11-22-13 BABY SUGAR Migrations are swift when fueled by fiery passions of youth, when life’s impulse expands beyond caution and experience. Forest fires leave scorched earth in their path, but also lush renewal in time. It is time I stand witness too, often struck dumb at the majesty. My fires are cooled but I remember all of it, blackened to verdant green. If patient and persistent enough it is lushness I see as answer to prayer, love spreading rich and thick, healing and powerfully abundant. Sagey Pooh is coming to town! It’s official; reservations confirmed, a kaleidoscope of conversations begun, mishpocha malleable and adapting – thank God. It’s been mere days since I first heard the request and smelled smoke from this young brush fire. It was not insistent, she is too well mannered for that, but there was yearning born of complex DNA. Mother Mary, true to that heritage, hesitated not one instant. There are many questions as to details but they are only that, checkmarks placed on a list as we pick staples off the shelf; school – check; winter clothes – check; rearrange the bedroom – the list is long. I am tender from her acceptance as though one of her own. She assures me, “She is one of my own,” of this there is no question. Another mother, in Arizona, burns with different emotions. This is painful to contemplate, let alone embrace with abandon. It’s an only child and the focus of her love for thirteen years. Only other mothers understand this bond. Lest we’ve given birth we remain mere spectators to this particular play. She understands the yearning and acquiesces in the spirit of love for the needs of this child, placing them above her own. This is true love, the selfless kind, without reward, awaiting the promise of spring a long time coming. I am humbled to my knees by her courage and sacrifice. We live in the home of a great grand Nanny, mother herself of an only child. She knows - and it is her permission we must next obtain. It is not a large house. A teenage fire brings heat and transformations unknowable. Nanny knows, and she too hesitates not one tick. She leaps into the world of a Millennial, welcoming Sage to her home via FaceTime. Nan is muted as her mind attempts to process Sage beaming on the flat screen, excited, talking fast, three thousand miles and two time zones away. Nanny finally speaks through her confusion at this marvel she remembers promised fifty years ago in the time of Jetsons’ TV. She never really believed the promise. There’s not a flying car parked in the garage, is there? When the call is complete Nanny turns to me and asks if I think this is best. I tell her, after much searching in my soul, I know it is. The sins of many parents, wounds of many generations, can be healed in this gesture I believe. She says, “Then it is the least we can do.” Nanny and her husband Bud have history of holding hands of young ones when they leap. Many in this neck of her woods, when I encounter them and they realize where Mary and I live, and whom we live with, tell me this. It is a legacy of love as action, like rain and sun breathing life itself into scorched earth. I reached out to daughter Jill, tender, a gifted guide of emerging minds, a mother, trusting more each day her ability to sense souls. I asked her to talk to her sister and inquire of this fire coming east. Contact was made within minutes and for an hour bonds strengthen. She feels the promise of transformation, on many levels, for all of us, as the heat is turned up. Once fierce in competition, tiny but mighty, she instructs us to bring it on, let alchemy commence. Son JJ introduced me recently simply as “father-in-law”, not “husband of my wife’s mother”. He called to inquire about Sage’s move, was it happening? Was there anything he could do? Honest, unsolicited support, it’s what families do. And more mortar is scored in our mishpocha bond, more granite blocks added to a foundation of love and mutual respect. Nanny remembers the Jetsons from sixty years ago but not her FaceTime with Sage two nights ago. Over the last twenty-four hours she graciously gave her blessing for Sage to move into her home seven times, each as though it were the first. We don’t remind her of lapses as she is quick and generous with lashings on her failed memory. We flinch when she beats herself, so we listen as many times as we must to previously recorded dialogue. I am warmed that all of her questions are about the comfort of this young woman soon to occupy her home. Nanny is gracious as though still proprietress of a B&B. Providing warmth and comfort, hearth and home to strangers may no longer be her job, but I suspect it’s always been her calling. I am taken with how flexible she’s been her entire life, rolling over cavernous life changes like tar strips. She seems always to embrace a new world, bravely. Shes drawn to this penchant for adventure in Sage and eager to support it, in whatever ways she’s able. It is not lost on me the idea of mishpocha announcing itself first on Sage’s very smart phone as word-of-the-day. I was told once that my work in this life centers around relationship as though I am infant to this part of human existence, needing practicum intensive. The wisdom rings true in the way of the liberty bell, and seems as cracked after many fires, crashes and disaster. I retreat to the nearest cave with mere whiff of smoke, terrified at how our species coos “I love you” then pulls a dagger carving pounds of flesh from the heart. But I recognize a race of mixed bloods; born of animals with dung on our feet, we are impregnated by gods with all attributes of THE Divine. We drag ourselves in the mud, rooting for food, until our eyes rise to the Sun and we hear, at last, a celestial chorus Halleluiah – our birthright, our heritage. When my son closed his door locking me from his family I entered a dark cave for many months. There was a babe in my life with enormous emerald eyes adorned with feather duster lashes. She could not yet walk and only spoke with her heart. She could not reach her papa and did not understand why. She could not know what happened to her brother, why he went missing. As only infants can, she missed us both. I used to carry her, irreverently, like a football tucked in my arm. I dodged cars one day in the library lot and scooted past a large nursing home van. I felt two-dozen eyes like lasers hot with yearning and it stopped me. I saw grandmothers at the windows soaking in the glow of the angel in my arm, each of them in private reverie, missing the satin and silkiness, the sounds and smells of sweet baby love. I peered out of my cave, in wonder, feeling warmth for the first time in months. I inched toward the bus on impulse and walked up the steps. I peered beyond wrinkles into the first set of eyes, beseeching me, comforting me, telling me it was all, alright. Swaddled in pink with bows and curls bouncing and magic wafting from perfumed lotion, I passed my bundle to the first matron who caught her with sure handed and much practiced affection. I was then out of the play, out of control, mere witness to the mystery that is motherhood and love and wonder. These grand greyed dams, waiting on the bus for their final departure, separated from family, passed and lateralled and handed Sage off, one to the other, from the front of that vehicle to the back, across the isle and returned her to me, giggling and cooing like a professional. It was the first time I tasted a power play of baby sugar. It brought me out of my cave. I could not, I realized, allow this gift to lose her brother and her dad all in one fit of insanity. She has been gently tugging me back toward family her entire life. Noun, 1. mishpocha - (Yiddish) the entire family network of relatives by blood or marriage (and sometimes close friends). The little Sage is my inspiration. Welcome to my world.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 15:16:23 +0000
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