Rinda's Reads: A Taste of March

March was a mixed month when it comes to my reading list. I read five books, two of which I adored, one which was good but not as good as I was hoping, and two that were fairly disappointing.

The two I loved:

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
This charming book combines a coming-of-age story with a mixture of social dillemas. It's written from the point of view of a twelve-year-old girl but don't let that fool you--this book is for adults. Although I found a few faults with the writing, the character development, and the plotline continuity, I do recommend it because overall it is worth reading and will probably make you smile and giggle and make you teary all at the same time.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
I realize I am so behind the times with this one. It came out five years ago (In my defense, I was on a mission), and if you haven't read it yet, you simply MUST. It is excellent. The book is set in post-World War II England and is written as a series of letters. The characters are simply delightful and made me wish the book went on for at least 500 more pages. LOVE, LOVE, LOVED it!



The one I was a bit disappointed by:

All Things New by Lynn Austin
Chances are, if you've have a conversation about books with me, I've probably recommended a Lynn Austin book to you. I own like six of her books but only ever have one or two on my bookcase at any given time because I've usually lent them out. I've read almost all of her books twice. I just love the way she weaves history, human nature, and Christianity with an intriguing storyline and loveable characters. So, you can understand how excited I was to be able to find her newest book (this one) on the library shelves a few weeks ago. I think I was probably too desperate for some of her writing, because this one just fell a little flat to me. It follows three women in post-Civil War Virginia. Note: reading about reconstruction is not the most interesting thing ever (I knew that going in), nor is it for the faint of heart. So, if you have extra time, pick it up, but I wouldn't list this one as worth going out of your way to find.

The two I was disappointed by:

A Tale of Two Castles by Gail Carson Levine
Okay, so I love Ella Enchanted by Levine, so I usually pick up anything when I see her name on it. I realize that the intended audience for this book was a bit "young" for me, but since I usually enjoy Young Adult Literature, I didn't think I would mind. I did. This book was slow, and the fantasy was too complicated to make it enjoyable (not complicated in an I-don't-understand way, but complicated in your-explanations-of-the-ogre-are-taking-way-too-long-and-I've-lost-interest type of a way). I only made it halfway through and then I skipped to the end and wasn't impressed. Sad Day.

The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty
The first fifty pages of this book were absolutely fascinating. I was sucked in. And then, there it was. The scene that made me want to throw up because of its vulgarity. And although I skipped a few pages, read some more, skipped a few pages, and read some more, and eventually finished the book in this fashion, I simply cannot recommend it to anyone. In my literary wanderings I have come to understand that rarely is my  code of morals and standards applied to the lives of the characters I read about. I get that. But the end of this book would have you believe that two wrongs somehow make a right and that is simply NOT TRUE. So, in good conscience, I just can't tell you to check this one out.

And here is Kevin's pick of the month:



Too Purpley by Jean Reidy
We ran across this board book at the library last week and I fell in love with it! In simple, two-word phrases,  every girl's getting-dressed dilemma is addressed: every outfit is too purpley, too stripy, too matchy, or too itchy to wear and is quickly discarded until just the right ensemble is found. I think every little girl should have this book in her collection!

The Fight

It is 4:15 am.

I was up with the baby half an hour ago and she has since gone back to bed.

I have not.

I can't sleep. I am restless. I am worried. I am not at peace.

And I am thinking that maybe I really should quit facebook after all.

Many of your newsfeeds have been "blowing up" with that sneaky little red equals sign. Many have equally been blowing up with links to the LDS church newsroom or the Proclamation to the World on the family. And then there are those seeking to avoid the whole thing by posting pictures of bacon.

And I would like to think there is a fourth category: people like me, maybe. Those who would like to stand up and say what they believe but feel that a picture of a man and a woman, the same kind you see outside of bathrooms, is not the correct or proper way to convey a feeling on such a heated topic. And those that can see that a simple equals sign means much more than it seems to mean. And those who know that a link to the Proclamation on the Family isn't going to make anyone change an opinion, regardless of how you may feel about the words coming straight from God.

I know what I believe. I know what I support. Does it really matter if I post it on facebook or not?

Perhaps.

But perhaps not. Perhaps there are other ways for me to express an opinion. And I would hope that my living words and actions are enough to show my "friends" what I stand for. I would hope that those of my friends who do support LGBT marriage will still consider me a friend even though I do not, but it sure doesn't sound like it. So I refrain from posting my opinion, knowing if I did that perhaps some out there will think of me as just another blindly-led Mormon sheep.

I am not, nor have I ever been, blindly led.

