sometimes, joy makes you wait. . .

by bam

Amore ala Roma…
Amore ala Roma

A year ago, I was crushed. Four of us were supposed to be in Paris, but one of us never made it on a plane. Passport tangles tangled him. We tried every option known to humankind, but after days of holding our breath, we faced the cold hard inevitability: there would be no four of us in Paris. No four of us encircling the cafe table, as I’d pictured it, prayed for it, since the day the doctor told me the thing in my lung was cancer. And all I wanted in the world was to be held tight, held together, by my boys. My beautiful beautiful beautiful boys.

We were determined to try again. This year: Roma. We made the law professor with the failed passport get in line early, and expeditedly, for a new-spangled one. He complied.

I held my breath anyway. The closer we got to takeoff, the harder I held all the breath in my chest.

But Monday night, two planes, carrying four people, were crossing the globe, flying through the night, pointed toward Rome.

Ever since, I’ve been inhaling in double time, breathing as deep as a girl with 1.5 lungs can possibly breathe. Because this is the stuff that makes my life hum like a mezzosoprano, like a nightingale, like the merriest mama that ever there was. We are, the four of us, entangled as one, under the blue blue of Italy’s sky.

Sometimes the unthinkable happens. And you stumble and bumble, and shed tear upon tear. But then you pick up the pieces. You make the most of what’s there in your midst, and try to not ache for what’s missing.

And life, every once in a while, gives you a rare second chance. And you realize the heartache of the past has only hollowed more space in your heart, so that when the rushing in comes in, you’ve all the more capacity for unparalleled joy.

I am giddy and dizzy and pulsing with joy. It’s the sweetest sonata that I’ve ever sung.

It’s the song of my deepest prayer answered: dear God, give me sumptuous sumptuous time with my most blessed and beautiful beautiful boys.

Amen.

A perfect poem for this moment:

Mary Oliver’s “Mindful”

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for —
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world —
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant —
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these —
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

What are the somethings for which you’ve had to wait for what felt an unbearable wait?