Early Morning Lullaby

Mommy, Mama, and Lili were fortunate enough to spend this past Labor Day "up north" (Hello, Beaver Bay!), with our across the street neighbors, who, aside from being completely rad, awesome, and beyond neighborly, very, very kindly open their Lake Superior overlooking cabin to us each year in early September. Technically, it's only happened twice, but to me...twice = long-standing yearly invitation, regardless of our every speaking openly about said invitation again. The end. 

Minnesotans excel at cabin related leisure, and our weekend consisted primarily of noshing delicious food, sipping wine, and scurrying upstairs to view passing sailboats through the master bedroom telescope. On Sunday we packed up the kid (ours) and the pooches (theirs) and headed down to the local marina. We wandered up and down the dock, admiring the almost turquoise clarity of Lake Superior, and then proceeded to a small, pebbly beach, where Lili and I plunked rock...after rock...after rock into the shallow water. As the afternoon stretched before us, Lili alternated between walking alongside me, and hitching a ride in the Ergo Baby. At the time, and because I wasn't at all uncomfortable hauling her around, I didn't think much of it. It was only on the ride home the following day, as my chest muscles began to tighten in sync with the traffic outside Coon Rapids, that I realized carrying a 32-pound, kicking, stretching, talking, and snacking backpack through the uneven terrain of the North Shore was, perhaps, not one of my better plans.

We returned home on Monday. By Monday night, I was fairly uncomfortable. By the middle of Tuesday night, I was waking up in a cold sweat, begging Mama to bring me Advil and water. By Wednesday night, I was fairly certain it was not in fact, muscle spasms I was experiencing, but a full-fledged heart attack (or, a stroke, depending on my level of optimism at any given moment). I tossed and turned most of the night, despite the rather large doses of ibuprofen I'd administered to myself prior to heading upstairs for bed. Restlessness must have been in the air, because I heard the pitter-patter of little feet across the hall around 4:00 a.m., followed by a voice over the safety gate..."Mommy?". As Lili climbed in to bed between us, I turned, painfully, so painfully, so that I was on my side, facing her. She searched for my hand, found it, and quietly placed her own hand in my palm. My breathing slowed, the suffocating pressure began to abate, and I sleepily curled in to her and whispered, "I love you, babe". To which she replied, "You.....are my.....sweeeeeet darling...".

A beat.

A hand squeeze.

A whisper back, "I love you, Mommy".

Raising a person is nothing if not a series of turned corners, a reality both sustained and displaced. Needing becomes wanting, dependence shifts to devotedness, and power struggles dissipate among the momentary peace. In these brief glimpses also comes the disconcerting realization that the ability to comfort, the mindfulness of compassion, is not, in fact, the sole providence of a mother. 

You are the salve to soothe my ails, little bean. Mommy loves.