked ponytails as you smiled back forever through the murkiness. Gracie remembered being lulled to sleep in that underwater room, with the smells of Mama prepping dinner in the background mingling with the smell of Sand and Sable perfume on the pillows. The longing to go back to that time was so unexpected and sudden that Gracie gasped and shook her head. She had to get out of that room before is sucked her down that dark pool where mama was. The last image Gracie had before she shut the door was of Mama's back, lying in the same position.

It was later than she thought, and Gracie had to hurry to get her own lunch together so she didn't miss the bus. Her backpack was sitting ready on the kitchen chair where she's put it before she went to bed. She'd had to use her old book bag from last year, but she didn't think anyone would notice. It had taken her awhile to find it and eventually she'd had to go into Layla's room, where she found it, way back under some stuffed animals in the closet. Layla was always taking Gracie's stuff, and it used to make her pretty mad, but last night she'd been in too much of a hurry to care. She was afraid Mama would wake up and find her in there. She'd tried to put the stuffed animals back exactly the way they were, but everything was so jumbled it was hard to remember what went where.

Oh well, Gracie had thought, it's not like Mama's really going to get out of bed to come in here anyway.

Except she knew that wasn't true, because sometimes when she got up at night to use the bathroom, Layla's light was on, leaking under her door, and she could hear Mama moving around in there.

I'm just gonna hope she stays out of the closet then.

The stuffed animals stared blankly at her as she quietly shut the closet door and crept out of the room. It wasn't until she had gotten past Mama's door to her own room that she began to feel better. And then she'd opened the backpack.

It was filled with all her old papers from the final day of fifth grade last year. Gracie could remember cleaning out her desk and cramming papers inside, in her hurry to catch that final bus ride to summer. Layla must have stolen her backpack soon afterwards, because she'd colored in purple crayon all over her papers, and written her name with her backwards L's and crooked triangle A's on a couple. Just looking at those letters made her jumpy, and she was torn between quick throwing them out or hiding them where Mama wouldn't find them. She wasn't sure how long she stood there, just looking at those bold L's and A's, before she hid them in a drawer under her old paper dolls.


all right guys, there's 3 pgs. be mean, make me cry, make it better. you can do it.

Indian Summer

An old poem I pulled out for my little sister:

When we were walking (away, always away
and you too little to know it then but I did)
blackberry stained Keds, soles worn smooth
your two steps to my one.
Down the tracks, rotten wood ties and steal
traps gaping, hungry for our ankles so I
watched real careful your two steps
two steps to my one.
Behind us the house an open sore, windows oozong
shame and the smell of soft things gone bad
and we are running now.
Clover trains hanging round your neck
regal Queen Anne's lace in grubby fingers,
and always the wild vines, stretching, stalking, swallowing
your small shadow.
But you didn't know so you said
tellme tellme tellme a story
      (All the better, all the better all the better
        to smell you with)
I said, walk further and look out
for snakes, slithery, slimy, scale, scary snakes.
And you laughing, laughing teeth white
picket rows, no tooth fairy theiving
and your breath fresh.
Skipping now, the heat rippling off the tracks
Indian summer hot, your hair wet curls
dark against a neck too pale.
Still keeping up, sweet sweat smell following
your two steps to my one.
Tellme Tellme Tellme, you chanted
     (All the better, all the better, all the beter
        to eat you with)
And you didn't know any better
And I was the big sisiter, the chocolate milk maker.
the high shelf reacher, the teddy bear nurse.
So I told you a fairy tale.

Bradford Pear

When someone dies, and your world stops- but just your world, because the rest keeps spinning, it's not easy. Not that anyone said it would be.  All you really have left is the ability to honor the person you lost, and in my family that means telling stories. 

