I'll Stay.

You were slated to leave
the day I played my 13th round of baby-fake-out.
The pattern had remained consistent –
every other night, midnight to 5 am, prodromal labor –
until that night, which was the third in a row.

It was early Saturday morning now and I was so furiously exhausted
I slammed the bathroom door in a desperate rage,
asserting that I would not come out until this baby had been born.
As the hours slid by and she did not appear, the lightbulb came on:
the doorways were not aligned, her path was not clear.
Midnight to 5 am, every other night, she came knocking, insistent:
“can I come out now?”
and was met with a wall of spine.

I reached the end of myself with this devastating revelation:
she was stuck. She could not get out.
I emerged, defeated.

You were there, planning to go home that day.
It had been so long since your arrival that a baby had not joined us,
it seemed like it just must not be time yet, though she was long overdue.
You heard me explain, and beg for your prayers.
You prayed, and then
“We’ll stay,” you said.

I needed you.
I had given up.

There was nothing I could do for myself but rest, and so
there was nothing to distract me from what was happening inside that day:
my womb wandering homeward, rotating inch by inch
to take up its own residence and orientation once more.

Completion, exhaustion, transition, deliverance.

Via opened portals and by train, baby girl made it through:
I needed you.

---

Pain for weeks. Mystery of mysteries:
the suffering was persistent, the answers elusive.
How is it possible that an explanation doesn’t exist
for someone in this much agony?
And adding bureaucracy to suffering is the most inhumane form
of adding insult to injury.

After days on end of being miserable inside the house
without seeing the sun, without stepping out even once –
despair was all but complete.
Visions of euthanasia danced in your head, hope was a thing of the past.
How could there be a life beyond this wretchedness?

You had given up.
But the prayers of the merciful reignited a spark of vitality,
and I found a way to make my way to join you.

I could not remove your affliction, but I could stave off the depression.
I could not remove the hurt,
but I could take you on a day trip to a beautiful little town.
The people were smiling, the flowers were blooming, the ice cream was melting.
We found a secret place:
an alley within an alley
outfitted with oodles of playful art and delightful whimsy
and two comfortable, old, wingback chairs that were vastly preferable
to the hard seats waiting for us down the block.
Was this place conjured here just for us?
Of course.

I will feed you, I will sing for you,
I will clean your kitchen and your cat’s box.
And on the day I plan to leave for home, I will drive you to your appointment
and take notes, and ask questions, and crack jokes, and make suggestions
…and I will hear what the doctor is not saying,
his eyes flickering toward me as he tells you with grave certainty
where the answer doesn't lie.

And when the moment of devastating revelation threatens to overpower you,
and all you can do is cry tears of fear and grief and pain,
I will cry with you.
Together, we’ll pray –
then “I’ll stay,” I say.

---

After months of pain, this week the CT scan showed a lot of cancer in my mom’s body.
There are many things we’re feeling about this, but what we know in spite of all we feel is that God has done some crazy stuff in our lives, from giving babies where there should be none to bringing us back from the brink of terminal illness, and he’s not going to stop now.