Things to Remember

In terms of this blog being a place for me to remember things, I wanted to write about two moments that happened over the weekend that I want to always remember. I didn't get a photograph of either one - once because I didn't have a camera and once because it isn't something I would have photographed anyway.

Friday night, the first night that Penny was sick, was a very long night. About 2 am was when she started throwing up, and she'd only slept very fitfully before that. Of course there was a lot of cleanup involved after it was over: her, me, Mr. Bear, the sheets, and etc. After we got her cleaned up, Tray held her in the recliner and read to her and sang songs while I cleaned other things. I washed my hair and I ran Mr. Bear and the sheets through the wash and the drier. During this time we were also on the phone with the nurse at the emergency room who was trying to page the doctor on call. It was probably about 3:45 or so before we were all settled down again to think about going to sleep. Anyway, eventually I took Penny from Tray and he went to bed. I read to her the entire book of stories that she loves cover to cover because she kept asking me to read the next one. When I'd finally read the very last story, I turned the lamp out and just held her there in the recliner. She cried at the thought of going back to bed, so I told her she didn't have to and rocked her a bit and she fell asleep leaning against me. Her little body was so hot in my lap, like holding a hot coal almost. I sat there at 4 in the morning holding my sleeping little girl and watching her in the light from the streetlight outside, worried to death, but also just overcome with the feeling that this is what it means to be a mother.

The other event happened on Monday. Tray worked out of town and he'd left before either she or I woke up. It was Valentine's Day, and he'd left me a present on the table. Because Penny had been sick I hadn't been anywhere to get him so much as a card. So, I decided to get Penny to help me plant some pansies by the mailbox as my present. We live on a busy thoroughfare and neither of us had had a chance to plant the pansies we'd purchased weeks ago since we didn't want to take Penny out by the road with us. I talked to her about staying right with me though and not going into the road. In order to carry the big flat of pansies, the shovel, the trowel, and the watering can as well as keeping close tabs on Penny, I loaded all of them up into her big red wagon. She had on her sun hat and her beloved blue and purple flower shirt. It took me awhile to dig up all the sod to make a flower bed, and all the while she sat in the wagon just playing with the flowers in the flat on the seat in front of her. It was such a nice day both after having been so cold recently and because she'd been so sick. I looked at her sitting in the sunshine in her red wagon seemingly surrounded by flowers and she just looked so beautiful. I'm not talking about her personal physical appearance, but more the overall scene. I would have loved to have a photograph of that moment, but it was one of those ephemeral things. Even though I don't have a photograph, it's a memory in my mind - and I hope I always remember it.