Lynn really liked to mow our 3.5 acre lawn.  None of us knew why, but why question a good thing?  So I made sure she put on sunscreen, and brought out ice water, and fed her when she was all done (this was hours later- talk about anal. She could put Mr. Lawn Fanatic next door to shame).  One day I planted a very small Bradford pear.  Ok, it was a stick, but it was going to be a Bradford pear.  I assured Lynn of this.  And for the next three years all I heard was, "Why do I have to mow around this stick?"

It's been 14 years and that stick is a good 20 feet high, filling with white flowers in the spring and berries for the birds in the fall.  The kids laugh at this story, and want to hear it over and over.  I'm happy to oblige.

Luckily, Lynn was around to see that stick she so carefully mowed around bloom.  And I was around to tease her about it.

Bradford pears are beautiful trees, but they don't last long. Their limbs fall, the trunk cracks, and eventually you have a once beautiful mess on your hands.  Still, I wouldn't trade the years of beauty for its eventual ruin, and I have to remind myself of that with Lynn.  She never had the opportunity to watch her carefully cut around stick finally succumb, but I know it's in my future.  Knowing doesn't make it any easier than not knowing, and this I have learned for sure.  I'm doing my best now to keep my own trunk from cracking; to keep my limbs intact; my flowers blooming.  And right now, it's the hardest thing I've ever done.

Spring, May 7th

I am raging screaming
at acid rain,
and silent springs,
and incompetent doctors.
But mostly I scream for the stubbornness of you.
It won't stop raining.
Spring is here,
Dead silent on your end.
Do incompetent doctors notice?

So I plan my picture
because what is left but the pain of the needles
inking in the essence of you.

A heart.
A light saber.
A rainbow swallow.

Inked into my left arm,
left, always left, but your Catholic school cursive would not allow you to slant
Or smudge your words.

So now mine are smudged; a mish-mosh.
Grief, longing, an endless shocking pain.

Capturing your essence in ink
will never be possible,
But I will try.

A heart.
A light saber.
A rainbow swallow.

Each stick of the needle reminding me
there is no afterlife,
and what little time of a life we had.

And these stupid acid tears won't stop
in my forever Silent Spring.

Cul de Sac

Grief is exhausting.  On a rational level, I know time will help.  Memories become glue; happy and sad times stick out in your mind, offering comfort rather than sorrow.  But.

But, I am tired of waking up in the morning with dried tears on my face.

But, I continue to reach for my phone to text her daily, only to be reminded over and over there is no one to respond.

But, I have 9 saved voicemails I never listened to, because I always called her right back, and now they sit, unopened, because I am too raw to hear her voice.

But, I opened one of her books yesterday (Flannery O'Connor's letters, for those who are interested), and was confronted with her handwriting that I knew so well-- the tiny, introverted, perfectly formed Catholic print that never dared slant, despite her being left-handed.

But, Easter is coming and I have no one to send that stupid chocolate rabbit joke to.  You know, the one where someone ate the ear off one and took a bite out of the bottom of the other.  "My butt hurts." "What? I can't hear you." 

But, my oldest child turned nine last month, and it was the first time she was not there.  And then it struck me that my youngest child will turn three in the summer, and he will never really remember her, except through our stories.

And I have stories.  Thirteen plus years of stories, five years of which we shared an office daily.  In that office, our job was to assure the quality of life for intellectually disabled adults.  To put it bluntly, we spent a lot of time with retards; both the ones who had the disability and the ones who were supposed to be helping them.  Trust me, I have stories.  Everywhere I go, everything I see, do, or hear has something attached to her.  It is a Ferris Wheel of a life shared, and I circle and circle and circle; up, down, and around; all the time holding these conversations in my head with someone who can't answer, unless I do it for her.

"I think I am beginning to understand why grief feels like suspense," C. S. Lewis wrote after the death of his wife. "It comes from the frustration of so many impulses that had become habitual.  Thought after thought, feeling after feeling, action after action, had H. for their object. Now their target is gone. I keep on through habit fitting an arrow to a string, then I remember and have to lay the bow down.  So many roads lead to H. I set out on one of them. But now there's an impassable frontierpost across it. So many roads once; now so many cul de sacs."

