Afraid Again . . . Naturally

I am afraid. Again. An ordinary woman with extra ordinary concerns, surely more than the average female.

            The fear comes to greet me each time a child prepares to fly-be-free. Anxiety bids me to taste it and I obey, cannot resist though I know the flavor hasn’t changed, has not improved one whit since the last time.

            Afraid’s mouthfeel is that of rust, peat moss, a scab slicked by a child’s tongue then dried by the wind. Burnt Sienna Crayon flaked on a box grater. A crushed cigarette eaten with no water to wash it down.

            Is all fear—of life, not death—like this? Suffocating, strangling? Causing one to quake like corn kernels in a heated and covered pot, skittering frenetically in order to avoid death by drowning in high temperature olive oil (not canola oil as it is really RAPEseed oil).

            Surely death, or considerable damage at the very least, is inevitable if I grant my fists permission to unfurl. Instead I clutch my balled hands in my lap, relocate them after a time to beneath my thighs so as to prevent their becoming manacles around her delicate wrists, the means by which I hold her here, close to my heart, gasping for breath.

            All I want is one person to acknowledge my angst, recognize it as a higher form of love. I need someone to watch me cup my hand over my mouth to silence my sobs, my keening. Will someone please applaud as I murmur, “You can be anything, accomplish whatever you set your mind to. I’m sure of it.”

            For eighteen years I’ve known this was coming, the severance of a second umbilical cord, this one invisible—a rope of me, her, her papa, and God—encased in a gleaming moist sheath which is love. It thrums with the possibility that each goodbye may be the last. Unseen hands tug the strand from “gone forever” to “wildly successful and full of joy.”

            Someone please fetch that box over there, the one lacquered almost black with open heart pink satin lining. Inside I’ll arrange the grayed strips of paper which when ordered correctly read: I can take better care of her than she can, He can.

            Now I need a brick, a hammer, or a gun so I can obliterate the square in one fluid WHAM! Next I’ll locate a sheet of diaphanous yet metallic vellum and a pen with silver ink. At the dining room table I’ll make loops and swirls on scratch paper to guarantee flow then I’ll form calligraphy letters big as baby fingers: I TRUST. After I trim the statement, the affirmation, I’ll fold it again and again till it’s the size of a vein, a whisper.

            Where is the wee velvet box my husband snapped open on a pier over the ocean two decades plus ago? I’ll tuck my trust wisp into its white satin cleft, let the lid bite shut then nestle it at the bottom of a fireproof chest hidden in the secret place. Surely it, she, will be safe then . . . 

Prey

The roar outside my structure is deafening. I hate the way it makes my skull tight, my sternum vibrate. I hunker into a shell shape, plug my ears, rock back and forth. The lion is hellbent on supper—muscle, bone, marrow—mine. I am an at-risk target, neither young nor old, not even ailing. Worse, I am alone, almost silent in my vacillation: fight or flight.

            “Easy pickings,” purrs the beast. His spined tongue trips as he speaks a language foreign.

            I was informed years ago that it is good to be hunted. It means your contents, spiritual, are worth consuming, important to destroy lest you accomplish something for the other side, the other lion. It’s a comfort though not particularly substantial at the moment.

            As black becomes blacker, I formulate a list of things I long for: a shield, a sword, a stronghold (or wood and nails to build one). A circular boundary replete with knife-like thorns would serve me well.

            An hour later, searching through the one book I have in my possession, I realize I am Thomas. Daily I long for something I can see, something I can touch. I am the father of the possessed boy as well, begging, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.” I am Jacob even, my hip aching from midnight’s wrestling match.

            The canvas gives as the lion brushes it.

            “Be gone!” I tell the cat. “You can’t have me after all for I am not alone, not anymore.”

            The whisper of paws in sand moves away. After a minute I hear my breath leak out, notice my shoulders freefall. My flesh feels loose, raw, and at the same time full of power. I find a stone to serve as a pillow and finally I am able to sleep.

            The morning is silent when I peek out my tent. Ten feet away, lying on his side, back to me, is the lion. I snap my fingers. Wait, watch. He doesn’t move. I approach him, encircle him slowly, noiselessly. He sleeps the slumber of Sheol. His eyes are shut but his mouth is not, cannot, for it is wedged wide around my pillow rock.

            I shake my head and marvel. “So that’s who I am,” I tell the morning. “Of all people, how did I manage to forget him?” I stare across the desert to where a knuckle of dawn light, mango-colored, rises out of dry stubble. “I was, I am, Daniel, in an earthly tent instead of a lion's den, but still.”

Out of the Box

I lay in bed that night with Mac’s gun box heavy on my chest, the frayed strips of old percale sheets still intact, a cloth cross over my heart. I picked a spot on the ceiling and addressed it.
            “Help. Please.”

            Remarkably, I got a few hours sleep. The green numbers on my clock radio glowed 2:36 when I heard a door open slowly, carefully, somewhere in the house. Inside me, my heart bulged, made my skin feel tight. My eyes stung. Dang it! I need more time! 

