I have lost my ability to deal.

My earlier posts referencing inner calm and quiet have been lost. It’s the typical frantic end-of-year rush at work, and there are still several things I need to do at home to be ready to host Jimmy’s family on Christmas Eve. The crazy is creeping in, and I’m starting to get sucked into the busy of it all.

All these things, however, are completely negated by what I have to do tonight: a trip to the funeral home for the visitation of Scott, the son of  family friends. He was 20 and was killed in a car accident on Saturday morning while heading home from taking exams. He was a fantastic kid, and his family is one of the nicest you could imagine; every time I return to the thought of that Saturday morning phone call I return only to shock, disbelief.

I’m also left just… angry. Just really shocked and angry. This is the third funeral I’ll attend this year, and each one has been sudden and unexpected and much too soon. I’m having a hard time retaining any patience for the many, many things I don’t understand. I’ve lost the ability to deal with these tragedies in any semblance of a detached way; I’ve talked about it before and what I said still stands. Despite the fact that none of this has anything whatsoever to do with me, as a mother it hurts on an entirely new level. It’s a spectre that haunts, this time too close to home.

If you are the praying kind (and you know what? Even if you’re not) please take a moment to pray for this family, particularly his parents and older brother. His death was so sudden and so unexpected; it’s completely unfathomable. Of everything that’s left to do this week, tonight’s visit is the most important.

It’s also the one thing I’m completely and utterly unprepared to do.

He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.

(I am so proud of my company and my coworkers today. What a fantastic group of people I get to work with daily. What you see above is a bit of Christmas Crazy that we are so excited to donate to a local family. We finished wrapping today, and I am just… oh, more than a little overcome. There is so much good in the world, even if we don’t get to see it daily. Just like Santa Claus).

Thank God! He lives, and he lives forever.

My shoulders have fallen.

I feel it first thing in the morning, when I wake to the sound of “Mama! Mama! Mama! Where AAARREE you?” My mind may grumble about the early hour, my mind may wonder how in the world she is awake at 6am and she’s going to be so grumpy by the time I’m out of the shower… sometimes my mind will debate whether I should go in at all, even though I know I always do and always will. Sometimes I’ll consider trying to rock her back down, get that extra half-hour that makes her so much more ready to greet the day.

But that’s all. That’s all.

I don’t wake up with a pounding heart and a maniacally fretting mind. I don’t curse or wish to draw the covers back up over my head.

I wake up with an ordinary, everyday mind now. That in itself is extraordinary.

The roads are messy here. (It’s December in Michigan, the roads are always messy here).

Yesterday I had to run out on lunch to pick up a gift for a family Christmas party this weekend. Jimmy was at school finishing up a few labs before the semester ends on Friday and told me that if I could wait, he would drive me. I didn’t mind waiting, and eventually he picked me up from my office.

We do this often, at lunch. He’ll stop by and we’ll either go for food or he’ll run errands with me. It’s a nice way to sneak “date night” into the middle of the week. Most weeks that’s about as good as it gets, and I’m fine with that. It’s nice to have that time with him.

Yesterday was no different than any other day that we’ve done this. We went to Target, I picked out a gift, we grabbed a copy of The Hangover and I grabbed some Monster Mix. I paid my $50 Target cover charge (seriously, have you ever left for less than that?) and we were on our way.

We were chatting in the car on the way back to the office, holding hands. I don’t remember what we were talking about when the car skidded, the back end fishtailing on the highway.

There was no one behind us or to the side of us; luckily he was able to correct it quickly and we continued on.

We continued on.

:::

It’s moments like this that slap me in the face and bring the anxiety back, rising up full force: how could you and why would you and you haven’t yet and you shouldn’t.

I haven’t had the will notarized. The refinance of the house isn’t final. I don’t have all the cookies baked, Madeline will need diapers by the end of the week, Madeline.

In those 15 seconds of uncertainty she was my only thought – getting back to her, seeing her face. Thinking My God, this can’t be it. So melodramatic for such a small incident, and yet: it was just the tiny gifts of fate that kept it small, made it just a small snag in the fabric of my day.

