We took Bradley classes during my first pregnancy (highly recommend, they’re great) because regardless of whether or not your pregnancy is bliss or burden you are aware of something truly horrible: this baby is coming out. I imagine for most women there is an initial euphoria with which a deep and primal dread sidles up beside and waits. Through bump photos and Target registries and baby showers and baby kicks, mild terror makes herself quite comfortable. The basic idea behind Bradley is that labor is natural, pain is part of the process to be embraced, and you are capable. In other words, “It’s gonna hurt like hell, kid, you can…
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Evil, Chaos, and Seashells
I don’t remember what brought us there. I don’t remember if we’d had a fight or something had happened to her at work or something else, but I remember arriving to seagulls and salty air and watching her make her way across the sand. Usually the beach was recreational: we brought blankets and snacks and sand toys and tanning oil (don’t judge). This time was different. No beach bag, just us and a purpose. Mom had business here. My memory is imperfect, but what’s in here is her teaching me, showing me her way, introducing her ritual. She got out a journal and sat in the sand and told me,…
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Death, Where is your Sting?
I sit in the back of the room because we are late – again – and because there is a table here with room for coffee and coloring books. I am tired. Deep tired. Tired of the platitudes and the things that are not working right now, but I come because I’m also hopeful. Because getting up on Sunday morning and walking into a church building is a liturgy in itself for me. It’s a pattern I am hoping will sync me into something (I’m not totally sure what yet). The message is about Jesus so the music is about Jesus and it’s lovely. But a lyric hits the screen…
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When Those Songs Play
There is a station on my Pandora account – I named it “My Nest” – which I have thumbed up and thumbed down to perfection. Just about every song is deeply meaningful to me because this station has played through 2 unique pregnancies and their furiously lovely births, a dying dog, 3 moving days, the cancer news from California, all the breath-holding and fervent praying, and now it plays over my mourning. When my mom had surgery to remove the tumor we still thought could be some sort of sinus infection, the music and lyrics matched every atom of my limbo. Peace and anxiety swirled around and up to a God…
