Friday, May 27, 2011



I had a stack of papers on the dining room table that isn't really for dining but for stacks of arguments-to-be and the slow leaking of The Husband's work - bills - and a bowl of odd Legos and cardboard circles for cakes and pastry tips and one of the stacks had a paper, a bill for thousands of dollars -- due, of course -- an old treatment for Sophie, another treatment that didn't really work and the form stating the insurance increase and the form for the judge who is deciding whether Sophie is mildly retarded or severely retarded and I was zipping up Sophie's sweater, trying to get her out of the door and to school and the day was beautiful, like paradise it is, always, here in Los Angeles, an extended period of green because of perfect rains. I thought what's it all for? what's it all for? and I thought, as I do quite frequently, more than once a day and far more frequently than a normal mother of normal kids, even teenagers who drive (because those normal mothers say it all the time, that they, too, worry) what if she dies? dies young? what will it all have been for? the fighting? the arguing? the searching and fixing and trying? what for? And I looked into her eyes, like pools they are, but black not blue, the light at the bottom, you have to search and I knew what it was for and it was for nothing all that fighting and working and trying and reaching it was all for nothing it wouldn't matter if she died but what did matter was the love and that was all that mattered, the love, there's nothing else that matters but the love and that's that light you have to search for to remember to live by.

27 comments:

  1. I hear your beautiful words.

    This was so quiet, it allowed me to think.

    I think we fight for our children because we'd want someone to fight for us. And it's the right thing to do.

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  2. I ask this all the time. All the time. It's what makes me want to pack everyone up and move far away from the battles and just live. Live without the fighting and advocating and therapies and useless meetings. I don't think the outcome for Oscar would be so different and I'd be way less stressed and have way more time to spend with the kids.

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  3. That is all that matters, the love. Thank you for the reminder.

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  4. beautiful and painful and comforting and so true.

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  5. I don't understand this world we live in, I really don't, if I stop and think about it it all seems so ridiculous. I think we just try to beat a path through which ever particular jungle we happen to be living in.

    Your writing is so beautiful and so painful at the same time and I don't often comment, as you seem to have said it all for me.

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  6. The photo (and the moment) is blurry, but your writing has clarity. Baci.

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  7. You're right. It's all that matters Elizabeth.

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  8. The light is in Sophie, radiant in that picture. I sense you're tired Elizabeth. Can you find a corner where you can just be for an afternoon, a day? Where no one is asking you to solve heal fix anything? Where you can just curl up and read and dream? This is a gorgeous and moving meditation but it tugs my heart too.

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  9. Wonderful post! My table is pretty much the same...overrun by bills and evaluations and reports. So many times I question the treadmill. But in the end, you are absolutely right, it it worth it 100 percent.

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  10. And in the end, that's all that matters to any of us.
    Beautiful and perfect, like your daughter's eyes.

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  11. We're so fortunate that we feel this love. I feel so glad that I'm here to protect, nurture and love Chantel & Royce. It breaks my heart when I am reminded of some poor individuals who are not wanted. We are all so lucky that we have this inner strength and this incredible love. I can't imagine how awful it would be to not want your child. Love is the fixer, the healer, the elixir to life. I feel blessed to have this love oozing through my veins.

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  12. Yes, love is what matters although it took two beers, a bubble bath, and a few tears to recover from my daughter's IEP meeting yesterday afternoon.

    And, a little reading from Pema Chodron.

    How wonderful and serendipitous for me to find your post this morning.

    Thank you.

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  13. Wise and beautiful in the way of my absolute favorite writing:

    Suddenly, like an elephant who has just found his anger and lifts his trunk over the heads of the little men who want his teeth or his hide or his flesh or his amazing strength, Pilate trumpeted for the sky itself to hear, "And she was loved!"

    Toni Morrison

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  14. yesssssssssssss. my lovely writer.

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  15. tears at my library work station.
    amen.

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  16. oh god yes, the love... she says with tears streaming down her cheeks, remembering the depth of it all in erin's eyes

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  17. This post makes me cry.

    The photo connects so perfectly with your fleeting and deep thoughts.

    Perfect.
    xo

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  18. thank you....for looking deep enough to see us all.

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  19. That's the answer that comes to me...it's all - it's only - about love.

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  20. I remember saying the exact same thing right after my Dad died. Nothing else mattered.

    But then we get caught up in all the busyness of life and our kids' special needs and we FORGET.

    So thank you for the reminder! xo

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  21. Read with tears. Beautiful and true. Thank you.

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  22. That is it - so simple and so complex. Love. Thank you.

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  23. Yes, that's it. The love. Thank you.

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  24. tears. the photo with the words. its overwhelming me into tears. xo

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  25. yes. the love. and she has known love. been surrounded, embraced, encompassed, sheltered, cushioned by it, her whole life. that is a great thing. i know it feels pointless, sometimes, this life. but i do believe there is meaning, and the meaning is all wrapped up in love, and that love doesn't end...

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