And yet, I am still not niave enough to think that mine is the only opinion that matters. That mine is the only belief system that is correct. That my morals and standards are the be-all, end-all for everybody. The discouraging thing about this fight is that there is no level playing field to begin with--and because everybody has their own definition of "right" and "wrong" there is no way to truly come to an understanding. Because something that I believe may be true for me may not be true for you. It's like that old color argument/philosophy: what if what I perceive as blue is what you perceive as green? There is no way to know for sure. So we continue fighting for what we believe in, even when it is about as successful as a football game played on the side of Mt. Everest.

And I realized, as I lay there next to my snoring husband, that I am tired of all the fighting.

I also realized, it is never going to stop.

And I also came to the understanding that there is no way to take a time-out from this fight.

You see, it isn't just one thing. It isn't just the LGBT fight. It's the modesty fight. It's the keeping my home clean from inappropriate media and pornography fight. It's the push for women's rights without destroying the family. It's the fight to feel of worth because I'm a stay-at-home mom. It's teaching my child correct values and principles and then mustering up enough courage to sit back and let her make mistakes and learn from them. It's the fight to keep my marriage strong despite all the outside forces opposing us.  It's the fight to keep my family together. It's the fight to remember who I am, where I come from, and why I am here.

And some days it is a fight, within myself, just to decide where I stand.

And when it becomes too much, when I think I can't do it anymore, when I feel like giving up, I remember One who, on His hands and knees underneath the olive trees, begged for relief. And I remember that He didn't give up. He continued to trust in His Father. He continued to love the sinners without supporting the sin. He finished His fight on earth, did what He came here to do, and was resurrected. But he isn't finished. He continues, for us, to fight.

And so must we continue to fight for Him.

So battle on, friends.

Of First Loves, True Love, and Fatherly Love

Yesterday marked nine years since my Junior Prom. Probably seems weird to you that I remember the date of my Junior Prom, but you've got to understand...that date was locked into my brain and looked forward to for a full six months before it actually happened. I was ridiculous then, I'm still ridiculous now.  And I'm sure this post will be a confession of things I thought were totally secret but in reality, since I'm kind of a transparent person, everybody around me knew.

My first love was a farmboy from Cove, UT. He might now not even know that I consider him that I but I do. And we'd decided way back in October of our junior year that since he had a policy of only taking girls out on a date once in high school (a policy I don't think he quite managed to keep), I claimed Junior Prom as my night.

I was convinced it was the evening all my adolescent dreams were going to come true.

I remember getting ready, having my hair done in a salon, pulling on those white satin gloves (a surefire way to get a boy to hold your hand), wearing so much pink it should be illegal, and coming around the corner. My cousin, who was up visiting for the weekend, told me later that he said "wow" and was otherwise speechless. I don't remember his reaction.

But I do remember my father's. He took a quick look at me and then pretended not to notice how gussied up I was. I didn't know then, but I know now--he knew. He always knew when my heart was at its most vulnerable, he could always tell the boys I liked, and he had some sort of sixth sense about how things were going to work out.

So he ignored me and went back to my date. "You're going to let my daughter get into that filthy car?"

"The inside is clean. I promise."

"Daaaad," I begged. After a few token pictures by the fireplace, we were off. And after a few hours of dinner, dancing, and a drive around the Temple, we were back, and I was still as just unkissed as before and he was still just as not-in-love with me and in-love-with-one-of-my-best-friends as ever. I seemed to know then that our one beautiful date would be the end of that.

And so it was.

The young man that I had fallen for had changed and things just weren't the same any more. I mourned the friend I had lost, the person he had stopped being, the closeness of being fifteen without the pressure of dating.

"Rinda," my mom stopped me one day a few weeks later, "you will always have a place in your heart for your first love. But you were meant for more."

And I believed her, because I had heard stories of her first love, and continued to hear them every time we went up to Montana. Scott and I refer to him as The Good Kisser because that's what she says about him as she gets a faraway, blushing look on her face. Every. Time.

And though I always waited for that apology letter--the one that said "I'm sorry I was an idiot and I hurt your feelings," the one that my friends who had been in similar situations had all gotten, the one that my husband, having been the heart-breaker himself, wrote to his high school girlfriend, the one that seemed to exist for everybody but me--it never came.

Fast forward from Junior Prom a few months. It is my seventeenth birthday. My friend Scott is up visiting his grandparents and wants to come see me. So I invite him to dinner with my family. My mom takes one look at this boy from Sandy, Utah--his height and build and blue eyes--and falls in love for me. "He reminds me so much of your dad. Are you sure there is nothing there?" She will say, over and over and over again over the next five years.

