Building a Family
Mama, how do you build a family?
A family?
Well, my child,
a family is at once
the easiest
and the hardest
thing to build.
Think of it as a garden.
Maybe you expected rows and rows of neat tulips,
standing straight and tall in their church pews,
eating organic apples and placing the cores neatly in the trash can.
Instead, you have a field full of wildflowers.
Colorful, shrieking wildflowers
who eat your leftovers with their fingers
and leave gum wrappers all over the house.
It was not supposed to be this way,
you might say to yourself.
It was supposed to be the apples and the prayers,
the quiet and the books and the order.
Some days will be so hard
you can’t believe it.
Play dough in the carpet.
Stomach bug on the carpet.
Glitter all over the carpet.
There’s kind of a lot with carpet, to be honest.
Best to do hardwood floors, if you can.
Other days will be
fly-a-kite easy.
The problem is,
you never know which one you’re going to get.
Easy-hard-easy-hard.
When you build a family,
it is your job to figure out how to make the wildflowers stand straight and tall
without dulling their color.
It is your job
to tend to the one
the world doesn’t always understand.
The one who repeats himself incessantly,
and washes his hands obsessively.
A diagnosis forever following him like a post-script.
I am Jack.
P.S. I have autism.
There is no greater pain
than the pain of watching your child
struggle to breathe with croup,
or limp with a broken leg,
or try to piece together the words to make his needs known.
Over time, your saplings
will grow delicate green leaves.
The flowers will open their soft, silky petals,
and turn their heads to the sky.
You will want the very best for each of them,
even when you don’t know what the very best is.
So you wrap gifts at Christmas,
and cook their favorite meals.
And while you are wrapping and cooking,
you are worrying.
When you build a family,
the worry is a continuous vibration
beneath your ribcage.
Is she ready for a sleepover?
When should I get them a phone?
Who will take care of him when I’m gone?
Building a family can be demanding,
I don’t want to mislead you about that.
It can be exhausting.
It is original, yet ordinary.
It is a collection of small, commonplace acts.
A band-aid across a scraped knee.
A simple dinner of pork chops and potatoes.
A hug at the end of a long day.
And memories so imprinted and timeworn and fleeting,
It’s almost as though they never happened at all.
Shiny metal keys in the door.
Cool lips against a fevered forehead.
Candles lit atop a frosted cake.
Make a wish!
My dear child,
a family is
babies
toddlers
elementary school
middle school.
It is
and fervent kisses
once the kids are in bed.
It is raw.
It real.
Building a family means falling love
with tiny baby ears shaped like seashells,
and soft newborn sighs.
It is holding your breath
and cutting tender pink fingernails.
Holding your breath,
and letting go of the back of the bike
as she sails down the hill.
Holding your breath,
the first time he puts the car in drive
and sails down the driveway.
It is a lot of holding your breath.
And sailing.
Best to get a flat driveway, if you can.
When you build a family with another person,
it can be hard.
It can feel like a road paved with
broken promises, and misunderstandings.
Then there is forgiveness.
There is hope.
And at the end of the season,
you stand in the waning light,
and look over your garden.
Maybe your knees creak, from all the times
you spent tying shoelaces.
Maybe your back aches, from all the times
you bent to wipe tears from a sad face.
Maybe your throat is hoarse, from all the times
you gave him a voice.
The sun is low.
The babies are too big too hold.
The saplings have grown to tall oak trees,
and your wildflowers have blossomed with color and light.
As the sky turns orange and gold,
you wish a quiet wish.
You hope out of all the things you taught them—
to throw away their wrappers, and eat more fruit.
To put the parking brake on,
and sit quietly in prayer.
You hope they remember the most important thing there is to remember
in this life we hold so dear.
Always tend to the tender things.
February 4, 2019 @ 1:45 pm
Beautiful! Thank you!
February 4, 2019 @ 11:20 pm
OHHHHHH, such truths, all of it ! A fine piece ❤️
February 10, 2019 @ 6:47 am
Lovely. Thank you.