It was the Bolivian dancers that did me in. I made it through the treacly holiday music and the adorable child-ballerinas marching along in their Nutcracker mouse costumes. Hell, I even made it through a 3-hour drive in the early morning darkness to get to the parade on time with my happy mood intact. But watching those teenage boys smiling and leaping, boots a-jangle, after the girls in their microscopic skirts left me fighting back the tears.
As they passed by C hopped around on the pavement imitating the dance steps, face aglow with envy at the ornate costumes. I caught a sudden glimpse of a teenage C cramming herself into something short and tight for a high school dance. Then I grew simultaneously sad that she's growing up and terrified that she won't get to grow up. And then I imagined the smiling dancers old and infirm. And then I thought about R in her urn, wrapped in a T-shirt, in the suitcase, in the car that we left in a parking deck 3 blocks away. And then some sniffling. And then the tears.
This is it. This is all there really is. Randy teenagers and impure thoughts. At least that's what I thought for those five minutes as I stood weeping on the curb in in Silver Spring's fabricated downtown.
So sad, isn't it? One day you're strutting your stuff down the parade route in a bedazzled mini-skirt, the next day you're a mom with three-year-old, a set of cremains, and a stack of worries. Then, you're a down-on-your-luck musician playing a mournful saxophone on a lonely rooftop in the heartless city while Time, that cruel bitch-master, cackles at you. Or something like that.
Thirty-five years go by in a flash but at least it's a good solid lifetime. Would I feel better if I knew C would get 35 years? Would that be enough? Would I be more content if R had gotten 35 days instead of 12? What about 5 days with no pain or illness?
I'd like to say that I had some great revelation while watching the parade or that I achieved some level of peace with whatever other challenges lie ahead. I'm afraid I don't have it in me to be wise or peaceful. I just have two simple requests...
Oh, great universe, if you're listening, please let my girl live long enough to dress inappropriately and be leered at by some pimply-faced boy full of adolescent arrogance and impure thoughts. And, please, even though I don't espouse any particular set of beliefs about heaven or the afterlife, let there be parades and spangly costumes for R too.
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Tonight, as I say my prayers, I'll put in a request for parades and spangly costumes for R and a long, beautiful life for C. Thinking of you. xx
ReplyDeleteI really hope he/she is listening. I don't think any of that is too much to ask.
ReplyDeletexo
So sad, isn't it? One day you're strutting your stuff down the parade route in a bedazzled mini-skirt, the next day you're a mom with three-year-old, a set of cremains, and a stack of worries.
ReplyDeleteThis is the source of my recent melancholy almost exactly.
You've touched on something I can hardly express, much as I've tried. In fact, I am coming back to this post thinking that I would have the words by now, but I don't. So for now, just a note of gratitude for this post.
ReplyDeleteI spent Thanksgiving with a thirteen year old girl. My niece. And rather than the hatitude and eye rolls I expected, it was amazing to talk to her, to be insulted by her, to debate with her, and it made me terribly sad when she left. I just want to have that rapport with my girl, and the boy, and the other girl, which is entirely impossible now, but it ached in me something fierce. This prayer, this prayer is something I get. Thank you for it. xo
ReplyDeleteI'm with Audrey. Lately I seem to be reading and hoping to come up with a worthy response to what I have read at a later date. But I still don't have anything but want to say . . something.
ReplyDeleteI do those sums of contentedness in my head quite frequently. Sometimes I wonder if I should have given up the three days I had. I suppose that no guarantee short of a full, happy span of (supposedly allotted) three score years and ten would please me.
And this 'simultaneously sad that she's growing up and terrified that she won't get to grow up.' All. The Time. And I listen to my friends telling me how sad they feel that their children are growing up and I wonder if they realise what they are saying, what the alternative is.
I hope the Universe listens up and that there are parades and spangles aplenty for both your girls. x