Mother's Day

Every year I think it’s gotten better... Life gets more and more "normal". The tough, achy times are spread further and further apart. Laughing is more frequent. But then the shake comes back—the one that rattles and quakes its way up to the base of my neck, catching my breath and spinning me into a quiet frenzy before making its home, heavy in my chest. Dizzy, insides roiling, it usually takes me a few days to realize... Oh dear. There's a big day coming up.

July, 2006

It is times like these that I miss her the most. Times when “Mother” is plastered in every shop window, every spam e-mail, every greeting card headline…

Mother.

Even her name is soft and comforting.

I remember after she died, I flew with Dad and Brother to Hawaii, her favorite place, to shake her body's ashes over the crystal blue tropical waters she had loved. Sitting in the airport on a layover from one island to another, my blank gaze landed on a family encamped in the row of chairs across from me. Father, Mother, and two daughters sat in their shorts and sandals, bags and magazines and colored iPods spread out over several chairs. The girls played with each other occasionally, but mostly the eldest sat with her headphones on, while the younger asked Dad for money to buy M&M’s, if she could go to the bathroom, how much longer the layover was, and if Mom had remembered to pack her favorite My Little Pony. Busy and dizzy with anticipation and boredom, she finally settled in the seat next to Mom and laid her head in her lap. She laughed and chatted and haphazardly ran her hands up and down her mother’s legs as Mom absentmindedly stroked her hair while reading a magazine.

Something about the scene hit my heart, and suddenly the back of my throat was very tight. Stinging, stinging eyes, and I tilted my head back, trying to hide the hot tears rolling across my temples in the forest of my hair. It seemed so familiar. So easy. So average and normal that it hurt like a knife coming out. Probably the way a permanently injured athlete feels when they watch the game they can never play again, or what rushes through an amputee when they go to buy pants. Loss afresh.

I watched this little girl with her stringy hair and bunchy shorts strewn across her mother’s lap, and her mother’s calm, tired face as she ran her hands through her daughter’s hair, and the thought came: “Don’t take it for granted. You may not always have this—this ease, this thoughtless love, this perfect informality. Don’t take it for granted!”

But then even quicker I thought, "But isn’t that the benefit of a mother?" Isn’t that the built-in perk to the relationship? It is so deep and permanent and constant and unchanging—the most lasting, eternal bond we will ever know… Isn’t part of the greatness of the relationship that we GET to take it for granted? The way that the sky is blue or the sun rises in the morning-- it is and was forever. It’s something good you can always rely on, and a blessing don’t have to think about. There are other things to write thank-you notes for.

No, as I sat there I realized the real beauty of what I was seeing was the fact that this excited, bored, restless little girl could sit and laugh and talk with her mom, and never once have to think about whether her mother loved her or thought she was special or wanted to spend time with her. She could just exist in her mother’s love, and not have to apologize for it.

Sunday is a special day. It’s a day when children across the globe honor and thank their mothers—their suns, their blue skies, their eternal love. That day, more than any other day we are encouraged not to take our mothers for granted, but instead to acknowledge their tireless efforts and many sacrifices for our good. I cannot tell you how I wished I had a reason to buy a card this week. How I would love to see my momma in church wearing the corsage my dad would have picked out for her, and sit across the table from her at brunch in the afternoon. How I wish I could whisper, "I love you, Momma," in her ear one last time. She was an incredible mother, and she deserves more honor than she received.

But more than anything else, more than all these things, I wish she were here to rest my head on her lap. To squeeze myself into the little nook in between the back of her knees and the back of the couch, and curl up on top of her as we watch baseball or American Idol. I wish she was here to show around New York and tell me how proud she is of me for moving to the big city. ("My big girl," she'd say, "I'm so proud of you.") I wish she was here to tell all about my day at work and to ask about relationships, and how do you tell when a mango is ripe again? I wish she were here to say, “I love you,” as we get off the phone…

I wish she were here so I could take her for granted. And I don’t regret a single day I did.

November, 1990

Happy Mother’s Day, Momma. I love you.

Oof.

Mother's Day is coming up. Awesome.

Thursday Serenade

First Lady

I was in D.C. recently. It was a sun-filled but chilly day as a small group of friends and I wandered through the capitol city dappled with cherry blossoms. We tucked into one of the many Smithsonians, losing ourselves and each other in the maze of flags and memorabilia, when I stepped into the room that housed the gowns and personal effects of our First Ladies. It took my breath away.

