Sassistas! Our dish on the social soup.

Looking Back at 2008

The Sassistas! completely forgot about our monthly "Open Mic" on December 26th (the last Friday of the month).  So we decided to open the sassosphere today for reflections on the past year.  Please step up to the mic and share.  We're listening.

Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite

During the holiday season, some things should be banned: the loss of a beloved, a terrible cold, a burnt-out refrigerator motor, Kenny G holiday albums . . . and bed bugs.

I always knew that Isaac carried around the soul of my home.  I did not know that he also carried bed bugs; in fact, was quite a host to them.  Guess who's hosting them now?  I have been forced to sleep lathered in bug repellent and fully clothed, including socks. 

Fifteen-years-old and teaming with Mighty MicroMites that not even Ripley from "Aliens" could terminate, my current mattress had to go.  Preliminary online research told me that because I spend about a third of my life sleeping, I ought to spend about a third of my annual salary on a mattress.  So I spent yesterday afternoon at Macy's, where select mattresses were discounted 50%. PLUS desperate for sales, Macy's was offering a free, 19-inch, flat-screen Sharp TV with the purchase of a mattress costing more than $799.00.

Who knew there would be about 120 mattresses to choose from?  Or that they came in assorted "comfort textures" such as Extra Firm, Cushion Firm, Plush Firm, Euro Plush or Ultra Plush Euro-Gettin'-Very-Very-Sleepy?  I rested on my back, my side, walked away, came back 15 minutes later, rested again, walked away, called Matiss for consumer ratings and eventually decided (after the sales representative woke me up) on the "Hotel Collection Stearns & Foster 'Classic' Cushion Firm Mattress Set" described this way:

Tired of waking up tired? A luxurious firm surface with added softness makes this mattress an excellent choice. Three quilted layers of convoluted memory foam provide a resilient cushioned top designed to maintain its consistency for years to come. Four high-density comfort layers offer all the support, comfort and durability you expect from an exceptional mattress.

What's more, this thing had a 696 coil count and coil gauge of 14.5 which I assumed had something to do with its Inner Springs or an AK-47.  In any case, I will get a SAFE and good night's sleep once the exceptional mattress is delivered next week.  In the mean time, I must continue my hermetically-sealed sleep and ponder this question from PEACEsista when we talked yesterday: "What about your sofa and reading chair?" 

In the Shadow of Wings

 

Following is a true story based on my feeble recollection.  The safety of factual accuracy did not assist me in telling this story and frankly, never does and never will.

Our first encounter was heralded by the sunset call of grackles.

Chaaack!  Chaaack!  Chaaack! 

Far off in the distance, then steadily closer. 

Chaaack!  Chaaack!  Chaaack! 

Thousands.  Thousands.  Tens of thousands.  Short, harsh calls, luring the two of us out of our houses and into our backyards.  We both stood stunned, mouths agape, waiting.  Then we saw them.  Thousands.  Thousands.  Tens of thousands as they swooped into the wild apple trees behind our houses.

Chaaack!  Chaaack!  Chaaack! 

The world was on fire. We saw the world on fire, Nancy Peterson and me.  She, balancing a baby on her right hip.  Me, two houses down, clad in my cowgirl outfit, my six-shooter aimed at the sky, then at the shimmering leaves, the flickering wings. 

Nancy waved to me, then pointed toward the trees.  I waved back as she disappeared inside her house.
   
Nancy Peterson was the wife of Rev. John Peterson, who, in 1962, came to pastor Center Presbyterian Church, the church my family began to attend when we moved to Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania five years earlier.  The day the Petersons moved into the church parsonage -- two doors up from my house --- I heard them before I actually saw them.  I was deep in the woods behind my house. 

“Where’s my bike?  You said my bike would be here!”  That was Johnny, the oldest Peterson kid.  Soon I heard his younger sibling, Jimmy.  “I have to go to the bathroom.”  “Where are we?”  “When do we eat?”  “Where’s the church?”  Question after question after question after question.  Soon I could hear the boys banging on the side door of the house.

And then came the laughter.

Never before had I heard such laughter.  It was deep and wide, mischievous and raucous.  I stopped dead in my tracks and looked toward the parsonage.  The laughter had erupted from a tall woman, balancing a baby on her right hip, the boys hovering around her like baby chicks. I could tell another round of laughter was on the way.  Her head was thrown back and her mouth was open.  And then the laughter burst out, sounding exactly the way I had seen it spelled in comic books: HA! HA! HA!  Her entire body –- and the baby –- shook.

