I think I'm about to be a great-aunt again! My niece Savannah is in the hospital tonight, no guarantees since she is kind of ahead of her due date, but the chances are good that ...just maybe...by tomorrow morning I could be Great-Aunt to Little Miss Heidi Kate, baby sister to Kylee Emersyn! Thinking about this Big Event makes me remember three other beautiful moments in my life....back in the nineties when, after 12 years of infertility, God blessed me with my own little girls, my Zoe in 1993, my Chloe in 1996 and my Caroline in 1999. Those years drifted softly by in a bit of a haze, a pink, bubbly, magical kind of a time when I often held my babies in my arms and closed my eyes, unable to believe that I, at last, was a Real Mother.
Today, Zoe is in Central America, surfing and helping to manage a Bed and Breakfast in a sleepy little town so tucked away the streets don't even have names. She tells me she "wakes up with the sun and goes to bed with the sun" and that she eats from the earth around her, greens and avocados and mangoes. I imagine my sticky-faced toddler Zoe, blue eyes wide with wonder, watermelon juice all over her little face, her beautiful lips curved in their usual smile. "Mommy, God made beautiful food, didn't He?" I remember that moment, clear as day, and for me, that moment is more real and that little Zoe is more familiar to me than this striking girl, this woman who has grown up and so very far away from me....yet whose voice softens when she calls, whose heart leaps across the waters and the waves that separate us...because, in her heart, she is still my little girl too. And I am still her Mommy.
Tonight, Chloe sleeps in her tiny, perfect little studio apartment in South Florida. She will rest well this night, having worked yet another double shift at the Country Club. But she doesn't mind the work. She's good at it, people love her immediately and instinctively. She draws the lonely, the outcast, the popular, the fun and the hurting, all with the same irresistible charm that has graced her since the second she was placed in my arms, all the nurses cooing and pointing at her lovely, sweet face. Chloe will be in college this spring, but right now she is busy with work, with the love of her life, her David, and her "child," my grand-dog Lady. I imagine another Chloe too, a five year old with blonde pig-tails, pink ribbons, and a pink and white dress. She is holding a Mason jar carefully, looking lovingly down into the mix of sticks and blades of grass where Ashley, her lady bug, will live for one night at our house. We lived in a rent-controlled apartment then, the girls and I, and there were strict rules against house pets. Chloe loves animals with a fierce passion and she was determined to have a pet. After puppies, kittens, a horse! and bunnies were ruled out, she came up with a surefire plan. She would, she informed me, find a pet that could would not bark, have accidents, or be big enough to catch the watchful eye of our landlord. And that she did, my irrepressible youngster, marching proudly into the apartment with her sweaty little fingers rolled into a fist. "Look, Mommy," she proclaimed triumphantly, "we have a pet! Her name is Ashley and she's a lady bug!" Ashley the Lady Bug lived for exactly four hours in that Mason jar before I convinced Chloe that Ashley's mother lady bug might be missing her and that maybe we should let her go. Sadly, but willingly, because Chloe's heart is too tender to allow even a lady bug to suffer, she went with me to the yard where, with great ceremony, we opened the lid and pulled out the stick on which Miss Ashley was perched. As Ashley took off, flipping her teeny ladybug wings, Chloe stood bravely by, watching her beloved pet leave. The moment was too big for her to contain and fat tears plopped down her baby cheeks. "Mommy," she said tearfully, sliding her little hand into mine, "do you think Ashley will remember us? Do you think she'll ever come back?" I gathered my girl into my arms and nodded, smiling. "Yes, baby, I do think she will remember us. Every time a lady bug comes by, we will know that it could be her, remembering that we loved her and that she was a part of our family." Even if it was only four hours. That baby with the blonde pig-tails is now my engaged young woman, confident and assured in the plan she has for her world.
And then there is Caroline, my baby, who will be my baby forever since she is the last of my chicks. She is still at home with me and I thank God for her presence every day. Because of how my heart misses her big sisters, because of how a part of me was ripped away the days they left home, I am more aware of how swiftly this time with this, the last of my precious girls, will be. I hope secretly that she will be different, that she will not want to go, that she will be content to live with her mom forever, but even as I wish it, I take the wish back because I want more for her than that. I remember the little serious dark-eyed girl she once was, my little Caro, who sat with an Anatomy textbook at the age of four, poring over the illustrations of bones and muscles and joints. Enthralled, she spent hours every day staring at skeletal parts, smooth-ridged bones and pink glistening muscles. She has had a thirst for knowledge from even before then. When she was two, she climbed in my lap and wanted a story. I skipped a few parts because I was sleepy. She sat up straight in my lap, pointed to the book and informed me, in no uncertain terms, that I "didn't weed it wight." Duly informed, I started over and read the book word for word. Caro is a high school junior now. She is taller than I, and much smarter already! She is disappointed if she makes less than 100 on anything, and she fills journal after journal with stories that read truer and deeper and stronger than many on the actual bookshelves in the library. She is quite brilliant and if you don't believe me, ask her teachers. They tell me all the time that she is gifted beyond measure.