I don’t want to sink back into that kind of panicked thinking, I don’t want to live my life that way. I can’t live my life that way; if I did I’d never be able to leave the house. But I am listening, God. I am listening, universe. I will take that one panicked moment and build from it, on top of it, bit by bit until I am living a life that I wouldn’t be ashamed to leave.

I was all set to write a complain-y post about the fact that both Madeline and I are sick with a disease of the Sniffly variety, and talk about how the two of us curled up miserably together on the couch last night to watch Dora and do nothing else, but I find myself suddenly disinterested in complaining.

(Although I will say that someday? When she is older and we are synced in that way that happens to women living together and we’re having our periods simaltaneously? GOD HELP MY HUSBAND THEN. Madeline has inherited my penchant for Whining When Ill – we were making the same pathetic noises last night, amidst sorrowful nose daubing).

(Maybe I DID want to talk about The Sick after all).

Anyway, a coworker gave me some sort of Miracle Drug (one that can apparently be used to make meth, as it’s only sold behind the counter) and I feel so very much better. I only wish I could do the same for Madeline,  but I know that her body is doing its work as well. She looked much better this morning. Whenever I feel panicky about sickness affecting her, I try to meditate a bit on all those months I spent pumping, and the wellness I’d pray for as I did so. I know that wasn’t all for nothing, and that I need to trust her body to develop its own immunities now that she doesn’t directly receive mine.

(Perhaps this medicine is going to my head. I’m awfully reflective today. Maybe that’s why this is behind-the-counter stuff: May Induce Reflective Blogging).

In other news, my Holiday Relaxation seems to be ebbing away in the face of the massive grocery list I put together last night. I still have cookies to make and presents to buy… such first-world “problems”, these. I’m working hard to keep my head out of that frazzled holiday space, because it’s so very not at all what this time is supposed to be about. I’m trying to remember the family and fun that will go along with each of the dishes I need to cook in the next two weeks.

I have a vague notion in the back of my mind that next year, I would like to have all shopping and preparation complete by December 1 so that I can spend Advent the way it was created to be spent: in reflection and gratitude, in preparation. It’s maybe not feasible yet, but what a great tradition that would be to pass on to Madeline: a sense of peace and the truth of the holidays.

“Go sleep now, Mumma. A nap.”

Her sticky little hand finds mine, and she starts pulling me through the kitchen and toward the stairs. It’s 6pm and I’ve hardly gotten my boots off; I haven’t yet gotten to go through the mail.

“Go sleep now, Mumma. A nap!”

Frankly, this seems like a brilliant idea, and so I clamber up the stairs after her. At the top, she lays flat on her belly, her head just protruding over the topmost stair. “Dada! Daaadaaa! A nap! Go sleep now!”

He hears her, of course; we’ve almost come to expect it now. It’s fast becoming a nightly ritual, this little pretend nap we all take. When he reaches the top of the stairs she takes his hand as well and leads us both into our bedroom.

It’s dark and quiet. “Sleep now!” she orders, and we three climb into bed. She snuggles between us, flipping back and forth to face one, then the other. She giggles, she kicks, she pats our faces as we fill the room with our pretend, exaggerated snores. “Night-night,” she murmurs, burrowing into my pillow and closing her eyes.

Ten seconds later she’s popped back up, giggling and demanding “Wake up Dada! WAKE UP! Mumma, HEY! WAKE UP!” We both fake groggy surprise and she laughs and laughs, delighted.

“No tickle! No tickle please!” she cries, throwing herself backwards in protest though neither of us has tickled her at all. This, of course, is the cue that she really could do with a good tickle, and we attack together: her belly, her neck, the spot behind her knees. She is so very, very ticklish, our girl. She laughs and laughs and we can’t help but join in.

It is so precious to me, this time - not only that she’ll willingly cuddle for all of five minutes or so, but that she’ll initiate it. That she, too, seems to need time together as all three of us, as a family. Nightly, these are pretty much the best naps ever.

When we were just young there were three of us. Sara and I were separated by just 17 months; Sophie and I by 21 months. We were always together, playing and fighting and playing some more.

