life fresh from the dryer

the moment after Pepper was born

I just pulled Pepper's baby blanket out of the dryer, bundled it around my nose, enhaled deep and exhaled
tears.  The smell was of a newborn sweetness, milk, and new life.  I huddled around this memory. I was shocked by it's potency.  I slid to the floor against the washing machine's humming.  Like the last hug of a lover, I held on. It started slipping the moment it came to me.
This will never be mine again.
My time for fresh life is past.  Now I have obnoxious sacks of angst bouncing against each other.  They are chaos and raw potential, and I have to figure out how to organize them. There are many paths, and we stumble together, holding hands, trying to find the right one.
My sister is next.  Her baby is coming in November.
And it's ok that I won't have another newborn baby.
In a way, I am more able to relish this baby than she is.
As my Mom was with mine.

having a conversation on the Train at Lagonn

I never understood why my mom was content to hold my crying babies.
I just wanted to get the hell away from them.
But she would always take the bundle.  She'd lay it down gently and re-wrap it slowly.
Then she'd just rock and coo with a gentleness that seemed unending.

I think I could do that now.

Pepper is the best for taking naps with, just as her Aunt Nennie.

God is not

I miss him.
I miss knowing we are doing the same thing, together.

I miss taking our kids to the pool and realizing they will be grown too soon.
I miss knowing he loves the sun on his back just as much as I do.
I miss hearing him dream, seeing him reach long fingers with fire in his eyes.

Once again, someone I love has gone to a place I cannot follow, and I hate to watch him walk away.
It seems this is my lesson.
My whole life - I have been watching people walk away.
I thought I'd be better at it by now.
It hurts every time.  It is a shock every time.
I know I have friends who will die.
Who are dying...
I should get ready, right?
I should prepare for the call.

I am afraid he will commit suicide.
I am afraid he will put himself so deep in a hole that he cannot come out.
I am afraid because I have to set boundaries, and I am left to watch from behind my baracade.
I am sick of watching.
I am sick of watching people self-destruct.
However I am torn, because I know it is part of the path.
I am afraid because I know this is the only way to freeom.
But, not everyone makes it all the way through.
They die in their suffering.
I cannot make this add up.
It is senseless from where I stand.
Our most desperate attempts to live are swamped by chaos, like the tiny turtles on the nature channel.
They are killed before they make it to the ocean.
With all their gusto for life, they flap straight into death's open mouth.

I am afraid he will die right in front of me, but still breath.
Still wearing the appearance of someone I once knew, he will not let me grieve.
I am afraid I will watch my friend's ghost struggle for an exit.
Perhaps this is the origin of ghost stories about people stuck between two worlds.

And all of this I must do from behind my wall.
I hate the wall and it's necessity.
It is a privilege to be able to say, No.  The dignity of choice, right?
The gift and the burden of eyes wide open has placed me here.
I don't know.  Maybe I just hate that I am not God.

Or that God is not...helping everyone.

My only consolation is what I do not know.

I have faith that so much more is happening then I can see.

So, in the end, Grace is not what I know, but what I do not.