What You Know

Your daughter Hannah died 15 years ago, when she was seven months old. It doesn’t take much to bring you back here: the photo of that baby, Avery, online with her bucket list*, because that’s how Hannah looked, and so you don’t read Avery’s bucket list because—well, for a lot of reasons: 1) you didn’t make a bucket list for Hannah, 2) you had a mental list of all the things Hannah would not get to do, and that seems kind of negative now, 3) you should have done more, 4) Did you do enough? 5) you don’t remember those days, 6) you remember those days too well, 7) seeing Avery’s photo makes your sternum hurt.

You don’t know exactly why you can’t read about other SMA babies, because you should do it. And you should email the parents and say that SMA sucks but there is always love and some research being done. But it would take a miracle for the research to bear fruit in time. And that is so negative. You’ve always been a little negative, especially about SMA. Thankfully, often you are proven wrong. So you could also say some kids are living longer with SMA-Type I, thanks to pharmaceutical trials and new technology. And that’s progress. That's hope.

But even though you wanted Hannah to live longer: when she died, it was time. Even though you wanted her back the next day: it was still time. She hurt. She couldn’t breathe. She could only blink. She couldn’t close her mouth or point her finger or move anything at all on her body. These are things you know.

And you had another girl after Hannah died, one who was born without SMA (though she may be a carrier) and who last month turned 14. Megan talks back and leaves her clothes all over the floor and is as tall as you now. She makes you laugh. And when she was a baby, you just sat and played with her and held her and did whatever she wanted, for the most part, and that probably wasn’t normal or even healthy for her. And maybe that’s why her room is so messy and she often loses her pencil bag.

And one day, arguing over religion with the 14-year-old, Megan, you said that if Hannah hadn’t died, she and Megan would’ve been raised Catholic because their dad was Catholic and you all went to the Catholic Church. And Megan said, “If Hannah hadn’t died, I wouldn’t have been born.” And maybe she’s right, and maybe she’s not. And you think about that some more. You can’t imagine not having had both of them. What if you had to choose? What if Megan was right: that if Hannah had lived you’d never have had Megan? You couldn’t bear it. So you’ll take Hannah’s short life and Megan’s birth and good health. You’ll take them both as they are.

You know that if Hannah hadn’t died, maybe your marriage wouldn’t have ended when it did, but it most likely would have ended anyway. You read later that the death of a child doesn’t mean the end of your marriage unless the dam is already cracked. From all these years away, you look back and see the water trickling long before Hannah. And that’s a relief, because you never wanted Hannah’s legacy to be divorce. The marriage gave you two daughters.

And then you met a man who has good laugh lines and a gift for growing vegetables in the backyard, things you longed for without even knowing it. Now you have homegrown lettuce, four chairs around the kitchen table, and a baby daughter, Natalie (you longed for her too, yes you did, without knowing it).

And if you rewrote your life, none of this could be edited out.

You know what Hannah would have looked like because sometimes you imagine her there beside you in the kitchen—she is there—thick-haired and solid, calm. And sometimes you close your eyes and kiss her cheek that is not physically there but really is somehow there, or you hold her hand in the car for a second. In this unspoken way, you’ve seen her grow up.

You’ve never dreamed about Hannah—not in the way that, during the most difficult times in your life, your grandmother has visited you in dreams because she’s your grandmother and you needed her badly, so she came. You don’t want Hannah feeling bound to your grief, like visits are “necessary.” You know you can’t rely on your child to save you emotionally. And so you don’t. Still, she’s with you sometimes, you know.

Hannah Morgan Marshall, 10/14/96-5/23/97

There are so many things you know about Hannah, even though she died, and so many things you know because of her, that you can’t be paralyzingly sad. But you still grieve. You grieve because of the seasons. The times of year get into your bones, and when spring starts its engine in late winter, a switch inside you flips on, and your yearly descent begins into the last months of Hannah’s life.

Some years, you note the days more clearly: the end of February, when the hospice nurses started visiting; April 7, when Hannah got her feeding tube and your then-husband’s co-workers started bringing the dinners, including wine and dessert, so many nights, and the two of you had moments of enjoyment with those meals; mid-May, when she started on morphine; then the final days of sleeping; and the last wakeful night, when Hannah suffered more and then, after her nurse arrived in the morning, left you all.  

You remember the months and the years after that, the same way you remember childbirth: in hazy scenes, vignettes. Life continued, and after a period of years (How many was it?) you seemed kind of normal, you hoped, but you were changed. And that was another gift Hannah gave you: She made you not normal anymore, and you embrace that, the same way you hold Natalie and hug Megan, less lately since she’s getting so teenaged and tall, and you make a mental note right now to do that more: to hug that girl more. Because you can.

*Avery Lynn Canahuati died April 30.

To move forward ...

This week over at The Meandering Lane, blog of talented author and friend Lindsey Lane (author of Snuggle Mountain, a lovely picture book that is now an iPhone app), I get to share a quote that's sustained me through the ups and downs of a writing life. Come check it out!

Poetry Madness

Photo by g_kat26, Flickr CC

Ed DeCaria at the children's poetry blog, Think Kid, Think, is hosting a unique version of madness unrelated to basketball. It's a poetry competition designed like the NCAA tournament, with brackets and all that. Poets are assigned a word and given 36 hours to write a poem containing the word.

