Pages

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Lennox: "You're not leaving me behind!"

Lennox still isn't walking at 18 months. I'm quite certain that he can walk, he would just rather not. He'll stand up and walk with someone holding onto just a little pinkie finger, but he will not let go. I think he might be worried that if he takes that final step and lets go to take his first step, he's going to be left behind;


"If no one has to carry me everywhere we go, how can I be sure they'll remember to take me with them. Am I really ready to fend for myself?"


Quite frankly, I don't blame him. I can understand his concern and I appreciate his strategy. But...it's getting old, and now he's just mocking me. Every time I think he's going to take that first step and my heart starts pounding in anticipation, he just plops down on his chubby little butt and speed crawls away, thinking he's funny and clever.


Today, I decided to suck it up and give it my very best super corny, exhaustively spastic, i-pray-no-one-is-watching-me, display of encouragement, with that nauseatingly cheerful, high pitched voice that annoys even me as I speak it. I pried my pinkie from his super grip and stood in front of him, putting on my best super annoying performance. He stood tall, all on his own and watched me with a great big smile which he was kind enough to disguise as "laughing with me" and not "at me." He let me go on for quite a while as he stood there, wobbly legged, appearing to at least consider taking a step and divulging his secret in appreciation of my efforts. And just as I was about to jump out of my skin with excitement...plop...giggle, giggle.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Two years and a Baby Ginger later...

"She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts." ~George Eliot

I wish. It's been two years since the worse day of my life and not only am I still wrestling with the grief, but it still has me in a pretty tight choke hold.

How can it still hurt so much? How can it still feel like it was this morning at 5:56 a.m. that she took her last breath? Life without her is...different, and I can't seem to adjust to it. I'm not angry and I harbor no resentment towards those who could not save her, nor he who chose to take her away. But it still feels so very wrong.

Baby Ginger is my saving grace today. She is all smiles, more so than usual, and offers great reassurance that her namesake is still here, smiling on us. I get the subtle hints. I went to bed last night, thinking back to that horrible, long torturous night two years ago when we sat by my mother's side watching her chest move up and down, knowing each breath could be her last. And when I woke up four or five times throughout the night to check on my sleeping baby and watching her chest move up and down, I could hear my mother telling me to focus on my hope-filled future Ginger, rather that dwelling on the nightmares of that frail, fading Ginger. And as I hold baby Ginger in my arms (I can't seem to let her go today) and I watch her smile as she drifts off to a peaceful sleep, I feel a gentle reminder that her namesake is also at peace.

The pain of my mother's death feels dark and endless. Baby Ginger brings a very bright hope for a future filled with peace and healing. It's not just her name that she is carrying on, it's her quiet beauty, her curious expressions, her love filled eyes, her hopes, her journey. My mother's work here was not done. She wanted, more than anything, to watch her grandchildren grow. Baby Ginger is here to see to that. Why else would her perfect little name have chosen her. She is a fresh start with an unfinished agenda.