I walked slowly along the display wall, pausing to read the caption cards, gazing intently at the beading on Mamie Eisenhower’s pale pink inaugural gown and smiling when I saw Nancy Reagan’s white satin Cinderella slippers. I felt a kinship with these women, seeing the gowns and accessories, dishes and stationery, all picked out lovingly, carefully, to make the White House their home. They weren’t so different than I, I felt, when I saw Edith Wilson’s bawdy purple feather fan and Abigail Adams’ glass pearl necklace… We’re all still girls.

I traced the perimeter of the room, finally settling on a small bench in front of a screen tucked into the wall. It was playing the tape from the ceremony when Michelle Obama donated her inaugural gown and just nearing the end, so I waited through the credits for it to loop back around and start.

The couple next to me got up. The tape started to play again. An open shot of the main hall at the Smithsonian, rows of seats in a sun-filled room all facing a small podium at the front, and beside it, four chairs. An announcer came on over the loudspeakers, “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome designer Jason Wu… The Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History… The Secretary of the Smithsonian…” Three men strode from a hallway in the corner of the screen, and I watched that spot waiting for Mrs. Obama to appear.

I started imagining what she must be thinking, feeling—while she was surely undoubtedly honored, this fuss probably wasn’t a big deal to her. She’s the First Lady, after all. Pomp and circumstance had probably gotten fairly de rigueur at this point—she just wanted to get on the stage and do the thing.

Finally I saw a flash of her short white day dress peeking from around the corner, and those telltale toned arms. I read the white captioned words at the bottom of the screen as I heard, “And finally, the First Lady of the United States of America…”

My whole body lurched. Like I was about to be sick or immediately start bawling, a strong and sudden bolt starting in my stomach shot to the top of my head. Inexplicably, hot tears began making warm rivulets down my face as Mrs. Obama walked nonchalantly up the steps to the small podium and sat in her chair.

Whoa.

What was that?

“The First Lady of the United States of America…” The words echoed.

I was taken back to a night in LA. A night after college. I had been sitting in a medium-sized Bible study at a small café in Studio City when a guest speaker called me out. “You… Yes, you. I feel like there’s something I need to tell you.” I lifted my head and blood rushed to my cheeks as many sets of eyes turned to me in the darkened room.

“I just keep looking at you and hearing, ‘First Lady… First Lady…’ And I feel like the Lord wants me to tell you that that’s how he sees you—as his First Lady. And just like no one is allowed to speak disrespectfully to the First Lady of the United States, or dishonor her, that’s the same way the Lord sees you. You are his bride. And he is your defense. He respects you, honors you, and expects people to do the same. You are his First Lady.”

I was floored.

“What… in… the… “

Even now, retyping these words, my heart can hardly believe it. But in the humblest way I know how to possibly say, it felt true. While I rarely feel worthy of any special respect or honor, and am certainly aware of numerous shortcomings and faults which would immediately discount me from many forms of esteem… Her words spoke to something deep and noble in me.

“The Lord sees me as what…? Really?”

I remember once hearing an interview with one of Princess Diana’s childhood friends, and she spoke about how young Diana never smoked or drank or slept around or got into trouble because, “she always had this uncanny sense that her life was made for something greater. She knew her actions would count someday, so she preserved herself for a noble cause.” I was only 13 or so when I heard these words, but they immediately branded themselves on my heart. That’s exactly how I’ve always felt. Set apart. Preserved. Branded for something noble.

So as I sat on that small bench in a dark room at the Smithsonian, brushing away the now-drying streams of tears, I savored those words. “The First Lady of the United States of America…”

There’s power in those words. Power in nobility and grace. Power not from man, not from earned prestige or ill-gotten influence… But power from the Lord’s hand. I may never marry a president—country, company, or otherwise. I may never have a title or cause or crown that brings people to awe. …But I am the bride of the Most High. And I want to live worthy of that call.

I want to be His First Lady.

A Year Ago...

He picked me up at 6:45. I was wearing a white dress. Its silken folds flowed down in rich pleats from my shoulders, meeting in a knot at my waist before pouring out like milk over my Botticelli hips.