We made up a lot of games, the three of us. In my memory I can see many of them that we played when we were older: school, using the real school desks that Mom and Dad found who-knows-where; house, played in the clubhouse that Dad built in the yard, where we’d make food in the sandbox and embellish it with mulberries from the tree next to the chicken coop; Barbies, within the endless universe we’d created across the basement and sometimes carried into the backyard. In the sandbox beach, our Barbies would dance to the classical stylings of Joey Lawrence, the music carrying from the tape player plugged in on the porch.

But before Barbies, and maybe even before Clubhouse and School, there was Busy Street. The three of us rode our bikes in the driveway, round and round, one following the other.There wasn’t a true point to the game, not really. Sometimes we’d draw road lines and signs on the drive with chalk; sometimes the route extended to the back porch and sometimes not. I don’t remember if the route was something we agreed on beforehand or something we just settled into naturally; most likely, Sara decided the direction and pattern. As we rode along we’d shout “Beep! Beep! BUSY STREET!”

If I reach into the way-back of my memory I think that the phrase came from my dad, something he’d shout as he’d pass us on his bike, dissolving us all into giggles. There was a lot of giggling interspersed with that phrase, that much I remember clearly. Round and round we’d go, first on the Cabbage Patch Big Wheels and, later, on two-wheelers, mine with the pink banana seat. That bike had a plastic fender on the front wheel that, when pressed just right against the tire at high speed, would make an obnoxious sound like a fart. I loved that bike.

In the winter, Mom and Dad would clear enough space in the basement that we could bring our bikes inside to ride. In the basement, round and round we’d go: “Beep! Beep! BUSY STREET!” There was a stereo in the basement, one of the older styles that was more a piece of furniture than an electronic, and we’d listen to Solid Gold Saturday Nights while riding in a circle. I can still hear the jingle for the station with perfect clarity; I suspect that I know all the words to so many “oldies” because of those Saturday nights, singing along and riding round and round in the basement.

Later, as we grew, those nights became fewer. Eventually Sophie and I both moved into the basement, and the walls Dad put up to create bedrooms for us took up much of the previous Busy Street real estate. Then we were teenagers, and the bike rides became fewer and fewer, even outside. Too grown up, I guess; intrigued more by the real Busy Streets of the world.

:::

On Sunday night I took Madeline to my parents’ house as I do most Sundays; it’s the day we’re most likely to see everyone at home and can visit and play. Mom and Dad had been cleaning the basement, and we found ourselves down there, Madeline exploring the treasures they’d found.

Suddenly, there was Dad on his bike, riding round and round and ringing the bell. I could hear his voice – all our voices – in my head, crying “Beep! Beep! BUSY STREET!” Madeline shrieked and giggled with delight at his antics; she jumped from foot to foot impatiently, wanting “Up! UP!”

Dad stopped eventually and pulled her onto the bike; he showed her how to ring the bell. “We’ve got to get a little bike for you, so you can ride down here,” he told her.

Twenty-odd years later, there we were in that very same space; now it’s my daughter rather than me he hoists so easily. It seems that no time has passed; it seems as though all time has passed, that maybe those days never really were. I am struck with the continuity of time – how quickly it moves, how much stays the same regardless. A busy street.

The Christmas season officially begins this week in the bessie.viola household, with my office party on Friday night and Jimmy’s extended family Christmas on Saturday. Shockingly, I’m… ready.

I’ve returned the office RSVP count to our venue, I’ve completed the menus and I’ve bought the candies for the tables (totally unnecessary, but something I like to do). The gifts for Saturday’s party have all been purchased and wrapped. I’ll have to go out and buy fruit later in the week to take to the party, and I may decide to make some of the strawberries chocolate-dipped on Saturday morning, but that’s it. I feel oddly relaxed.

This is an uncomfortable feeling, relaxed. It contrasts sharply with my memories of last Christmas, when I was wound so tightly and when I had nothing – nothing – prepared. I wrapped presents for parties the day-of, after running out and frantically trying to determine what to buy. I had no lists, I had no ideas, I had no patience, and I had no sense of peace about any of it. I didn’t even really make cookies; I only made those that my sister came over and baked along with me.