            I heaved myself up, the gun case solid against me. I peeked out the window beside my bed. My eyes bridged the seven feet between my house and the Macs.’ I squinted at their Venetian blinds. They formed a solid white wall. I whimpered.

            Nothing stirred outside except the rain that was starting to fall. It had been so long since we’d had rain. A stair creaked and I clenched every part of me. I let go of the box and winced as it thudded against my thighs. I picked it up and shook it close to my ear. Felt and heard the weapon’s weight slide left, then right, inside the box. 
            In the moonlight I focused on the cloth bow and whispered. 
            “Maybe just seeing the gun’ll make him stop. I mean really, I don’t have to kill him. I can just point it at him. Shoot him in the leg if I have to.” The thought of his maroon blood creeping across my beloved pink and green tulip-basket quilt, staining it forever, gave me pause. “Or, I can do what I always do. Roll on my side. Squeeze my eyes shut. Pretend to sleep.”

            I gulped nothing and rapid-blinked tears. Wished tonight was tomorrow. Then it occurred to me: if I don’t stop it this time, the bad thing’ll go on forever and I—

            I gritted my teeth. Balanced the box on my knees, pinched the end of one of the strips. Waited. I focused on my doorknob. The shine of the moon was so bright, surely I’d be able to see the knob twist. Then I'd yank the cloth strip. Flip the latch, fling the box open. Ready, aim—

            I held my hand in front of my face. Even in the half light, I could see my fingers were a blur. Oh, no! What if my gun hand shakes so bad I miss his leg and kill him? Think! What else? What else can I do? I tore at my thumb nail with my teeth. Then I knew. 

          I shoved the gun box off my lap. Tossed back the covers and tiptoe-ran the eight or nine feet to my parents’ bedroom. I barreled through the door and bent over their bed. Pounded the mattress between them.

            “Wake up! Make him stop! Now!”

