This Day

It is Lily's birthday today. How unfair of life to make her birthday one day after her son's. From now unto eternity, her birthday will be overshadowed by his, although perhaps eventually we shall combine the two into one celebration. It's birthday season and if you do the math, you realize that a whole lot of people do the deed on New Year's Eve and the result is...birthday mania at the end of September.
Anyway, I just called Lily and sang her Happy Birthday in my croaky old voice. She liked it, I think, since no one was around to hear me, just her.
Two years ago I wrote about how she got her name, my Lilian Rose Moon, and that post is here if you want to read it. It's a sweet story about a sweet girl who is now a sweet mama and will explain the picture I've used today if damn Blogger ever lets me upload it. I shouldn't blame Blogger. My internet is wonky today, probably because it is raining.

Yes. It's finally raining. The crispy grass is green again and unfolding itself into springy blades. I've let the chickens out for the first time in two days and they are so happy, going about the stations of their cross, different parts of the yard where they find the things they love to eat. I hate keeping them penned up. Elvis paces back and forth and his hens look worried. As well they should be, I suppose, after last week's tragedy. I shouldn't really use that word as applied to chickens, but it was a tragedy for me. And for Betty and Red and Penny and they are (were) only chickens but I loved them, all the same.

So here it is, Monday, and it is raining a bit and I've taken the trash and recycle. The man I went off on at the trash place is there today. For those of you who do not know the story, I witnessed some overt racism and did not keep my shut (could not keep my mouth shut) and he and I don't talk much any more. I heard that he was in a terrible car wreck and his leg was broken and he was gone for quite a while. I am sorry that he was injured and I keep wondering how many times he pushed that button in the hospital in the deepest, most painful times of the night and a person of color came to relieve that pain.
Well, life is full of tragedy, both profound and less so.

I'm not sure what I'm about today. Tonight Owen will be spending his first night here without his mama and his daddy so that they can go out with friends to celebrate Lily's birthday. I hope she has a good time and I hope that Owen and I have a good time. Pop-Pop may be here or may not, depending on whether the cars he needs to buy at auction are going to be there or not. We shall see, and either way, it will be fun to have that little boy here. I haven't slept with a baby in a long, long time and I hope he lets me cuddle him. I think he will.

I really don't have much to say today. Twenty-five years ago I was in labor.
Today I am not.
I am doing laundry and writing this, thinking about what I need to do on this Monday in September. The ground is receiving the water, I am receiving the day.

I am thinking about twenty-five years ago and much I desperately wanted my baby to be born, how I despaired that she ever would be, how scared I was when she didn't breathe right away, how vast the relief when she began to cry, how joyous we all were.

Yes. That is what I'm thinking about and also that we're out of frozen berries for smoothies and I need to go to town and isn't it odd that twenty-five years after Lily was born I will be taking care of her baby for the night and I remember what it was like, that first night in the bed with Lily between her daddy and me and how we looked at her and then at each other and we couldn't believe our good fortune, this beauty we had created together, born safely and in our arms, our bed and we both cried.

We had no idea how swiftly the time would fly from that baby to this one, Owen, and it is still flying, time, even as the morning creeps through its hours and my rooster announces its passing.