My word is abetted. I'm up against a librarian/poet who, as of this writing, is beating me. But that's OK, because with more than 24 hours left of voting, anything can happen -- it is, after all, Poetry Madness.

Here's the link to my match-up, in case you want to vote. (Yes! Vote!)

And here's my poem.

Mist's Deed
by Stephanie Parsley

Mist abetted Cloud in masking Moon--
keeping Cow from jumping over Moon anytime soon,
making Little Dog cry and howl a dark tune,
and thwarting the exit of Dish and Spoon.
Finally, Cow jumped, belated,
Little Dog laughed, elated,
Dish and Spoon fled, as fated--
with all glad they'd waited 'til Mist had abated.

While my daughter was at piano ...

Photo by NezTez, Flickr Creative Commons

Shoe Shopping

Why can’t

new shoes choose

me, like my old dog 

at the pound: come press

against my shins?

Silver sandals smirk

at my shabby

loafers; plum pumps sigh

as I pass. So many puzzles

here: Do red flats go

with jeans? Do canvas stripes

go with me? Who

buys such dangerous

wedges? I try nothing 

on. Next door: solace 

at the office supply. Here 

are pens: time-tested Bics, 

retractable PaperMates, 

a new model called InkJoy 

tied to a string

for sampling. Green

rollerball claims

me with gloss

body, soft grip, fat

physique. In the streetlight,

I open it, draw spirals

on my sole, smell

the tip. Later, I use

it to write

a poem.

It fits.

Stephanie Parsley

February 21, 2012

Always With Love

For my birthday in August, I bought myself pens and a new notebook, which I wrote in for a week before setting it down, until now, more than three months later. Today I read the first entry and found it worth sharing, if only with myself and any other lost, post-transition writers who find themselves wondering if they ever were a writer, and if they'll ever be again.

Happy 44th birthday to me -- new pens and a notebook -- and so long I have been away. Even standing in front of the pens at Office Depot made my torso tighten, as though I could select the wrong instrument, when the whole point is that any pen, any paper, will do as long as they are moving together in this way beneath my right hand.

In my left arm, a baby girl nurses. Last night I thought she would suck the life out of me, that each additional 10 minutes of sleep I lost to her restlessness was 10 minutes off of my very life. She was awake much of the night. At some point, I became at peace with her wakefulness, put a loving hand on her belly, snuggled her to me, and we slept. Now, it is well near 9:15 at night again, and it is late for a baby to be up, and she has napped little today, and it seems like I'll never get my life back.

But I know from experience -- from the 13-year-old girl in the next room -- that it will fly, the time, and that one day this sweet one will mouth to me silently as I enter the school she is exiting with friends, "What are you doing here?" and not in a happy-surprised sort of way but in an are-you-insane-coming-near-me-in-my-public-realm sort of way, followed by such time in the car, in our private realm, when she will complain of needing new jeans today, and would I take her to Chick-Fil-a before her piano lesson. Oh, time, you are the trickster.

As I write this, I am surrounded by piles of dirty clothes, boxes and boxes, and disgruntled animals -- cat rolling on my bed, dog sighing beside me on the floor -- and more boxes, full of the clutter we've accumulated in the American fashion. It is overwhelming.

But in the back of this new-to-us house, near the hot kitchen, lies an office-y room in which I shall set a table and a chair and some books. I will go there each day and work. I will ask, and pray, and hope, and write, and revise. And I will know that it is what it is, this life, so hilly and uneven with its high highs and low lows, but always with love. Love. Well, most of the time at least.

Art Arises From the Ordinary

Winter squash bread. Photo by: Stephanie Parsley.

My highly poetic friend, Nancy Bo Flood, wrote an impromptu Hello poem last week to our online critique group. With Nancy's nudging, others replied with their own Hello poems, really just a quick glimpse into their lives at that moment. These were fun to read. Here's a word-photo of my weekend trip home to North Texas ... and then back to the big city. Thanks, Nancy, for the creative inspiration!




Home calls,
but when I get here:
couch, rugs, halls
all dust and dog hair.

Wash and vacuum,
good enough,
skip the bathrooms,
get Christmas up.

Snuggle warm,
bask in glowing
'til Sunday morning's
goodbye, going.

Try one! Pause and take a word picture of what you are doing, thinking, feeling. Then send it to a few friends and encourage them to share their own. Art arises from the ordinary.

Window Watching



Photo by: mark falardeau

 


 












Condominium Windows at Night

Blessings to you in your soft white kitchen,
and to you in the next one over,
synchronized women
pouring water,
spreading butter,
washing hands.

Blessings to you, shirtless man,
placing your white, white towel
on its hook beside two other
white, white towels.
I'm sorry you saw me watching,
but I was walking my dog, looking up,
and your window shone.

Blessings to you of the darkened room and
tall bed shadowed blue with evening
news.

And to you of the incandescent
Christmas tree in early November.

And to you sitting alone at the ornate table.

Blessings to you of brown couch and bare feet,
stretched legs mingled with white poodle.
And to the sleeping poodle, too,
blessings.

Blessings.

© 2010 Stephanie Parsley