Last Dance

If you’re feeling anything like me today, be careful where you are when you choose to read the following blog article, as it may cause uncontrollable crying, feelings of melancholy, and inability to perform the essential functions of your job for a few moments.  Consider yourself warned. 

By feeling “like me,” I guess I mean a combination of hugely pregnant with a fully engaged fetus causing frequent though mild Braxton Hicks contractions, a raging sore throat and sinus headache that is causing my whole body to tingle, a bit of anxiety about mothering the second child and a big dose of overwhelming nostalgia as I “nest” my way through all of Pumpkin’s tiny little baby clothes that I hardly remember her wearing.  Add to all of that dismay about the political atmosphere we’re living in and a touch of fearful remembrance of 11 years ago tomorrow and you’ve got an emotional wreck.  I’m sure none of you are feeling anything quite like that, but consider yourself warned anyway.

As you may have gathered, Pumpkin and I spent much of yesterday going through newborn clothes and toys, putting the final touches of Maggie’s room.  Since she has decided to drop so low that I am basically waddling through life, I figured I better get ready in case she decides to come a little early.  Pumpkin, of course, had a great time – like Christmas in September – going through all the toys and remarked over and over again about how “coot” all the clothes were that we were hanging up.  I, on the other hand, was trying to choke back tears – tears that reflected a combination of excitement about holding my new baby girl, anxiety about whether I could really do it, and nostalgia for how quickly Pumpkin had grown and was hardly the same little baby that I didn’t know how to strap into a car seat two short years ago. 

As we sat there, I honestly tried to remember my life before Pumpkin.  Of course I have memories of life before Pumpkin, but as for what the purpose of my getting up every day was, I couldn’t think of a single thing.  The First Lady put it best, my girls are “the heart of my heart and the center of my world.”  I truly cannot even imagine what mattered to me before she was born.  I pushed myself to think back and I remember aspirations of greatness (for myself) that now seem almost funny.  I had dreams of big city politics, a jet-setting lifestyle, and designer everything.  I was actually well on my way to achieving that.  I had it all and, yet, now I realize I had nothing.  There were so many choices along the way I could have made differently that would have made those dreams come true.  They were well within reach.  Thank God that He had another Plan.  Thank God for small choices, seemingly inconsequential choices like stopping off for a drink at Madigan’s after Jesse and Amanda’s graduation dinner (where I met Hubby), that led me to the life I have as Pumpkin and Maggie’s mother.

I know that being “mommy” isn’t all there is to my life.  I know God has many other things for me to do, both in my ministry to Him and in my career (which I am still successfully pursuing).  I know I’m not “just a mother” (and that no woman is).  But what I realized this morning as I was choking down a piece of toast with Pumpkin on my lap was that being a “mother” is giving your children “the best bite.”  Not just of your perfectly buttered toast, but of your life.  By taking my best, they not only push me to produce that best, but they leave me with so much more.

As if my toast didn’t make me emotional enough, on the way to “class” this morning, Pumpkin begins to weave a tale of a puppy who was in the pool and who was crying because his mommy left.  According to Pumpkin, whenever anyone is crying it is because their mommy left (because that is typically when she cries).  As I’ve told her time and again when I drop her off at school, “mommies always come back.”  So, as she has now come to believe, she ended her story with “puppy mommy come back; mommies always come back.”  She says it in such a self-assured way, with even a little downward nod of her head as if to say “and that’s a fact.”

Normally when she says this catch-phrase, I am relieved because I know it means our drop-off is going to be smooth.  She is not worried that I won’t be back.  She knows I will be back as sure as she knows anything.  But what if one day I’m not?  One thing I’ve vowed never to do is to lie to her, yet here I am telling her something that just is not true.  One day mommy isn’t going to come back.  I realize that.  It stops the breath right in my chest.  Ideally that day will be far into the future when Pumpkin herself is a mommy and understands that I actually will be back with Jesus Christ some glad morning?  But, again, what if it’s not that way?

What if instead, like those unsuspecting mommies (and daddies) who went to work that fateful day 11 years ago, mommy just doesn’t come back.  Will Pumpkin think I lied to her?  Will she forgive me? Will she even know me?  Will she know that I lived only for her; that I want the world for her and her sister and that they are capable of capturing it?  Will they know, somehow, all of the things I wanted to teach them – from the love of Jesus Christ to how to make a gumbo?  Will they know, as sure as they know anything, that they were my first thought every morning and my last thought each evening and that, wherever I am, they will always be “the heart of my heart and the center of my world?”  If for some reason I don't get the chance, please let them know.