“If you aren’t careful, you boys are going to smother each other!” she chortled.  “How can we unlock the door?” The boys dropped away from the door as she unlocked it.  Then they all disappeared inside.   So that was the new preacher’s family.  I ran home and told my mother what I had seen.  “Yes, I heard them,” she replied. “They sure are noisy.  I wonder if she can keep them quiet in church.”

Every Sunday, my four sisters and I faithfully attended Sunday School at Center Presbyterian Church, one year earning pins for perfect attendance.  Following Sunday School, my mother and father would meet us in the sanctuary for the morning service, where we always sat in chronological order in the second pew from the front on the left side.  Once the service was over, my father quickly exited through the sanctuary’s front left door, followed close behind by my mother.  We followed her like ducklings as she moved quickly to avoid running into anyone who might want to start a conversation.  We could talk to other kids in Sunday School, but to no one after church.  Once out the church door, we scrambled into my father’s waiting car.

That Sunday routine continued until the Saturday morning Nancy Peterson knocked on the back door of our house.  None of my sisters or me knew what to do because no one ever knocked on the back door.  Nancy kept knocking, though, and my mother eventually answered it.  I heard Nancy’s voice: “Hi, Dollie.  Thought we could have a cup of coffee and get to know each other better.”  I didn’t hear what my mother said in response because she stepped outside with Nancy and shut the door.  Moments later, the door opened and my mother returned to cleaning the stove.  At dinner that night, my mother told us that Nancy Peterson was “a pest” with the “loudest cackle” she had ever heard.  Only my father went to church the next day. 

Despite my mother’s disapproval of Nancy, Johnny Peterson and I became inseparable playmates, building forts from fallen branches in the woods and playing kickball until sunset.  He was the second “Johnny” in my life, the first being Johnny DeCola, who lived down the street and had been my playmate for several years until the day he suggested we take off our shirts and wrestle.  As soon as I removed mine, my mother called me into the house.  “Girls don’t take off their shirts around boys,” she said.  “Put your shirt back on and stay here.”  I heard the back door open and my mother yell to Johnny that I had played long enough and that he needed to go home now.  I never again played with that Johnny, but it didn’t matter because now I had a new one.  One I was determined to keep.

The more time I spent with Johnny, the more jealous I became of him and his siblings. The Peterson kids were allowed to play in clothes they also wore to church, plus they left toys strewn everywhere in their yard and sometimes in ours.  Nancy often invited me to come inside her house to play with Johnny, but because no kids were allowed in our house, I figured I wasn’t allowed in anyone else’s.  So she’d let Johnny stay outside and brought out treats like popsicles, always letting me be the first to choose what color popsicle I wanted.  We seldom talked, me too busy playing, she too busy mothering. 

That changed after the sunset call of grackles.

A week later, Nancy called my mother and asked if she could take me, with her kids, to the carnival that had come to town like it did every September.  In the past, I had only seen the carnival from the top of Center Street, the lights and music sounding like a place over the rainbow.  When my mother told me I could go, I felt as though I had been granted a wish so special I didn’t even brag about it to my sisters. 

Once we arrived at the carnival, Nancy, like a mother hen, gathered us around her.

“Okay, you kids.  I’m giving each of you a dollar to spend on anything you want.”

“Anything?” I said, incredulous as no one had ever handed me a dollar for no reason at all.

“Anything, Flannista.  Get anything you want.”

 The Peterson kids headed straight for the cotton candy vendor.  I, on the other hand, couldn’t take my eyes off a bright pink fedora hat with a huge, Three Musketeers electric blue plume.  For a dollar extra, the vendor would put my name across the front of the hat in matching electric blue glitter. 

“How do you spell your name?” Nancy asked.  I looked up to see her handing the vendor another dollar.  I watched as my name lit up my hat.  When the vendor was finished, Nancy turned to me, held the hat over my head and then tenderly crowned me with it, saying, “Here’s our Flannista.  Now the whole world will know who you are.” 

I felt special, even more special than the Peterson kids.  I walked around the carnival, my hat announcing to the whole world how proud I was to be me.

