Look Again

May 2005

With two hands she set the stone cookie sheet on the kitchen island. She then used her pointer finger to run down the list of ingredients on the crusty index card. It had grease marks and crumbs and tattered corners, but the recipe was in her mother’s handwriting and had never failed when her mom used it. She had no doubt that by following the directions, she could replicate the warm, soft goodness that when paired  with a glass of cold milk on a Saturday afternoon would make everything inside also warm and good.

How is it that she was baking cookies? So she bakes cookies? She can be baked. She can bake in the sun. She can bake a pie or a cake or muffins. And other foods are cooked. But some are also broiled, or grilled, or roasted. What is roasted? Do you roast a roast or is it baked? What is a roast? Is a roast a type of meat or the process that is used to cook the meat? You can also roast a person; She once went to a retirement party where the retiree was roasted in the most awful manner. It was so terrible that the retiree didn’t speak to the roaster ever again. It was such a tragedy as he did think he was being funny. He didn’t know that her family didn’t know she was gay. And that her family was in attendance. And that her partner was highly sensitive to the subject to boot. Call it the ultimate faux pas. Maybe he was actually roasted? All she knew for certain was that he felt the heat. Maybe someone should have previewed his speech?

You roast marshmallows over a campfire. Or is it toast? You toast marshmallows over a campfire. Swell, now we have a whole new category: toasting! How many are we up to now? Roast, toast, bake, broil,  boil, simmer, steam, heat, cook, preheat, low heat, medium heat, grill, oh my! It’s no wonder so many people just eat out these days. There are simply too many choices! All she wants right now is to bake the cookies like her mom did. 

“My cookies are flat. They have no taste. The chocolate chips must be spoiled or something because even they taste weird,” she said. “Mom? Did you hear me? Maybe my oven is broken? Are you sure you gave me the right recipe?”

She stared at the computer screen as her mom silently replied, gesturing wildly with her hands. “Mom, you’re on mute.” Again.

“...mi sweet chips and you’ll be all,” her mom said over the speakers. “Do you want me to send you...instead? ...temperature and weather sometimes...oddly can effect...are you listening...am I on mute again?”

She stared and wondered not for the first time how it could be so difficult to bring her mom into the 21st century? If her mom would just find one place in her house that had a strong signal, and stayed in it for the duration of the call, it would be okay. For some reason, her mom liked to treat FaceTime calls like phone calls and would wander the house doing odd tasks while talking. She would water her plants, empty her dishwasher, fold and put away laundry, dust. She could never just sit and be in the moment. She always had to be moving and doing multiple things at one time. This didn’t work well with technology. 

Sighing, she glanced down at her mom’s handwriting, admiring the way she made her m’s and a’s. Why don’t kids learn cursive anymore? She supposed with technology there isn’t as much need to write. Everyone texts and emails. And facetimes… or tries to facetime. Then she looked again. 

“Mom, do you use dark brown sugar and semi-sweet chocolate chips?”

“Yes, love. This is what I have been trying to tell you. Look at the recipe I sent you. Look again.”

***

July 2008

Massive sandstone cliffs made of Jurassic rocks! Dinosaur rocks? Trails and forests and waterfalls! There was one trail that would lead them to an Emerald Pool that sounded amazing. The Ranger told them about wildlife they may see along the way and wildflowers that they MUST NOT PICK! Lizards, turtles, birds, and deer. But please don’t feed any of them! The park has ferns, wildflowers, and mosses. 

Their heads were spinning with information and details. They were trying to remember everything the Ranger told them for their adventure to begin the next morning when they started their hike as she and her husband walked out of the lodge hand in hand. The Ranger was walking alongside them after finishing up his presentation on Zion National Park to the families. They were the last to leave. 

The Ranger snapped the Lodge lights off and they were left in pitch black dark. Think ink. But darker. She thought she had suddenly gone blind. She clenched her husband’s hand harder and heard him gasp. 

“It’s so dark!” he said. Oh, so he is seeing it too. Or, not seeing it? They could hear faint voices of the other families as they wandered back to their cabins so they weren’t suddenly being attacked by a black blob. But it was SO dark! They had never seen it so dark! They were definitely out West now. 

In Utah. In the middle of nowhere. 

Surrounded by mountain lions and coyotes and bobcats and, why the heck did they have to go listen to that Ranger anyway? She could have stayed in the dark about these things. She didn’t need to know everything.  

The Ranger chuckled softly beside them, “Look up.”

Above them were billions upon billions of stars. In front of them were the sandstone cliffs. the 10,000 foot cliffs blocking their view. They simply had to move their heads. Look up. 

***

August 2009

“What’s that?” Her husband is peering at the screen. His nose inches from the black and grey murky swirl. His blue eyes are wild and searching. His face is the same color as the sheet that covers her legs. The sonographer moves the transducer around the warm blue gel on her abdomen.

“I’m not supposed to say anything,” she responds, again. She is using the same even clinical voice she has used several times now.

“You must see something. You must be able to tell us something. Look again. Just look,” he says.

