Sometimes I Cry

Hey Mom, I never told you this before, but sometimes I cry over you.

Sometimes when I am holding one of my babies in my lap, stroking their hair back from their forehead, I cry. Tiny, wispy hairs, slightly curly, which we inherited from you. I look at their face, their tiny nose, their pursed lips. I dot my finger in the little hollow between lips and nose, soft soft soft, like the petal of a petunia. I look at their perfect fingers, their chubby toes, their clear, trusting eyes. I whisper, “I love you big and big.”

They smile, but it’s not news to them. They count on my love like I count on the couch beneath our snuggled bodies. That’s not arrogance, it’s agony sometimes. The times when I cry.

Sometimes when I am making dinner, they walk up and rest their head on my shoulder. They are big, but never too big. “I love you, Mom,” they murmur, standing confidently next to me. “I love you. Big and BIG,” I reply, adjusting the chicken so it won’t burn. Tears slip unnoticed from the corners of my eyes. They are for you.

Sometimes I get it all wrong, I have a bad day, say the wrong thing, or am just too sad to know the next thing to do. I rest a minute, an hour, a day. But I go back in there and I hold those babies. I am the only Momma they have, even if I cry.

Sometimes when I am reading them a book, and we are lost in the story, my voice becomes yours and you are reading the story. I am five, and your warm voice is comfort itself and all is right in the world. I have to read slowly, take deep breaths and focus, because the tears are choking the story and I can’t stop now.

Sometimes they ask about my parents. The youngest asked me, “Did you have a mom?”

I couldn’t help it. I cried.

Sometimes we pull out the photo albums. The older one remarks, “Aunt L looks like your mom. They are both beautiful.” They want stories. I want to tell them. But strangely, I have to pull them out of my heart like a splinter that burns as it slides through the tender flesh. Who wouldn’t cry?

Sometimes I miss you so much that my chest aches, my throat burns and shrinks, and I slip back from the 40-year-old me, back from 30, 20, 15, 10, 5, 3, back to my earliest memories of you. I am all of those girls and they are all crying.

There was a short time when I didn’t cry. I jammed every memory of you into a pine box, shoved it under the bed, decided that wasn’t good enough and buried it in the woods instead. I purposed to leave it, them, you, there forever. But wouldn’t you know, my heart followed that hurt right into that box and buried there- it was no good for anyone. I would have to give up on you, everyone, and Love, Himself, if I would be free from my tears. So, I will cry.

Sometimes I drive past your house and I cry. I won't mourn you, because where there is life there is hope, but it is a sorrowful in between. My intellect wants answers and finality but my soul waits on the Hope.

In the meantime, I know that sometimes I will cry.