Holding Together
It was the smallest thing. And I had just heard her sobbing and the scariest punctuation marks of calm, followed by I felt best at the hospital because I was sure I was almost dead. And I thought, your twin is sitting right there. You don't get that option. The paper thin teenage psyche and her world was crashed divided a million pieces shattered when the world is a box inside of a box inside of a box and how do you possibly begin to explain that? You don't. Be a mirror and not a sponge, he said.
The hurricane had its eye, and in he came. Without words you just want to wrap him up into a ball and hug him and tell him that everything will be ok and somehow figure out a way to make that so. It's the anniversary, he said. Of my dad. He did it when we were on our way to school. And inside, every curse word imaginable, how can you possibly?! That he is one of three. And his birthday yesterday, and how excited he was. And before we can even get into it he is whisked away to class and there is SO. MUCH. LEFT. Entire carriages full of luggage to get through. The afternoon hours are a miasma a whirlwind of emotional volcanoes and he is stuck in my mind. That he came to me. And that he offered it to me, first to me, only to me. And I thought back to all of the conversations and the realization that you're in it now, you're all in, and that my heart swelled at the thought and the magic in knowing that you made the right choice. And I found him in the library, sitting alone, intent, sad. And sitting down across from him I slid the chocolate bar across the table. "Do you remember the dementors in Harry Potter?" His face is alight with the most important smile I have seen all week. He nods. "Remember how to recover after they try to suck the life and happiness out of you?" He is simultaneously nodding and unwrapping the chocolate and this smile, I feel it in my toes even. "We can't necessarily control the things that happen to us. But we can control how we react to them. Your strength and your ability to make good choices for yourself are your patronus. You can dig into that well of strength whenever you need it. And I will always have chocolate."
To have been called to do this, and to have these kids. Let me continue to do Your work.
The hurricane had its eye, and in he came. Without words you just want to wrap him up into a ball and hug him and tell him that everything will be ok and somehow figure out a way to make that so. It's the anniversary, he said. Of my dad. He did it when we were on our way to school. And inside, every curse word imaginable, how can you possibly?! That he is one of three. And his birthday yesterday, and how excited he was. And before we can even get into it he is whisked away to class and there is SO. MUCH. LEFT. Entire carriages full of luggage to get through. The afternoon hours are a miasma a whirlwind of emotional volcanoes and he is stuck in my mind. That he came to me. And that he offered it to me, first to me, only to me. And I thought back to all of the conversations and the realization that you're in it now, you're all in, and that my heart swelled at the thought and the magic in knowing that you made the right choice. And I found him in the library, sitting alone, intent, sad. And sitting down across from him I slid the chocolate bar across the table. "Do you remember the dementors in Harry Potter?" His face is alight with the most important smile I have seen all week. He nods. "Remember how to recover after they try to suck the life and happiness out of you?" He is simultaneously nodding and unwrapping the chocolate and this smile, I feel it in my toes even. "We can't necessarily control the things that happen to us. But we can control how we react to them. Your strength and your ability to make good choices for yourself are your patronus. You can dig into that well of strength whenever you need it. And I will always have chocolate."
To have been called to do this, and to have these kids. Let me continue to do Your work.
