That's All

I was really surprised once, when my cousin, who I had idolized and imitated since childhood, said she admired my strength. This was years ago, before I even knew if I even had any.

I look at what the last few years have given her, and I can’t imagine the strength it takes to still eat breakfast. She says she is waiting for the next thing. Thing by thing, we hope together and admire each other’s strength. I don’t know what she saw in me then.

We have been pregnant together every time.
Her first son will be born next month; my first son should have been a few weeks older.
Her second child is the age my second would have been if it had hung on.
Her first child is 5, the age of mine.

My little girl is pink and tall and sturdy.
Her little girl is slight and pale and can’t always breathe.
Her heart has been open and sewn more in its short life than most or our hearts will ever be broken.

I wonder why we get what we get.

And, is it true it won’t be anything we can’t handle?
I hate to go there, but I have noticed that we manage it all.
We stay on top of the waves; sometimes they bring sand dollars too.

I am as resistant to religion as I can possibly be while attempting this motherhood thing.
I try not to pray unless absolutely necessary.
I look for symbolism in a text, something connected to the graininess of life,
something that explains the dust, but not the smoke.

I don’t want to not believe, but of the two possibilities, to me, eternal damnation for fence sitting seems more pleasant than what ever emptiness comes with believing in something that isn’t there.

I am not admitting to any grand design or anything of course, I am just thinking. There isn’t a thing that I have faced that I would give back in exchange for the good that came out of it.