Mattie?

Oh my girl.....It's been so long since I wrote about you here and the last time I did, you were alive and present. Forever ago and 30 seconds ago. I would give anything, absolutely anything to have you in the next room. But it will not be, not ever. Never, never, never..........Today, I can barely draw a breath for the pain in my chest. It constricts and tightens the muscles around my heart, my lungs, literally making it hard to inhale. You are so very absent. I cannot see you, hear you, touch you. The more time passes, the more deeply, scorchingly I feel your loss.

You are everywhere, yet nowhere. I just found your school backpack. Six days in attendance for what should have been your junior year. Your notebooks, with just a page used. Your Buzz Lightyear folder, and your binder that we picked out together. With such hope in our hearts. Such yearning for normalcy.Your school assignment notebook, the cover already doodled on. MADILYN it says across the top. And you drew 2 orange cancer ribbons on the front with the words "go baby" next to one. Orange, for your disease. Leukemia. Motherfucking Leukemia. I am so broken over you. Your assignments were written in and you even wrote down your scheduled chemo date. As if all juniors in high school have that in their schedules. CHEMO in big letters.

It didn't work baby, I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry that you went through so much. I am sorry the immune system that we created for you didn't work against this disease. I am so sorry that you are not here with us, where you belong. People want to compare this loss to others, but there is not comfort in that. This pain of ours seems unbearable. We still want to be your Mommy and your Daddy. Leukemia fired us from our position and we want our jobs back. YOur brother needs his sister, and even your dog, visits your room everyday and tucks herself in among the cozy things still on your bed. Where they wait for you.

What should we do with the batting cage, with the pitching screen, with the trampoline? All the things from our yard that will not be used again. Things other people don't even have to think about. We do, daily. So many little things that represent you, or belonged to you. Why, oh why do we even have to make these decisions. I am so angry, so hurt, so sad, so everything. We went to a Red Sox game for you in Cleveland, it wasn't the same without you. But we went to feel you. We will go to Boston in September. Without you. I am sorry we never made it as a family. But we want to go to the place you wanted to see. We want to see you there. Feel you there. Know you are there. Know that if you could have, you would have sung the national anthem. It would have been the most beautiful thing we ever would have heard.

Tonight, I cannot stop the tears for you. The graduation parties, the upcoming graduations of so many of your friends. You would have gone, cheered them on, been proud of them. You will not be in the audience this year, or next year for your own day in the spotlight.

What should Daddy and I do for the rest of our lives without you? We just want you to come home. Love, love, love, love you my girl. Where are you? What are you doing right now? Are you next to me as I sit here and cry, are you 'on assignment' somewhere else in the world. Where are you Mattie? My heart is screaming for you, and I want to hear your response. Not today, not in this life. And that is killing me and I promised you I would not lay around in bed and cry all the time. I am working on it. I don't lay in bed too long, but I do cry all the time. For you.

Goodnight baby, I love you.

Oh, Normal.

" Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are...

let me not pass you by in quest of some

rare and perfect tomorrow.

One day I shall dig my nails into the earth,

or bury my face in my pillow,

or stretch myself taut,

or

raise my hands to the sky and want,
more than all the world,

your return."

-Mary Jean Iron

Come back Normal Day. Immersed in the ordinary but on the precipice of extraordinary. A hand held firmly to her forehead, leading her mind away from the discomfort that greets other parts of her body. Pushing silken hair out of her tired eyes, hand pauses to stroke her cheek and dry warm freely-falling tears.

Hold a drink firmly in my hands for her to sip, fluff pillows, change sheets, tuck blankets, hold her when her knees give way. Extraordinarily ordinary, but yet.... not.

I have been in the position of wanting, more than anything the return of these ordinary habits. Of wishing the clock would hold its hands in the moment of time when all things could be fixed so effortlessly.

When these not-worth-mentioning normal things I did all day long held such unrecognizable importance because they were so completely benign, so entirely ordinary. Such small motions that quench Love's thirst.

Time. stills. the. restless. hands. of. a mother. as. a. child. grows.

Needs lessen.

Hands grow idle.

I am filling up again, with the return of tender gestures and what I now know to be breathtakingly EXTRAORDINARY moments. Hands busy with the familiar. Grateful, that in all this, I can be present to receive this most exquisitely precious gift.