I had an appointment with my OB office on Friday and I’m sticking with what’s been working. We discussed whether I was ready to go off my prescription. I feel that maybe I could? That maybe, I’m okay?  But I’m not entirely sure if that’s the prescription or all the work I’ve been doing – the hard conversations I’ve been having, the questions I’ve been asking (both of myself and my husband). It’s working, in any case, and I’m not rocking the boat yet. Particularly not when it’s the beginning of the long, dark season that is winter in Michigan.

Beginning the celebration of Christmas this year, though… that’s really highlighted the distance from where I was to where I’m going. Last year Jimmy essentially put up the tree alone; I was there but I didn’t do much other than complain. It felt exhausting just to contemplate decorating, and the only thing I wanted to put up was the Nativity. This year I enjoyed decorating, felt real joy when the tree was brought into the house, and have been spending lots of time just relishing all the little moments. It’s been a little bit frightening to realize how little I really felt last year.

Madeline has helped too, no doubt about that; she is enamored of the tree and her stocking and of the little magnetic Nativity I bought for the refrigerator. She carries the little Baby Jesus around with her, crying “Baby JEEESUS! Hi, baby!” She thinks that every present she sees is for her, which means we have to keep very close to her when visiting friends (as we learned Friday night, when she made an attempt to unwrap each of my friend Jessica’s presents laid prettily beneath her tree). She loves the lights on our neighbor’s house, and taking her anywhere after dark is a major treat as all the houses are lit so brightly; she shouts in excitement and names every color, every shape she sees.

She is pure magic, and I see now what my mom means when she talks about the holidays being so much more fun with kids around. Everything is new and fresh and innocent.

I had a thought this weekend, and the thought itself seemed to be evidence that I’m doing okay: I can’t wait until there is snow for her to play in.

Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high
There’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream of
really do come true.
Someday I’ll wish upon a star and
wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops…
That’s where you’ll find me
Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow – then why, oh why can’t I?
If happy little bluebirds fly over the rainbow, then why-oh why -can’t I?

We joked about this song a lot when you were fifteen. You loved – loved – The Wizard of Oz. It was your absolute favorite movie, an incongruous trait for a teenage boy. You didn’t care, it made you happy. The fact that you cared so little about what others thought was one of the things that made it easiest to be with you. You were always so absolutely comfortable in your own skin.

It’s been ten years now since that summer that we all spent together, enjoying the first steps of independence afforded by Jimmy’s driver’s license. He took us all everywhere, and most often “all of us” referred to the four of us. You and Jimmy had been friends first; then through him and my then-best-friend Monica, your girlfriend, I got to know you as well.  Two couples, one beat-up Pontiac 6000. We all had a hand in beating the car up just a bit more: sitting on the hood, the trunk, and that one memorable occasion when Monica and I caused it to run into a tree. Just a little bit of a run-in, just a bump, yet it was another scar for the car’s exterior. A memory, made hilarious by the fact that no one was hurt and Jimmy’s dad didn’t mind (not much, anyway).

I remember: dinners out with you - at Lone Star, notably, where we couldn’t afford more than appetizers back in the day; a notable run-in with a drunk outside of Ponderosa (oh, I cannot believe we used to eat there); walks down your road in the dark; joking about the Children of the Corn while driving down that same road; movie nights at Jimmy’s; putt-putt golf, where Monica and I enraged you both by cheating; Pizza Rolls with ranch; swimming at Monica’s; directions on how to efficiently extract ketchup from the bottle (“Hit it on the Heinz!”); oh, so many things. I remember you.

You joked that when you got your license you were going to drive through town, blasting Somewhere Over the Rainbow from your speakers, windows down regardless of the temperature on your December birthday.

I don’t know if you ever did that. By the time you turned sixteen we had all fallen apart a bit, the way high school couples do. Maybe you and Monica had broken up by then? I think you had. Or maybe it was that Monica and I were no longer as close, though we stayed near to each other throughout our high school days? The details have gone soft around the edges.