The woman’s eyes turn to her, she can clearly see it in her eyes before the sonographer can turn away quickly enough. She tries to cover it up by handing her a paper washcloth to wipe the gel away. She quietly whispers, “I’m sorry.”

That night we read extra bedtime stories to our two daughters and mourn the loss of the daughter who never was. We give extra hugs and kisses to the ones we have. We check on them and touch their sleeping heads. We look again and are thankful for the blessings we have. We look. But we can’t help but think about what we weren’t able to see on that screen. 

***

June 2011

“It’s called a footprint. Keep your eyes on the horizon. You should see a flat bit of water at about your ten o’clock,” the captain says.

Her husband sighs as three heads swivel right instead of left. He says, “Ten o’clock. Do you know where ten o’clock is?” And he points over the boat railing, his eyes glued to the water. She knows he is the most likely of the group to spot the whale first, but she hopes he lets his daughters say it first. 

There is a lot of patience required to whale watch. In fact they were warned that they may not even see any whales on this whale watch excursion. They had to look. So far they had seen dolphins and seals. They had seen a bear and her bubs on the shore. They had even seen a bald eagle soaring overhead. In her mind, this had been a pretty successful boat trip even without the whales.

 But then there was the footprint. And so they looked.

“Just keep looking. The whale should come back up in a few minutes to take a breath.”

They didn’t realize that they were all holding their breath until the giant suddenly breached. Larger than life, almost out of the water, practically close enough to splash them, and then the animal slipped back beneath the surface. They looked first at where the whale had been and then at one another. They looked and saw that each face held the same shock and amazement in their eyes. 

“Look at your twelve o’clock,” the captain said. 

And they all turned to look.  

***

May 2013

She is knocked up. The slut. We aren’t even sure who the dad is. How is it that some can get pregnant so easily and it is so difficult for others? And she is moving back home? If she thinks there will be any help with the feeding or getting up in the middle of the night to help out, she better think again. Her father and I shouldn’t even allow her to move into our house. With him being allergic, this could be a tragic mistake. 

“Mom, she will have three or four, tops. Look how tiny she is. She is barely a kitten herself!” 

The boxes are barely moved into the house a day later when the cat goes into labor. She begins to pant. There is a small burst of water which she quietly laps up before moving herself into the labor and delivery box that has been prearranged for her with her favorite soft blanket. Her citrus green eyes look up as she gives one loud meow and suddenly there is a small, wet ball of fur. She seems a bit shocked at this tiny package, but suddenly there is another small package arriving. She quietly cleans them both.

Her daughter exclaims over and over, “Look! Look! Oh Mom! Look!”

“I know, honey, it’s amazing,” tears shock her cheeks as she clutches her daughter’s hand.

“I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe she is doing this! How is this possible? OH MOM! LOOK!”

Two more kittens have appeared. There are now four wet kittens huddled under the new mama. They are tinier than our palms. Their eyes are squeezed shut and they have soft little almost like cheeps coming out of them. They are too tiny to meow yet. 

We watch as mama knows instinctively what to do. She cleans her babies and then turns so that her little ones who are so helpless and blind can find her. She suddenly has nipples. She suddenly has nourishment and is able to feed these little ones. She suddenly knows what she needs to do and she does it. She is a natural. The kittens don’t even need to see their mama to know where she is and to know she is their mama. The bond is instant and natural. 

She and her daughter watch. They call her sister to come too. The sister who is usually so busy and can’t come over. They all need to be here for this. They all sit on the floor, knee to knee. They sit and just look.

***

January 2014

She is sitting in the parking garage at the hospital. It is her fifth trip in the same number of days. She has consumed  more coffee this week than in her entire life. She misses her daughters. She hasn’t talked to them except to so hi, bye, are you okay? and here’s $20 for dinner, order something healthy. She doesn’t know if they have a lacrosse game, a swim meet, a volleyball game, a boyfriend, a problem, a need, a want, a homework question, a teacher conference, a school dance, anything...she is oblivious. 

All she thinks about is get in the car and drive. Drive the hour to the hospital. Sit for an acceptable amount of time, then drive the hour back home to try to pretend to sleep. Go to work and move through the day like a robot. Drive the hour to the hospital. Repeat. She is numb. She is dumb. Even only she had taken the time to look.

If she had looked. She would have seen her daughters calling for her. She would have seen that her daughters were too young to be alone. She would have seen that the person in the hospital was perfectly capable of being alone all that time. 

She would have seen that she didn’t need to be there at all. 

She would have seen that her time should have been spent with her daughters. She would have seen that she was a mom first. She should have let her daughters know that they came first, but they didn’t, she put them last. She should have stopped. She should have looked. She should have looked before she destroyed. If only she had looked.

***

May 2016

“Mom, do these cookies look right to you?” 

Her daughters are over for a visit. These are rare moments of bliss these days. Fleeting moments of happiness when they all pretend to be a family again. They do not look the same, nor will they ever look the same again. Change is inevitable, so it is said. The truth is, happy is where you look. Not how you look. 

She looks at the cookies on the cooling rack and smiles, “The cookies look perfect to me.”