(I wrote this a few days ago - just found it and it made me smile. Still intend to write more soon about the gift and what it means, and perhaps what it doesn't mean.)
It's 2 am and I'm awake because Frances had a nightmare that I wouldn't talk to her. She wept and wept, and then she would quiet, but the memory would come again and up came a wail that broke me. I'm right here, I said over and over as I brushed the hair off her sweaty face. I will never not talk to you. I will always be here for you.
6 years ago this minute I was strapped to an IV spittiing out pitocin, laboring hard, miserable. I think it was about this time that I freaked out and turned off the machine myself, told the nurse to unhook me because I was done; I was going home.
That didn't happen.
And now there's a box at the foot of my bed, wrapped and bowed, with an american girl doll inside. It is going to make one 6 year old very very happy.
I still have all kinds of reservations about (and some outright hostility toward) that particular company, but I've chosen to let that fall away for the moment in the service of giving her what may be the only material thing she really wants on this earth.
That will be in the morning. Six years ago when morning came there was no baby, and wouldn't be for a good while yet. But tomorrow morning there is a family here where there was none. Six years. Is that a short time or long? Both, I think.
It's 2 am and I'm awake because Frances had a nightmare that I wouldn't talk to her. She wept and wept, and then she would quiet, but the memory would come again and up came a wail that broke me. I'm right here, I said over and over as I brushed the hair off her sweaty face. I will never not talk to you. I will always be here for you.
6 years ago this minute I was strapped to an IV spittiing out pitocin, laboring hard, miserable. I think it was about this time that I freaked out and turned off the machine myself, told the nurse to unhook me because I was done; I was going home.
That didn't happen.
And now there's a box at the foot of my bed, wrapped and bowed, with an american girl doll inside. It is going to make one 6 year old very very happy.
I still have all kinds of reservations about (and some outright hostility toward) that particular company, but I've chosen to let that fall away for the moment in the service of giving her what may be the only material thing she really wants on this earth.
That will be in the morning. Six years ago when morning came there was no baby, and wouldn't be for a good while yet. But tomorrow morning there is a family here where there was none. Six years. Is that a short time or long? Both, I think.
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