One True Love

The song “HardCandy” by the Counting Crows was playing on my iPod Friday as I was taking my lunch time walk. It stopped me cold in my tracks all because of the lines, “When you sleep you find your mother in the night, but she stays just out of sight. So there isn’t any sweetness in the dreaming.”  I was suddenly overcome by ridiculous snotty hic-ups from crying and trying to catch my breath. My Mama died over thirteen years ago, and there are moments where missing her washes over me like a rogue wave, splattering me down on rough sand, leaving me breathless and worse for wear.

The catch of loss hits, unexpected. The sun literally glints off of my son’s hair, and I suck in a breath knowing my Mother can’t share that beauty with me. My daughter walks across a stage without fear, and I wonder if my Mama knows. I wonder if she knows that every good thing I do comes from her. Every random act of kindness I have done is because she did, with little thought or effort, while my sisters, brother and I watched.

I feel her in the company of my sisters, and I revel in the gift of those moments. I miss her. I don’t live in the past, or rush towards the time to be with her. I long for that one true love. I know what I feel for my children, she felt for me, and if I am very fortunate my children will pass that gift on to their families.

I finish listening to the song. I walk on, changing tunes. I continue, slightly red-eyed and hic-upping, blessed for what I had, and hoping what I give measures up.

On the Tenth Day

The day that my Grandmother died my Mama received two phone calls, one from her family telling her that her Mama was gone, and the other from her son, telling her that her second grandson had been born. I don’t remember if my brother said it, or if it was my Mama, but one of them evoked the old saying, “When God closes one door, He opens another.” That is how I choose to think of September 11, 2001.

Everyone has their own story of September 11. Most can recall where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. That morning I dropped my daughter off at her Wee School and headed for the hospital, listening to CD’s while I happily anticipated the birth of our niece Courtney. When I walked down the long hallway towards the waiting area, I saw my husband walking towards me with a solemn look on his face, and I froze. I couldn’t speak and terrible thoughts sped through my mind. That was when he told me that the South Tower of the World Trade Center had fallen. I followed him, dumbfounded to the waiting room where Grandma and Papa were. We sat, numb, but still filled with hope for the birth of a child.

Over 2,985 souls perished in the attacks of September 11, 2001, and over 10,000 families in the United States welcomed into the world a new life. Courtney was born on a day and in a year that will always be synonymous with terror and (in my mind) evil. Yet on that same day, so many will celebrate life. On this Tenth Anniversary we will bow our heads and remember the victims, the heroes, the lost and the fallen, and that is how it should be. Still, we should always remember that with death comes life, out of sorrow comes joy, and sometimes, out of great despair comes hope. I bow my head, I remember, and I hope for Courtney and all the other precious miracles of life born that day.