"We've got Rona on that list, right?"
"Yeah."
"Why are we picking up peat moss, don't we have enough?", he says.
I toy with joking, - you can never have enough Pete, what's the matter, you don't like Pete? Well, Pete on you. But my heart's not in it.
It's for Karen, she's doing the Mother's day gardening show. There you have it. I've said the word. But, it's less about the word and more about the fact I wasn't asked to speak this year. Did they imagine I would fill the stage and the room with dead baby words? Did they wonder if I would water the pots with my own tears and not a watering can?
How little they know - my tears are so bitter and salty, they would wither all they touch.
He yells down the stairs "Add construction adhesive, and a splitter for the hose." We didn't drain and bleed the taps last fall, preoccupied as we were, and the water expanded and the tap ruptured, just like our lives. I have no idea why he wants construction adhesive.
Another question I will not ask.
We will drive around the city, turning the radio from station to station, trying to stay one step ahead of that word, putting stuff into the back seat. I will only think of the car seat for the truck once. We found it second hand. It was from a friend and we never picked it up, or mentioned it again.
I wonder if she is hanging on to it for us, leaving it in the corner of her basement, as unwilling to get rid of it as we are unwilling to take it?
We will skip the signs at the stores.
(Although, I will wonder - why would a mother want a bundle of insulation for a present? Is there too much heat in her life, or is it just too cold?)
I will think about buying a candle, the one's from the church store, with the replaceable inserts. You know, like we got at Marriage Encounter, back when we were young and naive and had not started down this road. And I will wonder what I would put on it, and I will think about stickers and names and colours, but the entire prospect will overwhelm me, and I will decide that it's fine without.
I won't specify what the it I can cope without, is.
And we will dig and pound and scrape and plant and turn over soil. We will exhaust ourselves, and we will plan the next day, which is only a Sunday, and we will not look at the calendar, and we will not think about the other names on this day.
And I will decide that I should plant the almost dead, sad looking Easter lily from that awful baptism Sunday, although, I'm not sure why, it won't live past the winter. And I will hope to God that no one comes by with flowers from church, because the house is a mess, and I will just cry, again.
And I will buy purple glimmer gloss nail polish for my toes, and I will not think of not being able to paint them last winter, because I could not bend over, and I will not look at my finger nails which are ragged and rough and bitten to the quick.
And I will think of others, who are stuck in this terrible place, and those who are divided between children in each of two worlds, and those who are not in the same world as their children, and I will think:
Somewhere in this city, someone is about to give birth. I hope they have better luck.
And I will think about what still remains to be done tomorrow, and I will paint my toe's and I will weed and plant and cook and knit.
In a cathedral in San Francisco, a priest will light a candle, and he will place it at Mary's feet, and he will recite Our Fathers, and a few decades of a Rosary that I am not theologically comfortable with, and perhaps he will pray for us, and he and He and she, another mother - they all - they will remember.
My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me — holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers.
The Magnificat
Luke 1:46-55
