Family Tree

Batten Disease has been hitchhiking, deep in the roots of our DNA, for centuries.

This tree, planted last year to memorialize Celia, was transplanted recently to root her to our land, to fix her, somehow, to the place we live.  The tree is small and not yet sturdy, and after something so precious was lost, there’s healing that comes with trying to help it thrive here.  The tree fills up a bit of empty space, lessens the ache, allows a little piece of our little one to live on.

*The Greater Atlanta Girls' Choir will give a concert to remember Celia and to benefit Batten research next Friday, May 31 -- 7:30 at Broad Street Presbyterian Church, downtown Columbus.  It's free, but any offerings given will go straight to BDSRA.

**Special thanks to Gary for taking care of the transplant.

Refuse

The boys gather berries and bugs, but they also gather bits of junk -- dark and glittery, jagged and teeny, shiny and soft, our pockets fill.  As little palms pack with rubble, I remember that things can be beautiful whole or broken.
It's the eye of the beholder.  It's the face connected to the fingers that clutch the valued debris.  It's the irresistible urge to collect, the instinct to dismantle and the vague notion that everything can be humptied together again.

There was a television in the alley last week, before bulk pickup day.  There's a pile in the garage that hasn't made it to the electronic recycling location.  There are fans and funnels, old cameras and broken bike seats and ancient radios.  There are tools in rusty coffee cans, trinkets in mason jars and ideas monkeying in young minds.

Tuck oversees the whole orderly mess, rummaging through parts and tinkering with pieces and with thoughts of turning trash to treasure.
Who are we to refuse?

He says:

Holding up Sophie the giraffe, whom he'd dressed up and renamed:  Hey, today is Long Necky's birthday!  She's wearing hats and necklaces and she's playing the kazoo.

Under the piano, where he'd hidden for a self-appointed time out:  My heart says it's a little bit sad and a little bit mad.  Reaching up from under piano to slowly thump low keys:  And it sounds like this. 

Using K'nex construction toys, flying his latest creation in front of my face: Mom, look, it's a lighthouse fish rocket!

Working on his Leap Pad while I worked out nearby and answered eleven billion spelling questions:  Mama, you can spell and exercise at the same time!

At the dining room table, finishing up a game all by himself:  I win!  I make a great team!

Looking at his cupped hands which held the four wriggly worms he'd just caught, and hollering at me across the yard: These guys have some crazy to run out!

Standing at our bedroom window, gazing up: When the clouds get pink then it's almost time for bed.

Reaching for Tollie's hand through the crib slats and kissing his fingers: I'll see you tomorrow, Tollie.  And I love you.  

from the phone

1.  before the game
2.  in the alley
3.  under the sun
4.  at the horseshoe
5.  to the hot dog store
6.  on the steps

7.  aside the grill
8.  after the smoker
9.  in the cup
10.  at the swamp
11. from the bush
12. to the teachers

13.  with the scraps
14.  from the archives
15.  atop the animals
16.  against the glass
17.  at the nursery
18.  in the yard

Lots of looking down and lots of looking up

He points, like a hunting dog, at things I might not have seen, making me much less dull to wonder.  An airplane!  A squirrel!  The sparkly spot on the sidewalk!
He’s a slightly tipsy tour guide, ushering us through otherwise ordinary days, turning bland and boring into brighter and more interesting.

Turning pages

I woke an unsteady mother.  I poured too much cream into my cup, my lips forming a thin line, about to break.  If risk is the price of admission to parenthood, devastation is the worst souvenir.

She made me a mother.  Nothing made me happier than that.
I loved her like there was no tomorrow.  And then one day there wasn't.
Nothing makes me sadder than that.
 
There are moments when it feels like my spirit was severed from my body with hers.  My daughter is gone.  And so with her, her mother.   Not me, entirely, but the part of me that was her mom.  That part of me left the room with her last year.

And so I awoke thinking of that part, the mother who went missing.  I gulped caffeine and put on my game face, coffee sliding like a coin into a slot, attitude slower to cooperate.  I may not have been a great mother this morning, but I made up for it this afternoon.  I did press problems illustrated with iPhones and donuts, and raced dollar store matchbox cars under wooden block bridges.  I made dinner as requested and doled out brownies before clean plates.  I read bedtime books like words were our second dessert.  I stroked foreheads and scratched backs and turned pages about trucks while I tried to still the longing for Madeline and Eloise and Pippi with the same bright red hair.

I know this collection of words cannot transform into visions of Celia.  Still I write, partly out of compulsive habit and partly out of cautious hope.  I trust she cannot be forgotten, but I'm still trying to figure out how to bring her forward through time with me.

These boys are the best.