No one had ever presented me with something that had my name on it, other than the bath towel I used at home that had my name on it, but so did my sisters’ towels.  None of my sisters had a hat like this.  In fact, none of the Peterson kids had a hat like this.  I could hardly wait to wear it to school the next day. But how would I explain the hat to my mother?

After Nancy dropped me off at my house, I tried to hide the hat somewhere in the yard, but there was no hiding a hat like this one.  I snuck into the house through the basement and decided to hide my hat somewhere there.  Hearing one of my sisters, I quickly threw the hat into the toy closet and walked upstairs to the kitchen where my mother was stirring a pot on the stove.

“Mom!  The carnival was fun!” I said.  My mother looked up just as my sister Karen, strode into the kitchen wearing my hat.  “Look, Mom – it’s my favorite color,” Karen said.  Mom stopped stirring the pot on the stove.  She looked at the hat, then at me. 

“Where did you get this?” she asked.

“At the carnival,” I replied.

“Where did you get the money to pay for this?”  My mother had taken the hat off the top of Karen’s head and was holding it toward me, my blue-sequined name inches from my face.

“Mrs. Peterson got it for me,” I said.

“Did you ask her to buy it for you?”

“She said we could get what we wanted.”

“And you had to pick the most expensive thing,” my mother said.  “You know they don’t have a lot of money and three kids and a baby on the way to feed.  But you had to be selfish and get what you wanted.”

“She said I could.”

“But you had to get the most expensive thing?  What did the other kids get?”

“Cotton candy.”

“Cotton candy.  You couldn’t settle for cotton candy.  You had to be better than everyone else.”  My mother stepped toward me and placed the hat on my head backwards.  The plume was partially blocking my view of her.  “Yes, you had to be special.”

Karen stifled a giggle and then grabbed the hat from my head and put it backwards on top of her head.  “It’s my favorite color,” she said.  “Blue is your favorite color –- here, have the feather.”  She ripped it from the hat and threw it toward me.  For a moment the plume floated in the air, where glitter glimmered in the feather’s barbs.  Both my mother and I watched as it landed on the floor between us.  We looked at each other.  Then my mother reached down, picked up the plume, stepped to the kitchen sink, turned on the faucet and ran the plume through the running water one end to the other, like she was rinsing off a cookie sheet.  She handed me a wet sponge.

“Use this to wipe the glitter off the floor,” she instructed.  I bent down and wiped the floor, catching the glitter on the bottom of the sponge, and handed it back to my mother.  She was drying the plume with a dishtowel. 

“Now it won’t get glitter everywhere,” she said as she handed the plume to me.

I walked out the back porch door and stood on the patio where I could see Karen in the backyard, still wearing the hat backwards.  “Flannista,” she yelled when she saw me, “this hat is too big.  It doesn’t fit me.”  She threw the hat up into the air, and I watched glitter from my name fly off, glimmer and then evaporate like miniature carnival fireworks.  Looking at her, I took the wet plume in my hand and, as though it were a spear, arched my arm back as far as I could and stepped forward, releasing the plume toward her, imagining it piercing her heart.  Instead, it fell like a leaf to my feet.  I bent down to pick it up, but its shaft was stuck upright in a crack in the porch concrete.  I let it go and disappeared inside the house.

I didn’t connect with Nancy again until 25 years later, the day after Thanksgiving in 1988. My partner, Liane, and I had driven to Slippery Rock to explore my old haunts, and I spontaneously called Nancy.  Without hesitation, she invited the two of us for Thanksgiving leftovers with John and his father.  For the first time in my life, I was actually going to be inside her house. I recall a pleasant dining room table conversation, but mostly I remember what she said –- directly and bravely -- to me in the kitchen afterwards:  “You know, a lot of lesbians from the university come to our church.”  I had said nothing to her about the nature of my relationship with Liane.  Perhaps she knew that she would never again have a chance to tell me that I would always be welcome in her home. 

After lunch, Liane and I walked two houses down to the house in which I was raised.  While we were standing in the front yard, Nancy drove by in her car.  Seeing us, she stopped, backed up and yelled out the driver’s window, “Remember the time you didn’t want your mother to perm your hair?”

“How did you know about that?” I replied, shocked that she knew. 

