Silver Lining

Truth is, we were all unwillingly caught up in that tempest. You just happened to be the youngest, which meant that you were either the most or the least impacted—depending on the day.

It wasn’t her fault. She’d grown up unmoored, searching for someone to cling to – then tried, too young, to create the family she’d always wanted. Yet it was too much all at once. You simply can’t know what you haven’t known. No one can. And no amount of lecturing, arguing or shared “lessons learned” can turn the tide. So many words I wish I could take back now, their taste so bitter in hindsight. We tried to help fill the gap. Tried to make it right when we were really just making it up as we went along. Still the storm surged and calmed.

You were the silver lining, from that first night when I found you standing up in your crib sobbing. I picked you up and rocked you, and you instantly fell asleep in my arms. So small.  All you wanted was to be held and loved. Every. Single. Day. And that was the easy part for me. Soon you were happy, comfortable in our new routine.

I would rush home from work to see you with those little blue eyes watching for me at the front door. You would entertain us all at dinner with your goofy smiles and baby giggles. Then it was bath time and stories. Wheels on the bus and Itsy Bitsy Spider. You and me in the old rocker. Like a kitten, you’d purr a quiet little hum when we cuddled. Then you’d fall asleep hugging your “Lambie,” secure in this new rhythm.  I’d run my finger over the bridge of your nose, connecting the freckles on your tiny face and feeling grateful for unexpected gifts.  

Time passed and she found her way. Like all of us, she now takes parenting step-by-step, day-by-day, striving to get it right. Not long ago, the topic of those five months came up. “We don’t talk about that time,” she said with finality.  Out of a long overdue show of respect for her, I said nothing. I understood that was a period of pain and insecurity for her. Yet with that broad sweep of the eraser, we were wiping away the laughter, the Wheels on the Bus, the precious way you bowed your little head in prayer every night and OUR connection, etched so very permanently on my heart. I was trying to come to terms with this in my head when she left the room, leaving just you and me.

“Mimi?” you said. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, buddy.” I replied. “Have I given you 100 kisses yet today?”

You giggled as I kissed every freckle in that magnificent constellation on your face. And then I heard it. That little purr.

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“Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;”

~William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116