Gardenia

Right between the 2nd and 3rd chapters of John, the hurried resting place where moisture soaked right into the pages of my bible as our family traveled hundreds of miles to our new home. The petals have dried and the holy words have gathered up the fragrance and the tears and the hurt and the hope and the goodbyes.

It hurt to see him weeping over my children when we said those painful goodbyes. He had turned away, stumbling up the path towards the refuge of his home when he stopped short. I watched from the car, wondering if heart failure was settling in. He said he would die without us. I suddenly feared this would come true. But he veered to the left and made his way to the gardenia bush.

He paused for several moments, looking them over. Searching for that one goodbye blossom. One pure white, no crinkled edges, no faded brown lines, no small black ants scurrying through its sweet center.
He pulled one off and made his way back to me. The lump in my throat growing larger the closer he got.

He is an ornery old goat. My Abuelo. Critical, pushy, meddlesome, childish, angry, fierce in his love and irreverent in life. I love him even when I want to escape him.

He handed me this gardenia. Pushed it through the window in one spiteful sweep, pressing it roughly into my hands and looking at me with wistful sad eyes. The cold AC in our van diffuses the scent quickly, we watch in silence as he makes his way back to the house. Abuela stays on the porch, tears rolling down her brave smile-for-the-kids-face. He enters the house and closes the door, walks to the picture window and watches us pull out of the driveway. I watch as his shoulders shake through the shadow of the pane that separates us.  The gardenia carries us away back to my parents home. Then I carried it inside and flipped through a few crackling pages of my bible and pressed it between John 2 and 3.

We all have those scents or sensations that send us rushing into a memory of something. There are elements of life that lead me head first into memories of my four grandparents. Everything from sarna to sawdust to the sunset orange pulp of a mango or the creamy center of an avocado. Gardenias….

Gardenias are a romantic flower. Mysterious in the way it unfolds, delicate petals with a moody temper bent on ruination the moment humidity spikes, uncompromising in the strength of its scent. It is a pleasure to touch, purrs in your hand really. A Cuban love song almost isn’t a love song unless this flower’s name is whispered somewhere in those lilting lines.

For me, this flower is not my own love story, but my grandparent's romances.

My mother’s parents dancing together surrounded by a cloud of piccolo notes  and somehow I think “gardenias.” My father’s parents arguing in the kitchen as they make a batch of ajiaco together. Each adding salt when the other’s back is turned. The heat from the stove, the open window, the harsh words, the flashing tempers, the unraveling…and somehow I think, “gardenias.”

Gardenias are the warm bowl of frijoles negros on the table. The freshly baked loaf of cuban bread on the pallet. The sound of mango tree leaves rustling in the wind weeks after the last piece of fruit has been harvested. The soft rapid sounds of spanish radio falling in the kitchen like rain drops. Gardenias are the feel of wrinkled brown hands grasping my own hands. The feel of slipping my newborn son into the arms of someone who will cloak him in love.

Today my bible dropped off the wood table and onto the floor. The pages spreading awkwardly on the floor. Bits of messages and cut outs of handprints scattering and the slight crunch of a once green leaf. And suddenly, the smell of gardenias.

Is it any wonder that tears flooded my eyes the moment I drew breath? A deep ache spreading throughout my body? A not so deeply buried grief for what I have left behind for these Pennsylvania mountains? It was all wrapped in this oh so familiar scent.

I thought of his dearly loved face. My ornery old goat, Abuelo. The other three that stand beside him in the line of my family tree.

I miss them.

And for the rest of my life, I will open the book of John and inhale that sweet scent of memory and love and unfurling petals and remember them.

Last Monday

On Monday we sat gathered around the breakfast table, sunlight gently streaming in through the kitchen window. The iPod is playing a few worship tunes from the Miami Worship Choir CD and the boys are singing out loud. I am going through the motions of serving up breakfast. My belly is low and heavy. The dog is in his cage letting out huge sighs of despair that J is nowhere in sight.

Cracking eggs, slathering bread with butter, pouring the steaming hot tea and going through the comforting motions of ritual. My mind is sluggish, thinking about the day-ins and day-outs of the past eleven years. All the breakfasts made and cups of tea consumed, while fighting and death and evil and politics hovered over our heads.

I don’t keep this day a secret from my sons. We pray out loud for those boys and girls that have lost their Mommies and Daddies overseas. They know that men die defending them. They know that once upon a time airplanes hit towers and tears fell and people were lost in the ashes.

They are not too small to understand compassion for those who have lost something so precious. They are not too small to grasp that boys just like them sit at their own breakfast tables and gaze at an empty chair across from them every day.

