The space where the light gets in..

Today's blog is an excerpt from a collection of memoir themed essays. This is about a time 25 years ago but still pertinent today...

'And it is darkly sad......'

We are trying to keep our baby alive and he is trying to survive what life has dealt him. We are on the road seeking out treatments, both medical and therapeutic for his complexity of challenges.

I learn how to sing and dance and laugh and play in the midst of the rock pile. Every morning no matter where we are I take my son out to enjoy the brightness of the universe on earth. 

I thank whoever created the trees for one more day to show my son this beauty. 

Then I go back inside to have bitter coffee with the woman housing us whose last lover was murdered by The Mob. My son rolls a red, white and blue ball on the linoleum. The woman’s face erupts into tenderness and joy for a fleeting moment as she takes in his eyes watching hers. 

Then her darkened bangs slip over her tobacco eyes and she is back at the moment she was banging on her man’s apartment door, only to have to call the police and have them discover what the mob had done on the other side of the door.

 A red cardinal lifts its feet and edges its way across the lawn-to the rhythm of Yankee Doodle Dandy. Then the endless late spring June rain starts. I spend all day with a toddler trying to keep him away from scissors while being a “good guest” who doesn’t destroy fragile things. 

Was Humpty Dumpty ever forgiven? 

I trail after my son pushing his fire truck on the muddled ash carpet. The sun erupts through cracks in cat scratched taupe curtains, capturing my son and I in its brilliant light.. 

I am ecstatic, suddenly I can move, breathe, throw myself on the lawn, wrestle with worms, march backwards in red rain boots, take fairy baths in rain puddles.  I can take a giant step and silence the woman’s endless talk of betrayal. 

The house is on fire with sunshine. 

And I can take my one-year-old and go outside to play.