That’s not to say we didn’t spend any time together; throughout the remainder of our time in high school we remained on the periphery of each other’s lives. You always had a ready smile and hug. You were fantastic on the football field, and Monica and I both spent a lot of Friday nights yelling for you and the rest of the team as you played undefeated until the state semifinals. We graduated, moved on – I saw you once in a while but with no real regularity. I heard about you from time to time, and you and Jimmy talked every now and then. You met a girl, had a son.

Then – five years ago, now – you were gone, suddenly. We hadn’t talked in so long, then one sunny snowy morning it was assured that we wouldn’t talk again, not here on Earth anyway. I had to break the news to Jimmy, and I’ll never forget the look on his face: disbelief and shock dissolving into immediate, violent tears. I’ll never forget that sound. He’d been meaning to call you; now he couldn’t.

The church was packed that morning of your funeral, full of both your family and your cousin’s. I’d never really known your cousin, but people said it was appropriate that you’d left the Earth together since you spent so much of your time here the same way. The church was so full that by the time we got there we ended up sitting on the altar, behind your casket, where the choir would typically stand and sing. Monica was next to me; Jimmy on my other side. I held each of their hands through the service, though I hadn’t seen Monica in months. When we got to the church that morning, I saw her – we hugged and held on, the years falling away.

When I think of you, though, it’s not of that day, though it is hard to forget. I think of sunshine and summer, athleticism and easy grins. I think of you whenever I see anything pertaining to The Wizard of Oz. When I eat Pizza Rolls, it’s always with ranch on the side, something I will always credit to you. I think of your son often, wonder how he is. I hope that the woman who was your fiancee is well, and happy.

I think of your smile, and I hope that wherever you are, you are happy too.

Madeline,

At nearly 22 months, you are:

• counting to fifteen (although 13, 14, 15 all sound quite alike)
• still completely enamored with Elmo and Abby Cadabby
• answering questions and making requests like crazy: “More raisin toast,” “Snuggle, mumma!”
• contemplating the potty, which you’re not yet completely sold on
• using the phrase “It’s soooo CUUUTE!” constantly, referring to everyone and everything you know
• in love with bugs, necklaces (grasses!), Max & Ruby, Ni-Hao Kai Lan!, chicken nuggets and spaghetti (sketti!)
• very generous with kisses and hugs, given that you’re in the right mood
• a huge fan of playing dollhouse with Dada, and really mostly Dada (I don’t play correctly, it seems)
• singing constantly: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, ABC’s, Sunny Days, Good Ship Lollipop
• a coloring machine, though you really would rather not share your colors and tend to hoard all of them and even hide them under the furniture for Maximum Color Options

Maddie girl, you’re so endearing. I can’t say enough about how much I love where we are right now, the three of us just having fun together. In the evenings when I get home, I open the door and I immediately hear your little feet running out a beat to get to me. “MUMMA!” you shriek. “MUMMA! MUMMA HOME!”

That is the best part of my day, every day. I drop my bags and you propel yourself into my arms, where you hug me – really hug me, squeezing me with your arms - and you chatter excitedly about your day. When I put you down, you grab my finger and lead me off into other parts of the house so that you can show me everything you’ve been doing.

Your words are evolving more and more, and mostly now when you speak it’s in sentences. It’s mind-blowing, this communication we now have. When I have to leave you each morning to go to work, you wave and shout “BYE Mumma! LUBOO!” I remember being so delighted when you began to coo, when you smiled. Now I get to hear your fabulous little voice every day, and you tell me that you love me. I cannot begin to tell you how that makes my heart sing; it heals every single bad thing in my world. It is such an honor to watch you grow.

Lots of people have been asking whether we’re planning to give you a brother or a sister anytime soon. You’re almost two, and that is apparently the deadline for such a matter. The answer, right now, for our family, is no. I love getting to have all this one-on-one time with you; I love having our funny little conversations and snuggling every morning and every night. I’m not ready to share you yet, and I don’t think you’re ready to share me either. I like our little triangle.

You make me laugh every day, and you continue to amaze me with how perceptive and compassionate you are. I love you so much, baby girl – more and more every single day. Thank you for being the amazing little person you are. I am so very lucky to be your mommy.

Luboo, Mommy