Friday

Posted on by Frances

Good Friday. The day 30 years ago that I walked down the front steps of our trailer and found my mangled dog Benjamin lying at the foot of them. He was dead. So was Jesus. Though I had years of strong Catholic tradition behind and ahead of me, I will always think of Benjamin first on this day. 

Today is a fun day with Maia in a new city, clean of memories and markers – though we bring enough between us that there is no void. We will start the day by researching “best brunch” and she will have pancakes, I will have eggs. And then everything is easy. We will move fluidly, flexibly as if we are parts of the same body – because we ARE, on one hand. But on the other hand, she is so much herself and I am so much myself and it occurs to me that this is what mothering is about. 

Thursday 

Posted on by Frances

Road trip day with Maia. 

Chocolate croissants for sustenance. We’ll queue up our tried and true playlist from all those years traveling this route as “just the two of us.” We’ll save Petula Clark for the drive through Chicago – as usual. When we get close, one of us will instinctively hit play and turn up the volume and we’ll blast out “when you’re alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go…DOWNTOWN…” We’ll sing completely free with no worry about feeling self-conscious as you can only do when you’re the mom and they’re the kid and you know the love is unconditional. 

And we’ll both feel the wind in our hair and the sun on our faces though it’s March and the windows are rolled up. 

The song will be over eventually but it’s always there because it always has been there as far back as she can remember. And this is how, someday – years from now- when, impossibly, she drives through Chicago without me, I will still actually be there in Petula Clark’s words and in the breeze and in the sun on her face.