They are not too small to desire honor, bravery, courage and compassion.

33

33 weeks and counting.

Cubs asks me every day. “Has your wabor started squeezing your uterus yet, Mom?”

Hearing something like that from a 3 year old boy might horrify some people, I know. And yet, I look back at some of the three year olds in my preschool class and remember the horribly violent films they would watch and the trashy radio songs they knew all the lyrics to and I think to myself, is it really so terrible that my son knows about LIFE? 

I think not.

He has asked to be allowed to cut his brother’s “unbiblical cord” and we have agreed. He won’t be present for the actual birth, but when we call them into the room later his job is to cut the cord.

The Bear has graciously declined this honor. I believe his exact words were “Ew gross! No fanks!” accompanied by the emphatic waving of his hands.

I have been instructed to lay low and take it easy. Not bed rest orders just take it easy orders.

I bet you can all ready guess how well THAT is going.

All my little DIY projects and science experiments are temporarily on hold, no more solo trips to the creek with the kids. In general, avoid places were I am the only adult for miles around. No hiking, no long walks, no exploring, unless another grown up is with me…and even then apply those words—take it easy.


Take it easy is not easy.

You would think being this enormously pregnant, I would want to take it easy but I don’t! Its one thing to unwind at the end of a long day with the food channel and a glass of glorious crunchy ice cubes but its quite another to feel like your loafing around all day while toys and laundry pile up.

The Bear and Cubs are pretty fascinated by Ben Folds right now. “Jackson Cannery” is one of their favorite songs and they seem to take great joy in belting out this particular line:

“The seconds pass slowly, but years go flying by”

I say it to myself several times day now…and I act on it.

Whenever I feel that guilt over inactivity creeping up on me, I take a deep breath, sit on the floor and invite the babe over to read his favorite book for the 90th time that day. I’ll pull the slime out of their safety jars and help Cubs cut it all up into small pieces with his scissors and then watch him count each piece as he drops it back into the jar. I’ll curl up on the Bear’s bed and listen to him recount every single animal fact  he knows about deadwood vultures, viperfish and badgers.

I’ll sit and be still and know.

I let the seconds pass by ever so slowly and we breathe them in together.

33 weeks and counting.

Dads

This pregnancy has brought on all manner of vivid dreaming to my life as of late. Be it day dreams or nightmares or vivid memory recall in the deepest moments of REM.  I can not recall ever experiencing a season of such intense and vivid dreams before (minus those lovely cycles of malaria pills for my trips to Honduras).

Last night Maurice Moss was my doula.

Frightening and awesome all at once...

A few days ago it was a swim with the dolphins, something I have always always wanted to do. It really felt like I was there. In those first moments of waking I reached up to touch my hair, expecting to find it damp and tangled from the sea.

Then last week a dream that was actually a memory from my childhood.

Beginning with the sight of department store carpeting, littered with a few T tags and bits of string. Then a button, small and pearly.

I look at my hand as I reach out to grab this small treasure. And its not a grown up hand that looks just like my Abuelas, but a child’s hand. The faint outline of baby dimples still gracing my knuckles. A scratch from a tree branch just below my thumb. I wear that scar today. But in this dream it fresh and raw and pink. I glance to the right and see a pair of familiar shoes.

They belong to my Dad.

I look up and find his young face looking down at me.

I realize that we are shopping together. Just him and I.

Men’s Department, roaming the dress shirt aisles side by side looking for work shirts. He is talking to me and I am smiling. I can feel the muscles in my face stretching and they are almost sore from the continuous joy of just being with him.

If you know me, you know I am a Daddy’s girl.

It was never a conscious choice you see. I just always have been and always will be….ridiculously proud that he belongs to me and that I belong to him.

It didn’t matter where he was going or what he was doing. I just wanted to be near him and spend time with him.  Driving to the dump to deliver trash? Count me in. Going for a long walk on the beach? Take me with you. Seasoning a freshly butchered pig for Noche Buena? I’ll spend the whole day with you. Fishing for barracudas? Please oh please let me tag along too.

No matter how hard he worked—which was a tremendous amount—he always made time for me.

I never doubted, not for a single minute, that his family was first in his heart.

Which is in all likelihood why this dream was cast in such a warm golden glow.

I have no trouble recalling the way his voice sounded at the age of 29. It springs up automatically. I remember the way his beard looked, the shape of his haircut, the way he would sweep my mom up in his arms and kiss her, his laughter, his habits….the very Dad essence of him.

