An Rud A Lionas An Tsuil Lionann Se An Croi

  Statue by Bruce Wolfe I was at the doctor's the other day with my daughter for her check-up. The scene that seemed so bizarre a few months ago is familiar now - the spaced chairs, the social distancing markers on the floor, the usual pile of old magazines gone. My baby smiles at the masked faces that talk to her, their eyes shining with delight even if we can't see their mouths. This is normal for her, sadly. It's all she's ever known. It's busy at the office so we end up waiting a little longer than usual. There's a large circular window that overlooks the street below, so I bring her to it and sway back and forth as we look at the passing cars and trucks and the enormous windmills of the college campus across the road.  An old woman, small and thin but not frail, dressed nicely in white pants and a shirt with purple flowers and purple sneakers to match, sits nearby. Another woman, taller and more filled out, maybe in her late 50s or early 60s, sits with her ...

 I was sitting in the movie theater with my dad, waiting for Jurassic Park III to start. On the screen a bank robbery scene played out; men in suits with their Nokias stuff money into bags and flee to the roof where a getaway helicopter awaits them. They seem to be in the clear, cackling merrily, when they suddenly get pulled backwards by some invisible force. The camera pulls back to reveal the helicopter trapped on a spiderweb spun between the Twin Towers, its rotor twitching like the wings of a stuck housefly. Spider-Man . My dad, almost forty-one, was visibly excited. Spider-Man was his favorite superhero, I remember him telling me. He loved the comics as a boy. The web-slinging hero, he told me, was just a kid. He didn't have the money that Bruce Wayne had; he made his own tech. He wasn't an adult with the confidence of Superman. Just a kind of nerdy kid from New York, an orphan, with a good brain, a good heart, & powers inherited from the bite of right-place-right-ti...

There's a beautiful picture I've seen posted on social media several times over the last few days. In between the screenshots from the video of George Floyd's horrific death and the photos of rioters interrupting otherwise peaceful protests is this snapshot of a toddler George, fast asleep, and snuggled up against his mother.  It's an image I'm very much familiar with, especially these days as I spend most of my time feeding my one-month-old. So often she falls asleep while eating and I get the joy of gazing down on her peaceful face, perhaps with a big smile similar to Larcenia Floyd's. It's also an image that I see time again in the myriad of depictions of the Virgin Mary and Christ child. In my home, in my church, in my son's school, I see it everywhere. Statues, paintings, refrigerator magnets, artwork from my nieces and nephews. Sometimes Mary is smiling, a small, gentle smile; other times she is gazing wistfully at her son, who is often sleeping...

Last night, as I got up to go to the bathroom for the third time (#pregnancyproblems), I found myself thinking back to each time I found out I was expecting. Four of the five times in that very bathroom. My reaction each time has been slightly different - fear, surprise, immense gratitude, tears of joy. What must Mary have felt when the angel appeared to her? From the Gospel of Luke we know she was told to not be afraid, that she was greeted as only a handful of women in history had been greeted, that she wondered at the words Gabriel spoke. And we know she said yes. A young, betrothed woman from Nazareth said yes and the the world was forever changed. What did she feel in that moment? Joy? Terror? But still she said yes. These are, for many, scary times we find ourselves living in. There is fear of the virus itself - of getting sick, of losing loved ones - and of the fallout - joblessness, increases in abuse and suicide. Every day we're faced with a choice, to say yes or no ...

Years ago I was required to read a book for a psychology class I was taking. I couldn't tell you the title of the book or the name of the author, but it was the story of her struggle with undiagnosed mental illness. The book chronicled her life, the highs and the many lows, as she fought through what she later found out to be bipolar disorder. Prior to diagnosis she had several failed romantic relationships. One, she recalled, was especially passionate in the way many fantasize love to be like, or ought to be like. Romantic gestures, amazing intimate encounters, grandiose proclamations & poetic compliments. Like something from the movies. But in between those moments were periods of violence, anger, jealousy, bitterness. Neither party was mentally healthy & it was abundantly clear by how they treated one another, how they viewed & valued one another & themselves. By the time I was sixteen & reading this book I had learned a few things about love, mostly abou...

As soon as the doctor walked through the door I knew I was in for bad news. He made that face, the aggressive teeth-showing frown that people usually wear when witnessing something revolting. The face that is generally followed by the sound of breath being sharply inhaled through the bared teeth. Then, the final nail in the coffin, the slow head shake. "Is it bad, doc?" I asked, though I already knew the answer. My palms were sweating like crazy, my fingers twisted together like they did when I was a kid and I was trying to work out how my uncle did that thing where it looked like he had one, long continuous finger wriggling through the palms of his hands. "Yeah," the doctor finally exhaled, his eyes lowered towards the chart resting on top of his tablet. I tried to sneak a look at it, but the numbers and acronyms, the results of my blood test, meant nothing to me. "It's ok," I assured him. "Just tell me." He nodded very slowly for se...

My husband & a couple others dug the hole. Not the standard six feet. Only three or so. Wide & long enough for the small coffin, with plenty of room to spare.  Before our priest came I stood & looked down at the grave, at the stone we had placed at its head. It sits under a tree that was sent to us from Oklahoma by the father of a dear friend of ours. He passed away only a few months after we received the tree. We weren't sure how it would fare in our climate, but it's so far survived two New England winters. It seemed like an appropriate spot for our little one, the child that will never grow under the tree that grows against the odds. As I stared into the hole I felt suddenly self-conscious. Silly, even. All of this for a child who was only the size of a raspberry. But it didn't matter, not to me, how big or little she had been. Or if she had even been a she. I had carried her for more than 12 weeks; the first eight weeks alive, the next several for as ...