The funny thing about her, especially considering that she was best friends with me, was that she seldom cussed.  "Holy Cow" or "Doggone it" were her typical phrases.  I can hear her now in my head, like I do daily.

"Doggone it, Cari," she'd say, that hint of irritation in her voice the only give away that she was really pissed. "I died."

So you did, my friend, so you did.  And now I'm stuck in this fucking cul de sac, and everything looks the goddamn same, and I'm running out of motherfucking gas, and normally I'd text you a string of obscenities about this shit, and holy cow, you'd be on your way with a gas can.  And you'd get lost too, because we both suck at directions, but eventually you'd find me and we'd get the fuck out of that place together, one following the other.

And that's how it should be.  But, it isn't.

A Lynn Story

I want to tell a story about my friend, Lynn. It's a good story, and because it's one of my stories, it involves poop.

A few years ago, a bunch of us went on vacation to this farmhouse from hell in upstate New York. This house had no AC, a crazy landlady who drove her golf cart like it was a Carrera, and leeches in the pond. Those were just a few of the highlights that were not mentioned when we rented it.  During this time, New York was also experiencing one of the worst heat waves in its history.

Rather than load up 6 adults, 5 kids, and 1 dog and head back to Maryland, we decided to make the best of it. So the two smart adults in the group left in their air conditioned car to go to the air conditioned store and get supplies, leaving me frying bacon in a kitchen with absolutely no cross ventilation, while simultaneously keeping an eye on Beckett (then 3) and his cousin, Poppy (2). The bedrooms all had window units, so the other smart adults had retreated to their rooms.

I heard Poppy use the potty like a big girl and mentally crossed that prompt off my to do list. A few minutes later, I realized that the quiet background noise of two toddlers contentedly playing together had escalated into the sort of maniacal laughter you only hear when something has gone completely wrong - or, in their little minds, completely right.

And what the hell WAS that splashing sound?

I peek around the corner and see a tsunami of poopy water pouring out of the powder room and down the hall. Since this farmhouse was built in the 1800's, nothing is level. So water is essentially pooling in huge puddles everywhere. Poppy and Beckett are beyond delighted, splashing merrily in what to them must look like mud. I'm frozen, as they laugh hysterically at the never ending flood of shit water, and all around me is the sizzling sound of cooking bacon intermingled with cheerful splashes.

And then Poppy slips and face plants. Laughter instantly turns to tears.  More importantly, I smell bacon burning.

"Oh, HELL NO!" I did not just spend thirty minutes cooking bacon in that steaming kitchen for it to burn.  

So I screamed. I screamed loud enough to be heard over the splashing,and the crying, and the constantly running toilet, and the sizzling bacon, and the window air conditioning units. I did not have to scream over the sound of the dishwasher (it was broken), or the sound of the washing machine (also broken).

Lynn and Horse appeared. Horse instantly starts trying to stop the flood of water before it hits the living room.  I'm flipping bacon like a short order cook on crack, because it WILL NOT BURN.  And Lynn, despite the agonized look on her face, assesses the situation and jumps right in.

"Come here, guys," she calls, wading over to Poppy and Beckett, "Bath time!"

She takes their tiny, shit covered hands in her own immaculate ones and leads them up the steps to the tiny 1960's, blue-tiled bathroom.  Then she scrubbed those kids from top to bottom, while I finished the bacon and helped Horse with the cleanup.

Cause that's how Lynn rolled.  She hated sticky messes, finger painting could send her straight over the edge, and I don't think she ever changed one of my kids' diapers in their lives.  But she knew damn well we weren't eating burnt bacon, and if that meant that she had to clean a bunch of toddlers covered in their own feces, then that was what she was going to do.  And no sense complaining about it.

But I'm pretty sure she flipped the landlady off before we left.