Tonight at the end of light—tonight I feel lonely
I thought I heard my heart stop beating
And I long for you to hold me
The visit was entirely too short, but I guess I should count my blessings. Not many people are willing to travel with a seven-week-old baby, and I did count it as a gift that Dora and Kevin would want to stay here after their flight from Texas and before their three-hour trek east to the ocean.
The children and I got their cradle out of storage and cleaned it up and reattached the rockers. Emma Grace put the sheets on herself.
I guess I feel like Eden. The twilight tried its best.
Tonight I feel good and evil against my chest.
It felt good to have a new baby in the house again. And Baby Ian is so very new and sweet. I loved his cries and musical exhalations. I loved his round and dark blue gaze. I loved his featherweight self in my arms.
But these early days are not all roses and dreams, and I was reminded of the near terror of new motherhood—the sustained anxiety that comes with a breast-fed infant who doesn’t gain weight the way he ought to.
It’s difficult, motherhood. You want it to be the bliss of a Pottery Barn Kids catalogue, but it is far more real and tenuous than that. You want to enjoy it, and you do, and you would—if only it weren’t So Hard.
Would I love you less or better if I didn’t miss your face
Read your words like a love letter—would I have known your grace?
And the same day they arrived: horrible news. Cancer lurking in the breast of a friend, a friend Far Too Young for this, with children Far Too Young for this, with life Far Too Good for this.
I am amazed again at cancer’s smallness, at the dreadful silence of its self-assertion. It forces our attention to itself and it will be reckoned with. We find the clear glass of the everyday cracked and crazed and unable to bear any weight at all.
I guess I feel like Eden—aware of all I am.
Tonight I feel good and evil against my skin.
Our guests left in the early afternoon and I missed them before they were even gone. Some company is like that—making you want more. But they had to go, and I have much work to do. So the afternoon and evening have resolved themselves into acceptance and a mute diligence and frequent, fervent prayer.
We’re all homesick. Is love the reason? My hunger led me to your hope.
Until the end of this colder season keep us warm.
Cause we are always Eden the day after she fell.
We see good and evil and choose which one to tell.
“We have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe.” I Timothy 4: 10
lyrics “eden” by alli rogers www.allirogers.com