I had been 13 years old at the time and had reached a point when I no longer wanted my mother to style my hair to look like hers.  Twice a year she newspapered the kitchen floor, placed a tall red metal high chair in the middle and ceremoniously permed the hair of all five of her daughters to look exactly like her hair did.  That time, however, I had refused.  My father had had to hold me down in that metal chair while my mother methodically rolled my hair into the perm curlers and applied the curling solution.

“I could hear you yelling all the way up here,” said Nancy.  “You were yelling, ‘I don’t want to look like you anymore!  I want to look like me!  Let me go!  I don’t want to be here! I want to look like me!’  You could hear it all over the neighborhood.”

“I had no idea that I had been that loud.”

“Just wanted you to know that I was secretly cheering for you,” Nancy said, winking.  “Come back and see us any time.” 

Four years later on December 22, I came back to see Nancy, this time specifically to say thank you and goodbye. Two months earlier, on Columbus Day, Nancy had learned that what was causing her to veer to the left when she walked was a glioblastoma  -- a highly malignant and fast-growing brain tumor that had invaded tissue so significantly that surgery was not an option.  By Thanksgiving, Nancy was in a wheelchair.  One week later, she was confined to bed.

“She looks like Tweety Bird,” I remember thinking when I first walked into the Peterson family room and saw her lying under the bedclothes.  Her brain cancer treatments had taken all of her hair except a short tuft on the very top of her head. Her mouth was agape, like the time long ago when we witnessed the grackle world on fire.  This time, however, it appeared to be open from exhaustion.

I sat in the chair next to her bed and placed her hand in mine.  “Mrs. Peterson?  Nancy?” I said.   “It’s Flannista.  Remember me?”

Nancy looked my way and said nothing.

“I drove here to see you.  How are you?”

Her eyes searched my face.

“I want you to know how much I appreciated you when I was a kid.  Remember?  Remember the carnival?”

Nancy’s head wobbled.

“I came to thank you for championing me when I was a kid.  For rooting for me even when I didn’t know you were.”

I squeezed Nancy’s hand.

Louder, I said, “Thank you for championing me.”

Nancy’s head continued to wobble.  She squeezed my hand.  I squeezed back, stood up and kissed her forehead.  “Thank you,” I said.  “Thank you.  Thank you.”

I let go of her hand.  “Goodbye.”

John gave me a Diet Pepsi for my long drive back to D.C.  I placed the empty can on a makeshift altar in my small writing room.

Defying expectations, Nancy saw the New Year as well as the next spring.  When summer came, however, her condition rapidly deteriorated.  She died on July 30, 1993, nine months from her initial diagnosis.

It was standing room only at Nancy’s Memorial Service on August 8 at Center Presbyterian Church. During her nearly 30 years in Slippery Rock, Nancy had been a member of the Slippery Rock Borough Planning Commission as well as a Sunday school teacher and active member of the choir.  Twenty years earlier, she had founded Slippery Rock’s Town Gown Committee.  Half of the committee was comprised of people from the community and half from the university.  She had also started the Feed My Sheep food cupboard that provided food for more than 100 families in northern Butler County. At the service, I recognized the Isacco sisters who had been janitors in my elementary school.  The anthem, “The Lord is My Shepherd,” was sung by a young black woman who was a member of Nancy’s weekly Bible study and prayer group.  Listening to the words -- "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies" -- I thought that Nancy had made my hometown bigger and kinder than I remembered.

Over the next year, I called John Peterson a couple of times to see how he was doing and to get more information about Nancy.  I told him that I was thinking about writing something about what Nancy meant to me.  I tape-recorded our telephone conversations and transcribed them word for word.  Shortly after, he sent me a package of articles about Nancy and included a personal, typewritten letter on Center Presbyterian Church stationery:

I hope the enclosed material will be useful.  I have included some miscellaneous items that directly or indirectly involve Nancy.  Since I had an extra copy of her death certificate I am sending it along too.

Thanks for the good conversation last week about Nancy.  I loved the fact of the Pepsi can being on your desk!  We have some great memories of Nancy and her spirit continues to influence many of us.  How grateful we are for her life and common sense and joyous laughter and gracious charisma.

If you have any questions or need any other information please let me know.  I’ll be anxious to hear how your writing progresses.  Hang on to your vision and faith, and to your adventuresome spirit!

