Mom, There's A Nomad In Our Yard

The van appeared across the street from our driveway in the morning of my sixteenth birthday.

I walked outside to pick pears from the tree in our yard. Three were in my hands when I noticed the van. Pale blue, with sheets covering the window, this was what I noticed from where I stood in the front yard. Seeing it gave me pause, given how many characters appeared on this street during the summers, to swim in the river just beyond our house. Most didn’t cause issues, but there were a select few who might ask for a lighter or a cigarette. One even asked for my number and if I was single. I was thirteen when this happened. Thankfully my mother had been in the front yard gardening when this happened and could intervene. Mom is a soft spoken woman but if you come after her child, run.

So seeing this van in front of the house, with the previous uncomfortable encounter in mind, I was more than a little nervous.

Mom sat in the front room, on the couch with a book in her hand. She didn’t look up from the page when I entered the house.

“Mom, there’s a Nomad in our yard.” I said.

Behind her pink rimmed reading glasses, Mom glanced at me.

“Come again?” She asked, then removed her glasses.

“A Nomad, or a Nomaid, or whatever you call them.”

Mom laughed and set her book down. “No, you’re right. It is Nomad. Did they talk to you?”

“No,” I said. Then I described the van.

Mom nodded. Then she glanced at the three pears in my arms. “Did you pick the rest of the pears in the tree?”

I shook my head.

Mom got up from the couch.

“Let’s go offer some then.” Mom said.

With both of us carrying armfuls of pears from our tree, we approached the light blue van.

Mom knocked on one of the windows.

From the driver’s side came a face, a young woman’s face, a woman probably in her early twenties. Light brown hair that graces her shoulders, and she had the lightest green eyes I had ever seen.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” The woman said, her voice light and inviting. “did you need me to move? I can move it now.”

“No you’re fine.” Mom said. “we just wanted to bring you some pears from our tree, and tell you to help yourself if you want more during your stay.”

The woman looked more than relieved at this act of kindness.

“Thank you,” She said “thank you both so much. Give me a moment, I’ll be right out.”

A minute or two passed. When the young woman walked out of the van, she revealed to us a large pregnant belly underneath her dark red halter dress.

The woman noticed my surprise and laughed.

“How do you think I felt when this baby felt like a ghost for three months, only for this belly to pop like a top?” She asked, lightly rubbing her belly.

Mom laughed at this. “I know how that feels too. How far long are you?”

The woman thought about this as she continued to rub her belly. “I’m due next week. I actually had a check-up at a local clinic last week. Everything is fine and healthy, and should stay right on schedule.”

Mom looked at me at this moment, as if to say “it’s your birthday, what do you want to do?” I gave a light shrug. I had nothing planned in particular for the day so it didn’t matter to me. Then Mom looked back at the woman.

“Would you like to come in, have a cup of tea, maybe have lunch with us?”

The woman’s face beamed.

“That sounds wonderful, thank you!”

An hour into our meal, we learned the young woman’s name was Tabitha; she was twenty-two and had been living the nomadic lifestyle since she left her home state Nebraska when she was eighteen.

“I just wanted to experience life than just sit in some lecture hall hearing about life through different writers and philosophers.” Tabitha said when I asked her why she didn’t attend college. “Of course,” She went on. “if college is what some people want to do, that’s great. I just know I’ve never been the kind to sit still.”

“If you don’t mind I ask,” Mom began, careful with her words. “was the baby planned? Are you worried about raising a newborn on the road?”

Tabitha thought about this, then sighed with a shrug.

“Getting pregnant definitely wasn’t planned. I was careful, or at least I thought I was being careful. So it was a surprise, without question. And raising a child on the road, in my van, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous or even intimidated. But the way I see it, this baby will have a life of adventures. If I do have to settle down somewhere, that’s alright too. Whatever happens, I’m just excited to be a mom.”

I looked at my Mom, who while smiling, also had a look of longing in her eyes. A look that said if things had been different, Mom might have been allowed to be the free spirit she had always been. However, this look of longing didn’t appear to be from a place of envy or jealousy, but from one of admiration. Mom reached out her to Tabitha, who took Mom’s hand gratefully.

“Well, however long you decide to stay in our yard, you’ve be here if you need anything.” Mom said.

At this, Tabitha smiled.

A week and a half later, three days passed her due date, Tabitha went into labor. A labor she had planned out methodically. The only difference to her original birth plan was instead of a hotel bathtub Tabitha thought she would use, she would use the bathtub in Mom’s bedroom bathroom, at Mom’s insistence.

I held the towels in the crook of one arm while I held Tabitha’s hand with my free hand. Mom acted as the labor coach, kept track of the baby’s progression, and assured Tabitha she was doing great.

Everything happened much faster than we all thought it would. Two hours from the moment Tabitha’s water broke, to the moment she grabbed her purple pink newborn daughter from the water and laid her on her chest.

After all of the emotional happy tears, Tabitha and her baby girl recovered in Mom’s bed, while Mom and I stayed in my room since I had bunk beds. We couldn’t sleep. Everything we had just witnessed had left us filled with too much joy and excitement to fall asleep.

Two months later, Tabitha decided it was it was time for her and baby Lily to hit the road.

“You both can stay if you want. We can clean out that guest room.” Mom offered.

Tabitha smiled. “Thank you. I’m so grateful to you both for helping me, for helping us. It’s time though. It’s time to move on and see more beautiful things and more beautiful people, like you both.”

Tears were shed, on Mom’s end, Tabitha’s end, and my own.

I had come to love the Nomad in our yard. I didn’t want her to leave. I didn’t want Lily to leave. I loved them both. But I knew then I couldn’t keep a bird trapped in a cage for love alone. We to let her and Lily go because we loved them.

A week after Tabitha made her decision, with a large basket full of pears from our tree, with Lily strapped into her new car seat, Tabitha was ready to go.

“Call us if you need us.” I said. “For anything.”

Tabitha caressed my cheek. “Thank you, sweet pea. I will.”

We hugged. She and Mom shared a huge. Then with the sun rising in the distance, Tabitha got behind the wheel of the van, and drove off toward her new life on the road with her baby.

When Mom helped me give birth to my own daughter ten years later in the same bathtub, I remembered the two hours it took Tabitha to have Lily. I thought of all the photos and postcards Tabitha had sent us over the years of her and Lily during their travels. With these thoughts in mind, even with all of my fears about motherhood, I knew if Tabitha could raise a child in the Nomadic lifestyle, I would be just fine. If my mother could be a single mom for most of my life without losing her mind completely, I knew I could handle anything this baby, or life, threw at me.

This was the gift I received on my sixteenth birthday, the pieces of wisdom my mother, and Tabitha, the Nomad in our yard, taught me.

The End