            As I watched my parents climb out of their separate slumbers, somewhere in the house I heard a door shut slowly, carefully.

~~~

Gracie's eyes never left my face as I told my story. Tears leapt from her chin to her lap where her hands worried a hankie.

            “You did wonderfully, Pet," she said when I finished. She gathered me into her arms and spoke against my shoulder. "I’m so proud of you, so glad for you.”

            I melted against her and wept for what seemed like forever. All the while, she poked through my hair with her age-dry fingers, releasing every tangle.

            “Go home and fetch the box,” she said finally. “We’ll have pie when you get back.”

            After we ate, licked our plates, and put our dishes in the sink, Gracie led the way to the living room. She patted the spot beside her on the sofa.

            “Have a seat,” she said. “Bring the box.”

            After I settled beside her she told me to open it. I tugged at the rag ribbon and drew it away. Undid the little brass latch. When I lifted the lid, I gasped. There was no gun. Instead, there was a glass pie plate and an index card that turned out to be Gracie’s secret recipe for strawberry rhubarb pie. Underneath that was my dresser cloth, the one she said I’d need some day.

            I shut my mouth and faced Gracie, eyes wide. “It’s not a . . . ”

            Gracie nodded, smiled slightly. “I know. Mac came up with the plan. I hoped it might work, prayed it would. Oh, how I prayed. Thank God it did.”

            I held my ribs tight and grinned. “Mac saved me,” I said. “I thought it would be you, but him saving me from beyond the grave? That’s really cool, don’t you think?”   

Peace Sign

I remember the day but not the year (Was it ninety-five maybe?) when my husband brought home a newspaper article for me to read, an interview with a pedophile.

            “I drove through neighborhoods in search of Little Tikes cars, bicycles with training wheels, tiny swimsuits hung on porch railings to dry.”

            I was pretty sure he was trying to help but instead his words gorged the panic monster that lived close to me, maybe even inside me, back then. Always it gnawed at my hamstrings, held one or both my Achilles’ tendons in a pincer grip.

            A month or two after, I heard our daughter’s footsteps at the bottom of the stairs. I glanced at the glow-in-the-dark clock dial—one forty three. Moments later I felt her tentative hand on the quilt beside my shoulder. Her quick, moist breaths warmed my cheek.

            “Mommy? A man was in my room just now, next to my bed, and he knew my name.”

            As one my husband and I shot up. I headed for the steps, he for the Louisville Slugger he kept in the closet.

            We found no one, no open window. Still, her dream nourished the beast inside me, made my eyes perpetually round, my ears constantly alert. It fostered in me a fatigue that never seemed to abate.

            I recall thinking, as I tucked her back into her Lion King toddler bed that night, that's  the worst kind of bad guy, the one who knows your name.

+++++++

It was a late August morning in 1997 when we watched our eldest child climb onto the school bus that would take her over the hill to kindergarten. I juggled waving, nose dabbing, and picture-taking. My husband blew kisses at her grin pressed against the fogged window. Our two-year-old daughter clutched her Tickle Me Elmo and wept.

            “Our life will never be the same,” I said as we watched the bus disappear around the bend.

            My husband nodded as he u-turned the stroller and started back toward the house. 
            “You said that both times we drove to the hospital with you in labor. Remember?”

            I stopped there on the street, revelation in my open mouth. “They’re going to leave some day. Forever, well, for months at a time.”

            My husband smiled. “I know. That’s how it works.”

            I bunched my t-shirt in front of my throat divot and gulped. “I’m not gonna like it. I’m telling you right now.”

            He sighed. “Me either, but it’ll mean we did our job right.”

+++++++

Our 2010 vacation was quite possibly our best ever—Colorado in early summer. A horseback ride through the Rockies, a white water rafting trip, daily visits to the prairie dog colony near our condo.

            In the airports coming and going, my husband made our eldest do everything.

            “Where’s the check-in desk? Which train will take us to our terminal? Find our baggage claim.”

            She protested, but he was right. In two months she’d need to know these things because she’d fly alone for the first time ever, not just across country, but to the Southern Hemisphere.

            The dreaded (by me) day finally arrived. After she disappeared from our sight in the Pittsburgh airport, I felt as if someone had tunneled me through. Surely a tractor trailer could fit inside the hole in my gut.

            Back home, for nearly 24 hours I endured torment—shortness of breath, a galloping heart, visions from the “Taken” trailer, a film I’d refused to see.

            Near the end of our first day without her, I managed to drive to the grocery store despite my blurred vision. As I parked, the KLOVE deejay asked listeners for prayer requests. I whispered mine as I unbuckled my seat belt, gathered my list and coupons.

            “Please let her be safe, not kidnapped or heaving up a food-poisoned box lunch on the eight hour bus drive from Lima to the mountain school.”

            “How He loves us. Oh, how He loves us . . .” I whimpered as I reached for the volume nob on the radio, twisted it until my eardrums throbbed. It was a sign, surely it was, the playing of one of my favorite songs ever. I searched the sky through the windshield, blew a kiss—a sign language thank you—toward heaven. I placed my hand over my heart and noticed how its jittery rhythm evened out.
             After shopping, I arranged the grocery bags in the backseat then checked my phone. There it was, a text from my husband. "She made it, safe and sound." Behind the steering wheel, I crumpled. Relieved. Thankful.

+++++++

Two years later, it’s almost no big deal. Her flying here, her travelling there, to this country or that. I am amazed that the impossible has become doable, the unknown bearable. The what ifs are quieter now, paler.

            Why, this summer I didn’t even weep when she took her little sister to her home-away- from-home—the mountain school in Peru.

            In the airport, my brunette middle child vibrated beside me with excitement and fear.  
            “You’re in good hands,” I told her, “hers and God’s. You’re gonna be fine.”

            I gathered the girls close and said a prayer. Then I kissed their cheeks, turned, and walked away without a shadow of a limp or stagger. As I crossed the threshold of the automatic doors, I marveled at my dryness. No moisture coursing from my eyes or nose? No dampness (or panic beast) whatsoever in the basement of me? Surely this is the peace which surpasses all understanding.

Shot

Here it is again

Your going

Ginormous spans of time and distance

Echo in the gap between us

How is it

I am not mad with grief and fear?

It’s because I was shot

The last time you left on a jet plane

I was shot to the heart

The meds

Your arrival, your joy, your return

They still run through me

Like the waterfall you stood under

Eternal it seemed

Did you hear it?

Over the age old rush

Of hydrogen, oxygen, and gravity?

“This is my daughter.

Whom I love

With her I am well pleased.”

I did

Hear it

Something different

But still

“You there.

You are a modern day Mary.

You bore her, raised her, and when the time was fulfilled

You balanced her life and your punctured heart

In your trembling mama hands

Dripping with tears, not blood

You offered her as a live sacrifice

To me, to the world

Blessed are the hands that are open, not clenched

Palms without fingernail-shaped wounds

Extended

Freely, faithfully.”

The symptoms

The what ifs and will I ever

(Inhale her Pantene twirls again)

Didn’t present until 24 hours out this time

Burning eye syndrome, leaky gutter nose, shovel scrapes in the belly

They’ve only just now come

To be honest, on the pain scale, they’re a scant three or four

And then, only if I shut out everything else

Drill down

Attend the guttural jeer of she’s leaving you

For another mother

A different family

I flip my hair and anxiety, albeit lesser,

Behind me

Where I can’t see it

I almost yell at the mirror

You’re shot, remember?

Vaccinated

It can’t hurt you

The unblessed absence of assurance

Faith exists only in the invisible

Sight and knowing?

Where is the thrill, the miracle, the mountain top, in that?

I trust

I have to

But at least I can 

‘Cause I’ve been shot

Inoculated

One bout with loss, fear, and the unknown

(Then reunion and recovery)

Left me so much stronger

Able, if not ready

(And really, when will I ever be ready?)

To do it all again