I put his letter, the contents of the package and phone transcriptions in a folder labeled Nancy.  My first attempt to write about Nancy, dated “11/1/94,” is about 200 words long and is printed on a dot matrix printer. The second dated, “8 April 2006,” is scrawled in long hand in a writing exercise notebook.  This is my third attempt -- 15 years after my last conversation with John.

During those 15 years, my sister Karen died from complications related to her 22-year struggle with multiple sclerosis.  I think of Karen when I look at Nancy’s death certificate, sad that I know more about Nancy’s death than I do Karen’s death.  For two decades Karen seemed to estrange herself from all of us, perhaps to hide her MS. Why?  What clues did Nancy’s death hold?  Why did John send me the only other official copy of Nancy’s death certificate rather than to one of his own four children?  Had he and Nancy talked about me enough times over the years that he knew the gesture would mean something to me?  That I wouldn’t throw it away?  That I would, over time, see how my vision, faith and adventuresome spirit were protected and even fueled by her?  That somehow -- decades later -– Nancy would be pointing me toward what I needed to see and remember in order to make sense of my life?  The way she pointed to the galvanic grackles the sunset of our first encounter?

After receiving his package 15 years ago, I called John one last time.  I shared with him my memory of Nancy and me in awe of the grackles.  He said, “Oh yes, the grackles.  They came every fall at sunset.  Thousands of them.  Thousands.  Tens of thousands.  How Nancy loved to watch them.  They overshadowed everything . . . everything.  But not Nancy.  Never Nancy.”

Posted in honor of Isaac, still rooting for me.

What is Final?

If I called myself an atheist at twenty, and an agnostic at fifty and sixty, it isn't because I have acquired more knowledge in the meantime: just more awareness of ignorance.  How can we be sure that we know enough to know?  As twenty-first century-neo-Darwinian materialists, convinced that the meaning and mechanism of life have only been fully clear since the year 1859, we hold ourselves categorically wiser than those credulous knee-benders who, a speck of time away, believed in divine purpose, an ordered world, resurrection and a Last Judgement.  But although we are more informed, we are no more evolved, and certainly not more intelligent than them.  What convinces us that our knowledge is so final?
    -- Nothing to be Frightened Of, Julian Barnes, p. 24

Many people who would not dream of relying on the understanding of literature or the sciences they acquired as children are content to leave their juvenile theological convictions largely unexamined.  If they resented religion when they were young, as adults they are perplexed and dismayed by its stubborn persistence in the human race.  But religions endure because they concern themselves with our deepest questions about good and evil, about the suffering that life brings to each of us, and about what it means to be fully human in the face of death.
    -- Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and A Writer's Life, Kathleen Norris, p. 114

Love Lifts Us

 

Christmas in the Air

A true story:

A week ago tomorrow (Christmas Day) at 4:40 a.m., I arrived at the USAirways departure counter in Orlando, Florida to catch a very early flight home.  As I have posted before, I have friends in high places at that counter: Tim, Carrie and Victoria.

"I have Christmas loot for you, Carrie and Victoria," I said to Tim as I approached the counter.  Every year during the holidays, I gift them with small bags filled with Christmas paraphernalia such as "Jingle for Jesus" tambourines, rubber duck Nativity sets, and "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" paddle balls.

"And I have bad news for you," Tim replied.  "Your flight has been canceled.  But we're working on getting you out of here.  By the way, we're so sorry about Isaac."

Soon Victoria showed up and actually put on one hand the Nativity finger puppets from her loot bag.  She said, "Flannista, you're the star!"

We chatted for several minutes, but then they had to get back to work.  We hugged each other goodbye saying, "See you next year!"  I then forlornly headed to my gate for the beginning of a seven-hour trip home.  As I was walking through the main terminal, I stopped and looked at the Christmas tree pictured in this post.  

Then I heard this announcement over the airport terminal intercom -- a canned voice saying, "USAirways paging Flannista . . ." -- and then this, in a loud Charlie-Brown-Christmas voice:

"MERRY CHRISTMAS!"

I looked up at the closest terminal ceiling speaker and yelled:

"I HEAR YOU!  MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU, TOO!"

And to all beloveds in and out of the sassosphere, a good flight.

A Fuzzy Wuzzy Christmas

In 1954, when Flannista was just one year old, her Aunt Shirley gave her a Fuzzy Wuzzy Picture Story Book called, "Santa Claus and the Little Lost Kitten" for Christmas.  The book is Fuzzy Wuzzy in that Santa wears a suit of felt throughout the story which was fascinating to touch as a kid.  Actually, it still kinda is though the felt has worn off on several pages.

