Saturday, December 15, 2012

Flowers on Saturday


The buds on LFG’s dance recital roses were tighter last weekend when we got home and put them in water. I was as always, bursting with that loving and rather deep-in-the-bones…best known by parents caliber…primal joy over my not so tiny dancer’s performance. And I was amidst that all too rare for me these days, rather deep-in-the-bones…best known by parents…primal feeling that all was right in the world because my baby was safely tucked by my hands, in her bed, fast asleep.

And this morning I am sick…In that rather deep-in-the-bones…best known by everyone caliber…primal, gut-punched grief that for the last half hour, sees me convulsing with tears and heartache. There are parents in Connecticut who last weekend, felt the same bursting, loving deep-in-the-bones joy over simply, their little ones’…existence. And the holidays are always magnifiers and accelerators of every emotion so surely, especially with the younger ones, there was mounting, almost giddy enthusiasm about Santa and Chanukah and other family, community and school friends holiday happenings. Maybe even a Christmas Pageant at school or church.

My little girl’s rosebuds are now unfurled flourishes. Surely there’s nothing remarkable or haughty about it. Except the arrogance that I unintentionally had—all week long—assuming that today, Saturday, would see her flowers in bloom and her very existence on this earth assured.

I don’t know what to do. I wish that I could go to Connecticut and just sit and wail with the surely inconsolable families who assumed with innocent arrogance that today, their Saturday, would be just like mine.

Onward. Painfully but lucidly. 

11 comments:

Trip English said...

Thanks. I live a few miles from the school and nearly all of my friends have someone close to them involved in some way. This is one of the nicest things I've read since yesterday. Again, thanks.

Trip English said...

Thanks. I live a few miles from the school. It's one of the nicest things I've read since yesterday. Again, thanks.

LPC said...

You made me cry.

Anonymous said...

You and the other great poets have a salutary way with words, Max.

I've been singing this oldie from my generation out loud all morning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjPgfZ3MQ8I

-F

Anonymous said...

This is for you, Max. If you ever needed affirmation for what you do/have done here on your blog, here it is:

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/37108_10151201582664807_503993821_n.jpg

-F

Amy S said...

I am afraid of going too deep. I can't handle the primal...it's just too much. Thanks for articulating that which I am afraid to feel.

Anonymous said...

I originally started dropping by your place, ADG, to pick up clothing and style tips. But I'm finding over the past few months that I'm also picking up lessons in what it means to be a father and caring human being. Well done, today, well done.

yoga teacher said...

Thank you for this.

Golf Tango Hotel said...

You have so eloquently put into words what we all feel. I cannot imagine what these parents are going through. Thank you.

Gail, in northern California said...

I'm in Disneyland this weekend surrounded by thousands of young couples with their little ones...children so giddy with excitement they just giggle all over with their Mickey Mouse ears and little princess dresses. It saddens me to think these Connecticut families will never again know such joy.
That isn't the way things are meant tò be.

Scale Worm said...

Your compassion and emotion rings true and mirrors that of many of us, local and global, in shock, who cry and weep and hug our own little precious ones ever closer to ourselves, even tighter than before. There is no sense to something as tragic as this, only pain, and remorse.
Thank you as always.