I was beautiful.

My hair was curled in big, golden, undulating waves that framed my face and tumbled down over my shoulders. Long rows of sparkles hanging from my ears lay against the glistening blonde of my hair, and my feet were wrapped in silver; high heels that sparkled and added inches to already long legs.

"Fuck me," my friend Zoë said when she saw me standing in the doorway.

I had bought the dress for just this moment. Five hundred dollars— a Diane von Furstenberg. I couldn’t afford to keep it, so I tucked the tag into the back of my bra, ready to return it the next day. It was the one giveaway that all was not as it seemed; that this was a departure, a rarity in my life of restaurant work and grocery store runs and not having enough money to pay the electric bill. But in this dress, with these shoes and these earrings, with my hair curled like that and my makeup on just so—I was more.

I descended the stairs as he came to meet me striding across the street, his face red from one too many hours spent in the California sun. This was our first meeting, and so I needed a minute to take him in… His saunter as he walked, the camel of his suit, the way his smile beamed like he had just won the biggest prize at the fair. His golden hair gleamed in the glow of early evening, and his blue shirt reflected the soft azure of his eyes. When he said my name with that delicious English twang, the end of his words liltingly betrayed his Liverpool roots. “Jessica Doehle, as I live and breathe…”

It was perfect.

Little City

There's something funny to me about living in a city so populously large, so dense with people from all corners of humanity, all living and thriving in one place, so completely different from the whitewashed suburbs I grew up in, and the homogeny of washed up TV stars and their wannabes in LA.

New York is the mother of all Big Cities. It's dense, rich with culture, opportunity, fortune, fame... Bright lights, big city, yadda yadda yadda. But once I heard someone say New York is really more like a small town, and I think it's true. Yes, there are Big, Ambitious, Exciting things happening here... But when you've got a Fruit Stand Guy who gives you an extra carton of strawberries because he thinks you look pretty this morning, and a dry cleaner who knows your name, and you wave to the same housewife walking her dogs every night... That's small-town stuff.

I was on the train yesterday, standing in a crowded car pressed between the door and a silver bar, when the doors opened at yet another stop that wasn't mine on the local line. A few people brushed by me to escape the overcrowded confines and give the rest of us a little breathing room, but as the tell-tale ding resounded from above and the doors began to shut, I heard, "Esscuse me! Esscuse me!"

A small man with tan skin and dark hair was behind me suddenly, forcefully pushing a small stroller into the car. I heard a few muffled groans as he burrowed his way into the crowded train, followed by his wife and several other small children, and I pressed myself further into the silver bar against my hip.

The doors finally closed and I rested against them, turning my head to see the smallest toddler I had ever seen staring back at me. His little brown eyes were wild with confusion and curiosity, and his mother held him tightly to her chest as we all swayed, bumping along the tracks. He took me in and I smiled at him to see if I could coax out a grin, eyeing his jagged teeth and smooth, caramel skin, when I became aware of a large, soft pressure against the front of my legs.

I lifted my purse and adjusted my scarf to see another little boy-- his brother-- leaning back into my legs, head resting on my tummy. He had one hand on his dad's stroller, with his feet planted between mine, resting fully against me. Nestled in a sea of grown-up legs. His thick winter coat softened the already light weight of his small body, and I returned my scarf and purse to their original positions as I smiled at the soft weight of his innocent familiarity.

As I stood in the crowded train, back pressed to the door next to this large family of little people I didn't know, and felt this tiny boy using my legs for refuge... The city definitely didn't seem big.

Street Scene

The wind was blowing. My golden hair whipped around my head and face, twisting with the cream scarf slung around my neck. I was walking to meet a friend, hustling through tangled crowds, when he appeared in front of me. This short, round figure in a bright yellow jacket selling tickets for a view looked up at me from his round, brown face, eyes gleaming. “You look beautiful,” he said across a crowd of people.

“Thank you,” I tossed back with a wide smile. His gaze was fixed on me as I continued to walk through the blustery wind toward him and he turned as I passed. “You’re glowing… Like you got a spotlight on you.”

I laughed and turned my head to look at him, raising my voice as our distance grew. “Thank you!”

A cold gust blew thick curls into my eyes and teeth, and I whipped my head back 'round again to see my way.

Glowing? Funny. That’s exactly how I felt.