We head for the tie section, my favorite part. He starts telling me about the case he is working on and the people he will be meeting.

I am the expert on ties, you understand.

No one can pick them like I do.

I always pick the right one.

And his chances of winning a case are always higher when I have selected the tie.

At least that is what he would tell me.

I start rummaging and make my selection.

“Perfect,” he says.

And I am awash in that feeling of pride again. He is my Dad and he loves the tie that I found.

I wake up groggy from this dream. Very pregnant and very tired and very very busy with my boys. Their Dad has all ready left for work, hours before they are awake. They know this, but they still ask repeatedly, “Where is Dad? Is he coming back yet? Is it dinner time yet?”

“He is at river work” I remind them.

“Oh yeah…..(sigh)…Mom, isn’t Dad awesome?”

“Yes he is” I agree.

They munch on their waffles in a silence thick with thought. They are remembering their weekend adventures with Dad. All the glorious time he spent with them. All the wrestling, tickle fights, lego building and book reading. The constant hugs and the constant love.

I know the feel of what they are feeling.

I have worn it like a mantle over my heart for years. Experiencing your father’s love becomes etched into the very core of who you are. I see the indentations marking their hearts every day.

Dad loves me.

Dad is proud of me.

Dad values me.

Dad cares what I think.

Dad protects me.

Dad teaches me.

Dad learns from me.

Dad laughs with me.

Dad likes me.

Dad is here.

I am beginning each day dwelling on something that I am thankful for. One blessing that deeply enriches my life. Something to mull over as I am preparing to birth my fourth son, as I pray for his life and for his walk with the Lord.

This was the first one I thought, automatically coming up from the very core of who I am.

“Thank you Lord for being my heavenly Father, for loving me beyond any love I could possibly fathom. Thank you for giving me to my earthly Father, who rooted me in his love and who never caused me to doubt it. Thank you for joining me to my husband. His deep love for me and my sons a constant reflection of your love.” 

Now the petition comes in. This new prayer of the last four years that is always on my lips...

“Lord, help my sons to walk in your ways. Give them a heart like your own. Help them to reflect your love daily. Enable us in training them to be men of God—strong leaders, husbands and fathers. Fill them with your Spirit."

How very grateful I am that one of the richest blessings in my sons lives is not where they live or how they live or what they get to do….but that they are surrounded by great examples of fatherly love. Their Lord, their father and both of their grandfathers. Thank you Lord for all these Dads.

Home Brew

Cubs and I finished a batch of homemade pita bread yesterday. We watched them puff up in the oven, pulled them out and listened to the beautiful crackle the thinner ones made. We were so giddy!
Later that night I crushed a few of them and set them on a baking pan. Spritzed them with olive oil and sprinkled sea salt and parmesan on them and set them to bake for a while. A little homemade guacamole with those freshly toasted pita chips…Oh man…Friday night, come to Mama!

“I am never buying pita bread at the store EVER again!” was the declaration I tossed over my shoulder at J.

He raised his eyebrows and gave me a half smile.

His usual move whenever I make these sort of statements after having tried something once.

I have been making that statement a lot lately.

I will never buy this at the store ever again.

Truth is…I have had a lot of fun these past few weeks home brewing everything possible. Making your own is a lot of fun. Sure it takes time and effort and blah blah blah, but its just so much darn fun to do it on your own and have that momentary cave man moment of “me make fire. ROAR.”

I’ll toss out my line and J just raises those brows at me and quirks those lips upwards a bit…

Baby #4 is almost here. As in, 6-8 weeks almost here. As in, my stomach has grown to gargantuan proportions and I have to wear a belly harness (no really, I do, its hilarious) and my midwife is amazed at how nearly all my weight is restricted to my belly. Like I swallowed a pilates ball….. but not in the way some lithe extra tall woman carries her big watermelon belly with her long limbs still looking lean and trim. Nope. More like that short squaty farmer’s wife with a dozen kids all ready kinda way. I didn’t just swallow the pilates ball. I AM THE PILATES BALL.

And while I may be preachin’ the home brew giggles right now, I KNOW and he KNOWS that a few months from now, I’ll be stumbling bleary eyed into the bread aisle, searching for a pack of pita bread.

Meanwhile, I will enjoy all this home brew hooplah. It makes me happy. Gets my mind off the harness.

Pilates ball over and out.

Harp beat

He chose the grey funnel shaped piece. The one usually reserved as a “speedy booster” for the building of jets and rockets. A very valuable piece. Fought over often, not easily won. Treasured.

