Jumbled is What’s for Dinner

I know a few people who’ve lost their adult children.

But I only know one who became a guardian of a very young child as a result. And I saw her yesterday in a coffee shop where I was meeting with a colleague about older adult issues. Ours was the longest hug.

No one understands this crazy experience except someone who has been there. Oh, people are sympathetic – either about losing our daughter or about taking on responsibility for a four-year-old – but they can’t fathom how crazy all this is. Or how history is repeating itself in her little face (she looks so much like her mother) and her love of Barbies. When her mother came to us when she was seven, someone dropped off a dozen Barbies with bins full of clothes on our front porch. The Barbies were everywhere.

When I thought about writing tonight’s post, the phrase “Your body language screams self-pity” kept coming up. I’ve noticed how I walk with my head down and shoulders slumped as if the cosmos has dealt me a terrible blow – me, unique me, singled out me, me alone, me the poor mother, me the disheartened grandmother, me who plans to teach her four-year-old granddaughter how to properly wash a car.

Before one of her many heart surgeries, my grown-up daughter came to my room in the early morning to tell me she was afraid. I moved over and made room for her in our bed and, in a rare relaxing and letting go of everything, she made room for my comforting her. This morning, just before the sun came up, her daughter tapped me on the arm and I opened the quilt for her to slide in next to me, her little arm over mine.

I’m jumbled. But it’s not my job to be coherent and collected, to write the best essay, to flow, as they say, hang together. No. It’s just my job to stay afloat, do what’s next. Whatever that is.