brave

She is strong. She is brave. She can do anything she waaaaaaaaaaants to do. She is strong. She is brave. She can do anything she waaaaaaaants to do. She is…

What are you singing, Bumble Bea?

A song I made up.

I like it very much.

Me too. She is strong. She is brave. She can do anything she waaaaants to do.

I want to bottle her up. The song catches me at the oddest times—walking into a meeting, waiting endlessly at a jewelry counter, in the middle of the night.

She is strong. She is brave.

She runs now, all gangly legs and pumping arms. Up and down the house, jumping over the dog, under the table, singing her song. She laughs with her whole body.

She can do anything she wants to do.

I fix myself on her. She is magic. I am convinced. If I stare at her long enough, she might not disappear. If I keep her under my wing, tuck her behind my leg, tell her stories about princesses and ladybugs, brush her hair gently, touch her nose, smell her neck, maybe she will stay. Maybe she won’t trust the person she shouldn’t trust. If I just watch her chest rise and fall while she sleeps, if I study every crease on the bottoms of her feet, she won’t leave and never come back. The other one disappeared, and never came home. It seems a strange habit to try to control the passage of time by sheer will. I tattoo each moment on the sand of my neural pathways, only to watch them wash away with the tide. There she goes--my baby turns into a girl. My girl turns into a woman.

Ironically, the only permanent thing I know in my life is that Lucy is dead. Everything else I can hold in my arms is a lesson in impermanence and that scares the shit out of me. It humbles me, rather. Fear is something I am trying to let go of, though I am a house of cards built on fears. Time blows through the room. And suddenly, Beatrice is eating her sushi with chopsticks, and telling me jokes, and washing her own toes, and her brother’s too.

This morning, Beezus and I headed to the pediatrician for her four year well-visit. Just the two of us. We sit together and read books waiting. We are the first appointment of the day, and we are there for the long haul. Hearing. Vision. All of it. She follows the rules. To a tee. And she gets upset if others don’t as well. I am exactly the same way, so we sit together quietly nodding at the others waiting. We keep to ourselves. She is precocious in that way, and sometimes I forget that four is still so damn little. She pulled out her yoga mat before the appointment to stretch and then meditate. She never admitted she was afraid, just that she wanted to be calm before the doctor. I couldn't help but wonder when she became a little woman. She wore a bright yellow dress and a little bright pink sweater and bright pink maryjanes. She dressed up for the doctor she said, because she is a big girl now.

For a week she has asked me if she is getting shots, and I didn’t know. I really didn’t. But I didn’t make a big deal out of it. I don’t know, love. Maybe? 

Oh, okay. I’m just wondering.

Are you scared of shots?

No. I just want to know.

Four shots. The nurse gave her the option of taking two this year and two when she turned five, or all of them today, and she opted for all of them today. I just stood by her. I explained the choices again and nodded as she made her decision. The nurse asked me to put her on my lap, and she sat absolutely still for each shot. She didn’t cry, or flinch. She just remained still. And the nurse remarked on how good she was at following the rules. She remained staid, like a soldier almost. She is getting too big too fast.  

She is strong. She is brave. She can do anything she wants to do.

And then the nurse looked in her face and saw something I couldn’t see with her back towards me. “Oh, Beatrice, it’s okay to cry.”

And she let it go.

Her face broke in a huge cry just as the nurse walked out of the room. The cry of my newborn, my one year old, my grieving sister, my little baby...What made Beezus think she couldn't cry? What made her wait for permission to be afraid? I don’t know. But when she started crying everything she held in for the hour and a half, maybe for the week before, came pouring out in torrents. She is still a baby. So delicate and little and I’m the mommy that wipes away tears and explains what bravery is—to be afraid and still do something. The song snuck into my head.

She is strong. She is brave. She can do anything she wants to do.

Indeed.