Here's the story:  After losing their cat Spot a week before Christmas, Jean and Bob send a letter to Santa requesting a new kitten.  "Spot was black and white, but we'd like any kitten," they tell him.  Santa gets his two top elves -- Merry and Jolly -- to find one, but alas, "there isn't a single kitten in the pet room."  For several pages, Santa, Merry and Jolly search high and low for a kitten, "Kitty, kitty, kitty," and "Kitty, kitty, kitty."  Still no kitten.  Not even a toy kitten.  Overhearing the dilemma, Mrs. Claus offers her favorite toy kitten, Matilda, to Jean and Bob and Santa writes a note promising to bring Jean and Bob a live kitten next year.

Then it's Christmas Eve and Santa's off on his long trip.  He gets to Jean and Bob's house and discovers Spot's bed underneath the Christmas tree.  "Bob had given it a fresh coat of paint and Jean had padded it with soft cotton.  It was all ready for the kitten they expected."  As Santa was placing the toy kitten, Matilda, in Spot's bed, he heard a scratching at the door.

Short story even shorter: scratching at the front door is lost Spot.  Santa brushes Spot's fur until it is soft and fluffy.  Kids get Spot back.  Mrs. Claus gets Matilda back.  Merry Christmas to all.

This was the story read to Flannista when she was a kid that she read to Isaac every Christmas.

What about you?  What are some holiday traditions that began when you were a kid that you continue today? 

The Boatman

The boatman is a woman with soft arms.
All the other, his poling or his oars, the picture
of him standing, the idea of direction, are our fantasies
when we are lonely.
Call her.  She will always hold you
Even if you careen from one wickedness to another, to another,
Even if you march in wars,
Even if you cry against her breast.

The boatman is a woman of sweet throat.
She will always comfort you
With words, if not heard now, heard later,
by willows, by streams, by your lover, by you.



Poem by Kathy Karlson, image by PEACEsista -- women with soft arms, of sweet throat
Dear companions on the journey

What She Took Away

The small blue box with the shooting star watched over by a pencil-top Jesus contains Isaac's remains.  Underneath the box is a card from the vet who administered Isaac's euthanasia.  Following are the contents of the card:

Dear Flannista,

It has taken me longer than usual to send you a card; Isaac and you touched me more than most and I have not wanted to think about it!

Euthanasias take an emotional toll on me, but they also give me faith in human nature.  You are lucky to have shared such a bond with Isaac.  Some people never know that love.

I always take a little something with me from a euthanasia . . . sometimes just the way an animal looked, or a story about their life, or an image from the family.

I will remember you and Matissta, and the picture of Isaac as a kitten, with the candle lit.  Your notion of his "cat-suit" taken off at night, and of course, his final scratch on the piano bench.  Somewhere, he lives on . . . .

Thinking of you, Rhya Marohn

www.athomeanimalcare.com

Cold and Mercurial Mornings

LEAVES by C.K. Williams from The Singing

A pair of red leaves spinning on one another

in such wildly erratic patterns over a frozen field

it's hard to tell one from another and whether

if they were creatures they'd be in combat or courting

or just exalting in the tremendousness of their being.

Humans can be like that, capricious, aswirl,

not often enough in exalting, but courting, yes,

and combat; so often in combat, in rancour, in rage,

we rarely even remember what error or lie

set off this phase of our seeming to have to slaughter.

Not leaves then, which after all in their season

give themselves to the hammer of winter,

become sludge, become muck, become mulch,

while we, still seething, broiling, stay as we are,

vexation and violence, ax, atom, despair.



ANOTHER LOSS TO STOP FOR by Jill Bialosky

Against such cold and mercurial mornings,
watch the wind whirl one leaf
across the landscape,
then, in a breath, let it go.
The color in the opaque sky
seems almost not to exist.

Put on a wool sweater.
Wander in the leaves,
underneath healthy elms.
Hold your child in your arms.

After the dishes are washed,
a kiss still warm at your neck,
put down your pen.  Turn out the light.

I know how difficult it is,
always balancing and weighing,
it takes years and many transformations;
and always another loss to stop for,

to send you backwards.

Why do you worry so,
when none of us is spared?