He turned it this way and that, brow furrowed in concentration, lower lip slightly pouted, looking so very much like his father it makes my heart clench a bit. He holds a bit of twine in his other hand. I am still not sure how he managed to find the ball of twine and cut an appropriate length without my help (or knowledge of his doing so). I watch him unite the two pieces. Triumph written on his face.

He brings me his creation.

A fetal doppler.

A piece of equipment we are quite familiar with...

Beginning with his own gestation, when I decided to educate myself and learn about what a birth managed by my own body could mean.

After that redeeming moment when he slid out from me, all blue from the water, those red red lips pursed in a grumpy pout, the greatest victory I have ever felt, that moment always brought vividly to mind when words like “fetal doppler” and “midwife” and “homebirth” are spoken or read.

Now here he stands, holding that home made doppler and gazing at my roundness.

His hands begin searching out his unborn brother, feeling gently around my abdomen. Checking up on his Mama and baby brother. Asking questions. Measuring. Answering my questions.

Since the day we announced our pregnancy, he asks at least four or five times a day, “Is the baby ok in your belly?”

He wants to know what he cannot see.

He wants to be a part of something he knows is special and secret.

He loves a good secret.

I speak those words, “You knit me in my mother’s womb, in the most secret of places.”

He nods, blue eyes growing wider, small hands spreading out over my abdomen. Small lips kissing my stretched skin, fluttering across the deeply etched lines that prove I carried him as well.

He moves his nose closer to my belly button and begins whispering to his brother.

More secrets.

The baby moves the minute he hears that familiar voice. Pushes up hard, turns his body, lands a sharp kick.

Interaction.

Relationship.

Understanding.

Brotherhood.

I close my eyes and think of those that were scraped out of their mother’s wombs. Eviscerated. Mangled. Torn to pieces. Murdered.

What deep deep grief over what we have imagined ourselves sovereign over.

What will my son say on the day he learns that we do such things?

Will he remember these quiet moments? When he pads into my room, footed pajamas brushing the floor with that oh so familiar brush brush brush. The first beams of sunshine streaking in through the glass. Curling into my side, fitting up against me, his hands searching for his brother. Finding that exact spot that his baby brother loves to curl up in, he always seems to know which side the baby favors, he presses his hands deep.

We look at each other and he always says the same thing--

“Mom. I can feel his little harp. Its beating on my hands.”

Will he remember this?

Lord let it be so.

In the meantime, I know one piece of building material the boys will never see again. Once their brother is born that small funnel shaped building block with its tattered twine will be wrapped up and stored in my memory box. A most precious treasure, a memory of when two brothers forged their relationship before they ever set eyes on one another.

Space

Jordan Creek

Now that we have been home for a few weeks, our rhythm is getting into a groove once more. Two of my favorite beats in the flow? As you know by now, the creek owns our hearts. We love spending time there. 

The second charmer….my kitchen. Not because its souped up or fancy or anything…its simply there.

I went for so long without one that I started craving that space for myself. Now I spend as much time as I can, barefoot and pregnant, in the kitchen.

After hours of going through our past grocery bills I made a few more cuts to what we buy each week and replaced it with the homemade variety. 

These are some of yesterday’s efforts, which were also done in an effort to battle the hard water in our townhouse. I’ve never really experienced the joys of hard water before, but now understand what some of you have talked about on your own blogs. A few days ago I cooked up a beeswax lotion that has saved my skin. A few bath bombs, fancy hand soap, manly body wash for J and lastly a few practical Vick’s discs to have on hand the next time we get sick.

bath bombs

Vick’s discs

Now I know the next part is looming over my shoulder. Actually decorating our house. Nesting. That thing I am supposed to feel like doing.

Not really feelin’ it.

Am soooo sooo tired of packing and unpacking and planning that the thought of even deciding where to hang a picture frame makes me want to cry.

Can I just wait a few more weeks? Thanks. I think I will. Fall is a far more inspirational time to fix a space anyways.

But I did hang one or two things a few days ago. Aside from my handy kitchen chalkboards….this rusty bike wheel was positioned in our dining room. J rode his bike every day to what the kids called “Bicycle School” for five long years.  Bicycles have now become synonymous with grad school in my head. Those spokes are a symbol of hard work and determination. When I found this beauty, I decided it should have a place on our wall. I’ve been pinning up all the blessings we see, pouring out from our experience at bicycle school, all given to us by the Lord. I pass by this wheel and I see those blessings everyday and it reminds me in the toughest moments of my day, that the Lord is blessing all our labor. No matter how tedious it feels at the moment or how much easier it would be to just give up.  A beautiful reminder for us all.