The Nightgown

Your fibers have worn too thin for me to repair your tear, the tear that began tiny from tiny hands grabbing at you in search of the breasts you covered. That tiny tear has grown, just as the tiny hands have grown and I have had no control in stopping any of it.

I wore you first on my wedding night, in a tent, in the woods, and you smelled of smoke from the fire that kept us warm. I was wearing you that following morning too, when my first child was conceived.

For nine months you covered my growing belly and my husband teased us both. You were there that first night home too, when I was so tired and sore and terrified, terrified that I did not know anything about being a mother to the child that cried in our arms. I was wearing you when the breast milk I'd waited five days for soaked the front of you. I laughed and laughed a nervous laugh because what strange things my body was capable of!

When my father left this world and I was too sad to get dressed, I wore you for a week, finding comfort in your softness and your smell. You smelled like the baby boy who was always tugging at you and burying his face into you, holding tight to you, to us, with his whole body.

I was wearing you when my second child was conceived, too. And again on that morning when I realized what had happened, that despite a marriage failing already, I was again with child because one night I'd needed to feel something but grief, anything.

Another winter and spring passed with you and then came summer and a baby girl. I'd argued with the nurses the day she came to let me up to have a shower and you. And so they did, with supervision, an hour after giving birth.

Three days later and back home, again you were soaked with milk from my own body, milk made special for that little girl. I laughed again because it never stops being amazing what a woman can do. As recently as this morning that baby girl clung to you and I, tugging at your tear. How something so thin could provide such a warmth, I do not know but we were both especially grateful on this cold November morning.

You are just a thing, nightgown, and I've been told not to love things in this world, told to save my affection for the living. But you are alive to me. And since I could never toss a living thing into the trash to be carted away to a hole in the earth or to a fire in the sky, I will tuck you away with the other things I've been told not to love. Into a drawer devoted entirely to secret and wonderful 'things' for me and me alone so that they might be pulled out from time to time, to be held, to be smelled, to be remembered.

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Sometimes Pa was very lucid and we'd talk or we'd cry together but as the days went by I'm not sure he always knew I was there for my short daily visit. I had a baby at home to take care of, to nurse, and an intensive care unit was not somewhere I felt comfortable lingering with him the handful of times I'd brought him along. I couldn't ever stay long and just hold my father's hand.

 

Food no longer interested him and he only stared at his crosswords with pencil in hand. These were two things we had shared a passion for, food and puzzles, but overnight they became just mine and so I couldn't bring these daily comforts to him as gifts.

 

In his other hand, his phone. And sometimes he'd say he had to call so and so and there would be such an urgency in it. He had to call his friend Ray, who he had known since they were boys, and he had to call my husband, Jason. But I could not make these calls for him, I could not say to them what he wanted to say because I did not know what the message was.

 

And he had to call me.

Which he did several times a day from the hospital, but rarely did he say more than "hello?". I don't think he had anything he had to say to me because we had always been so good at saying things to one another all along, the good and the bad; I think when you talk to someone five, six, seven times a day for years it had just become habit to hit speed dial 3, "Supergirl". My child would be crying or another call would be ringing or a pot on the stove would be boiling, or my heart would be breaking and I could not sit on the phone and listen to his breathing, his repeated hellos.

I just couldn't.

 

A walk one evening with my son and Mom - the one night she had left her husband's side to come home and do the things a person needs to do to remain human - revealed a swarm of monarch butterflies, migrating, stopped to rest in the trees before moving on again. He would have so loved to see that, he would have called it a gift to witness it, a miracle. I tried to photograph them for him, remembering what he'd asked of me before I had moved back: to send him a photo a day, that it didn't matter what it was a photograph of, he just loved seeing what I saw as I saw it. But I couldn't get the images right. And I certainly couldn't bottle a thousand butterflies for him so he could see it as I had seen it.

 

I was driving his beloved car, driving to visit him, and I came across his MP3 player in the glovebox. I stopped and bought him a pair of headphones, more than I could afford really, but, while I was raised not to buy things I couldn't afford, I was also raised to treat purchases as investments. I wish I could say that as I stood in line to pay for those headphones I was justifying the purchase by saying to myself "Only the best for my Pa" but what I was really saying was "He's going to die very soon and then I guess I will use them and use them for a long time."