So I dig my nails into the earth, hold firm and breath in this familiar and instinctive normal.

Oh circumstances.......how I wish you were different.

Flip

It's been countless years since I've performed a flip. It would have been off of a diving board in a pool somewhere. It was scary, but I've always been a fan of the rush of terror. Mild terror. Some don't like that, I just happen to.

Like jumping off the cliffs in Arkansas at one of our great family reunions. That moment of exhiliration, the complete release, the hope (or is that faith?) that despite hurtling untethered through time and space, I will land feet first. Not on a hidden slab of stone, not into the waiting jaws of a large and yet undiscovered man-eating fresh water species. Feet slicing an opening into the water leaving the rest of the body to follow, plunging deeply into new stratuses of coldness. Arms fighting my way back to the surface, feet kicking to propel in an upward motion. *GASP* Oxygen! Ensuing laughter, more gasping and a big woot-woot! for the sake of the crowd( okay, handful of equally insane siblings). Yup, love me a thrill. An old friend and I pausing long enough on a hike to slide down a glacier on raincoats. More conservative fellow hikers speechless as we fly out of control down the mountainside where we eventually stop. Safely. Albeit, within inches of boulders larger than our collective bodies. Cool. Yeah, I liked it. A lot!

In this moment, I am flipping again. But not by choice. In this instance this flipper(or am I the flippee?) in a forced motion, is not getting the same rush, the same sense of freedom and abandonment. My feet have left the ground, but unwillingly. I am again hurtling through space, but it's dark, hollow and cavernous. As in any flip, I'm going headfirst but my heart struggles to stay put. Tries to stay upright, facing forward. Pulls hard to bring my whole self back to familiar soil. Replant my feet. Side by side, firmly, toes dug in deeply.

Too late, so I fly. Flipping. A prolonged sense of dread when for just a nanosecond I have let go.
But I've changed my mind. Too late, my feet have permanently left the ground, my head leading in a familiar way, leaving my body no choice but to obey the laws of motion.

But as any flipper (flippee) knows, before landing solidly on both feet, the body has to complete the turn, the unnatural bending and twisting at the gut, the looping of the heart, the mind focused on the projected outcome to ward off the vertigo. The inevitable spinning that causes the brain to signal the eyes to see a million exploding stars.

We are in the early stages of the flip, our feet have left the ground, our knees are tucked up to protect our hearts. We fly untethered with all the hope of landing on our feet.

Mommy.
Mom.
Ma.
MoooOOooOOOom. (This one spoken with undulating pitches.)
Mother.
Mama.

One word, but oh how different the meaning each form carries! That first tiny, sweet, baby-voiced "Mommy". It made something deep inside just explode with happiness and pride, and mushy-gushy mommy love. I remember when I eventually actually surprised myself by thinking "If I hear my name called one more time..." because Mommy had, in fact, actually become my name and the constant call out of one's name has a way of wearing the nerves a little thin at times.

Without being able to recall exactly when, the new nickname starts: Mom. Who?? What happened to Mommy? When did I become someone else to my children, someone less intimate, someone more generic? Mom takes a turn then morphs into MooooooOOooOOOooom! This seems to hang on for a long time and is generally followed by a demand, a whine, a tongue lashing. Hard to take, but Mommy has left the building and we mamas ultimately take what we can get.

We get all the in-betweens now and again, but personally I find when "Mommy" makes a come-back, it is generally intended for personal gain by the user. Butter-up mode. She can't say NO to this way of thinking! Fire up her maternal juices! I brace for whatever follows "Mommy...." because hey, this isn't my first parade. I'm smarter than the average mother.

But not this time. I wan't braced.Nothing holding me up. I didn't see this one coming a mile away. This one wasn't in those racing thoughts you get when you see your bundle of chubby love for the first time. Ten fingers? Yes! Ten toes? All there! Nicely shaped head? Check! Baby acne? Whew, none of that! Most beautiful baby in world? Hah! Do you even have to ask?!

This thought, maybe the one I should have had, maybe the only one that even mattered, never even flitted across the shadowy creases of my mind.

"Mommy," she called softly from her sterile hospital bed not 5 feet from my heart. "Mommy". "I'm here baby, what is it?"

"Mommy..." as another filet of my heart is sliced away..."I'm sorry I have cancer."

No, baby I'm the one who is so, so sorry.