A truck rumbles by outside, shaking me from my reverie. I glance at the clock. 1:36 a.m. No call from the hospital yet. Maybe Heidi Kate is holding out for her due date. I lean against my pillow, smiling. I hope Savannah stretches out this time she has with her two small girls. I will tell her that. But she won't believe me. She won't understand how quickly it will drift away. I know. I didn't either. And the pink pink haze of time will work its magic. And once again, little girls will turn into women. Overnight.
Today, Zoe is in Central America, surfing and helping to manage a Bed and Breakfast in a sleepy little town so tucked away the streets don't even have names. She tells me she "wakes up with the sun and goes to bed with the sun" and that she eats from the earth around her, greens and avocados and mangoes. I imagine my sticky-faced toddler Zoe, blue eyes wide with wonder, watermelon juice all over her little face, her beautiful lips curved in their usual smile. "Mommy, God made beautiful food, didn't He?" I remember that moment, clear as day, and for me, that moment is more real and that little Zoe is more familiar to me than this striking girl, this woman who has grown up and so very far away from me....yet whose voice softens when she calls, whose heart leaps across the waters and the waves that separate us...because, in her heart, she is still my little girl too. And I am still her Mommy.
Tonight, Chloe sleeps in her tiny, perfect little studio apartment in South Florida. She will rest well this night, having worked yet another double shift at the Country Club. But she doesn't mind the work. She's good at it, people love her immediately and instinctively. She draws the lonely, the outcast, the popular, the fun and the hurting, all with the same irresistible charm that has graced her since the second she was placed in my arms, all the nurses cooing and pointing at her lovely, sweet face. Chloe will be in college this spring, but right now she is busy with work, with the love of her life, her David, and her "child," my grand-dog Lady. I imagine another Chloe too, a five year old with blonde pig-tails, pink ribbons, and a pink and white dress. She is holding a Mason jar carefully, looking lovingly down into the mix of sticks and blades of grass where Ashley, her lady bug, will live for one night at our house. We lived in a rent-controlled apartment then, the girls and I, and there were strict rules against house pets. Chloe loves animals with a fierce passion and she was determined to have a pet. After puppies, kittens, a horse! and bunnies were ruled out, she came up with a surefire plan. She would, she informed me, find a pet that could would not bark, have accidents, or be big enough to catch the watchful eye of our landlord. And that she did, my irrepressible youngster, marching proudly into the apartment with her sweaty little fingers rolled into a fist. "Look, Mommy," she proclaimed triumphantly, "we have a pet! Her name is Ashley and she's a lady bug!" Ashley the Lady Bug lived for exactly four hours in that Mason jar before I convinced Chloe that Ashley's mother lady bug might be missing her and that maybe we should let her go. Sadly, but willingly, because Chloe's heart is too tender to allow even a lady bug to suffer, she went with me to the yard where, with great ceremony, we opened the lid and pulled out the stick on which Miss Ashley was perched. As Ashley took off, flipping her teeny ladybug wings, Chloe stood bravely by, watching her beloved pet leave. The moment was too big for her to contain and fat tears plopped down her baby cheeks. "Mommy," she said tearfully, sliding her little hand into mine, "do you think Ashley will remember us? Do you think she'll ever come back?" I gathered my girl into my arms and nodded, smiling. "Yes, baby, I do think she will remember us. Every time a lady bug comes by, we will know that it could be her, remembering that we loved her and that she was a part of our family." Even if it was only four hours. That baby with the blonde pig-tails is now my engaged young woman, confident and assured in the plan she has for her world.
And then there is Caroline, my baby, who will be my baby forever since she is the last of my chicks. She is still at home with me and I thank God for her presence every day. Because of how my heart misses her big sisters, because of how a part of me was ripped away the days they left home, I am more aware of how swiftly this time with this, the last of my precious girls, will be. I hope secretly that she will be different, that she will not want to go, that she will be content to live with her mom forever, but even as I wish it, I take the wish back because I want more for her than that. I remember the little serious dark-eyed girl she once was, my little Caro, who sat with an Anatomy textbook at the age of four, poring over the illustrations of bones and muscles and joints. Enthralled, she spent hours every day staring at skeletal parts, smooth-ridged bones and pink glistening muscles. She has had a thirst for knowledge from even before then. When she was two, she climbed in my lap and wanted a story. I skipped a few parts because I was sleepy. She sat up straight in my lap, pointed to the book and informed me, in no uncertain terms, that I "didn't weed it wight." Duly informed, I started over and read the book word for word. Caro is a high school junior now. She is taller than I, and much smarter already! She is disappointed if she makes less than 100 on anything, and she fills journal after journal with stories that read truer and deeper and stronger than many on the actual bookshelves in the library. She is quite brilliant and if you don't believe me, ask her teachers. They tell me all the time that she is gifted beyond measure.
A truck rumbles by outside, shaking me from my reverie. I glance at the clock. 1:36 a.m. No call from the hospital yet. Maybe Heidi Kate is holding out for her due date. I lean against my pillow, smiling. I hope Savannah stretches out this time she has with her two small girls. I will tell her that. But she won't believe me. She won't understand how quickly it will drift away. I know. I didn't either. And the pink pink haze of time will work its magic. And once again, little girls will turn into women. Overnight.
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