 

I'm not sure he really understood what I was asking him when I showed him the headphones but with eyes near closed he had nodded. I felt afraid in that moment because while Pa loved his music, there was always a time and place for it as he was someone who required a lot of quiet, someone easily overstimulated by all the senses, and the last thing I wanted was for him to become agitated. I looked to my mother and she nodded. I hit play, I'd chosen Bach, and Pa's eyes shot open. It startled me, his eyes opening like that, and I thought I'd done wrong, but as I reached to remove the noise, he smiled and his eyes got wet and he said "Oh. Oh, that's so lovely..."

He grabbed my hand and squeezed gently. Pa was never one to gather you up and hug you in his arms; Pa would hug you with his hand, a squeeze to the arm or the knee as you sat beside him, or your hand in his great big hand. And it was the most comforting and reassuring thing I've ever known.

It was as I had told myself in line that day. Pa died very soon after, less than a week later. I don't know how many more times he used these headphones that sit before me, that I now use and will use for a long time. But it wouldn't matter if no one ever used them again after that day. I brought my dearest friend something lovely, for a moment, and in doing so I unknowingly brought myself something lovely because I will use this day, that moment, the smile and that squeeze of his hand for the rest of my life.

That is one hell of an investment.

And I say to you

In the morning, Grandmaam puts you in bed with me with your bottle of milk and I kiss your face and hair and tummy and knees, breathing you in. And I say to you, "This is my favorite part of our day."

We head downstairs for breakfast and squirrel watching and Sesame Street and arguments about keeping your socks on. And when you tire of these things, you go off to find a book and then you climb into my lap with it, never letting me finish the words before you've turned the page, but always with your head laid heavy on my chest and an enchanted grin on your lips and a promise of things to come - the promise that you will always climb into your mother’s lap for a book and you will one day allow her to read it to you cover to cover, over and over. And I say to you, "This is my favorite part of our day."

After your nap we climb into my bed once again, falling into the pillows, laughing. We put our legs in the air, together, bending our knees, twirling our feets and wiggling our toes, taking turns mimicking the other, and we laugh and laugh some more. And I say to you, "This is my favorite part of our day."

We wander outside and we feel the grass and dirt together, watch the birds come and go together, collect pine ones together, and look for hidden wonders all around, together. And I say to you. "This is my favorite part of our day."

Then it's time for a snack and some play; some cheese and crackers and wooden blocks; some cucumber and ham and dump trucks; maybe some peanut butter on toast and chasing Doo the Scottie Dog. You love everything whole hearted, so quick with a smile and a laugh, and so sincere are you that I can't help but follow your lead with the same sincerity even on days when I’m tired or my heart is heavy. And I say to you, "This is my favorite part of our day."
 

Into the tub we go! We splish and we splash, Police Duck quacks the case again, the red ball goes "plunk!" and Cow the washcloth cleans you head to toe. Grandmaam helps us now, because soon your new sister will be here. She laughs with you like I haven't heard her laugh in many, many years, helping Cow clean you and saying, "First, we wash up as far as possible and then we wash down as far as possible and then... THEN we wash possible!" And I say to you both, "This is my favorite part of our day."

And finally, it's back to the bed, all warm and damp and smelling sweet. I kiss your bottom and I kiss your toes and we chase and wrestle you for powder, a diaper and clothes, always letting you win for a good while, unable to resist your squeals of delight. And I say to you, "This is my favorite part of our day."

Now it's time to say goodnight, I lay you down and never do you let me forget to make your fish swim and your birds fly. Again I kiss you and I tuck your favorite blanket under your arm, the very same kind of blanket your mother called her favorite so many years ago. Before I say anything to you, your brown eyes ask, "But how can all of these parts of our day be your favorite, Mama?"

And I say to you, "What I mean to say, Lovely, is that you are the favorite part of my day, all day, every day. For ever and always."  And then you smile and I realize that never have I said more true a thing to another human being. 

 

"Forever and always, sweet baby dreams."