My father doesn't say a word all night.

Scott is quiet also, but talks when we are alone. He eats my requested dinner of Oriental Chicken Salad even though he hates lettuce. He takes me to a movie but we talk the entire time. We laugh together. And when he leaves to return to his grandparent's house, I believe that there are such things as good young men again.

Five years later, I am unexpectedly sitting in a red chair in my mission president's makeshift office, my heart broken, more so than my body. They are sending me home. I am sick so I am going home. I finally love being a missionary but I am working too hard so I am being sent home. President Thurston tells me he and my dad decided this together, and I trust that if my dad helped make this decision that I had no choice in, it really is the best thing for me.

I think our interview is just about over when President throws a curveball at me. "Your father says there is a young man at home that you are quite close with who just got off his mission."

I nod my head. Scott has only been home three weeks, and though I am dying to see him, I am way too afraid to bring him up. President had already given me the "Absolutely NO Dating While You are Home" portion of my going-home talk.

"I don't see why you can't see him. Invite him to dinner with your family a few times. But don't go over to his house."

"Okay, " I say, seeing the first glimmer of hope in all this diabetic madness. What I don't know then, and what I still don't know totally for sure now, is that my mission president must have made this possible on very strict conditions for my father: Don't leave them alone. Don't let her go to his house. Make sure she comes back on her mission.

I am thinking my mother probably didn't know about these conditions.

So, two weeks later, Scott makes the drive up and joins my family for dinner. He shows up in a suit. He's just been to the Temple, trying to decide what to do with his life now that his mission is over. His white truck (which prompted no end of teasing from my mother about my knight-in-shining-armor turning up in a white truck which was almost like a white horse) is surprisingly clean after a drive through Sardine Canyon. He eats dinner and laughs with my family. We talk about our missions and how much we miss them. We talk about our families. We talk about the gospel, about school, about his work.

We talk about everything but us.

But that is the way it has always been.

The next day I accompany my mom to the grocery store. To get me out of the house, you know. To show people I didn't come home for shameful reasons. We see a few people. One of my best friend's mothers gives me a hug and tells me I don't need to go back. "Think of your future husband, your children" she says, and I wonder what kind of logic she is using, because those are the very reasons why I am dead set on going back.

And there we are, right next to the check out line, when I see him. That boy from high school. With his cute new little wife of all of three months.

And he says to me, "Hey Rinda! How was Texas?"

And I realize he has no clue that it has only been eight months instead of eighteen, that me being home is not so happy of news. "Good," I say. "I love it."

And that is the end of that.

As we get back into the car, I turn to my mom and say, "He's kind of shrimpy, isn't he?"

"Yes," She smiles. "Definitely not six foot four."

"And his eyes aren't so blue."

"No, they are not."

"So it is probably a good thing it didn't work out," I realize.

"Yes," she says, understanding. "A very good thing."

Two months later, it is the Fourth of July, and my mom has somehow convinced my father that it is okay for Scott and I to be alone for a few minutes. "They need to figure out their future," she says. She is convinced we are getting married. She has already started planning the reception and been informed that even though he went to France, I hate eclairs and we will not be serving them at my wedding.

When Scott has finally driven away for the evening, I walk back in and tell my mom what just happened. After seeing the look on her face, I know this news will take some getting used to. She didn't see it coming. So I make her tell my dad. And later that night, she tells my father that we kissed under the moonlight. "Is that even appropriate?" He asks. And it isn't until she is telling me about this conversation that I realize my father was given strict instructions never to let us out of his sight...but he did, and now look what happened. Oh dear. He must have been so worried.

He didn't need to be.

I found a good one.

Five days after that magical kiss, I am back in my mission president's office in Colleyville, Texas. I am so happy to be wearing a nametag again I am almost giddy. Until President says, "Is there anything that happened at home while you were gone that you need to tell me about?" and I confess I was kissed. I am just sure they are going to put me back on a plane. I'm not even worthy to be sitting there.

President is silent for several minutes. This is probably the first time he's ever encountered this situation. Finally, he laughs. "Sister Burningham," he said sternly, "no more kissing boys on your mission!"

"Okay," I promise. And for the next eleven months, occasionally when I see President, he will give me a little wink and tease me about that boy at home,my best-friend-not-my-boyfriend. And as I am sitting in the back of his car, sandwiched in between the two sisters going home with me as Sister Thurston tells us about a former sister missionary who got engaged within a day of going home, President makes eye contact with me in the rearview mirror and says, "Now Sisters, kissing at the airport isn't appropriate!"

The other sisters assure him he has nothing to worry about. They don't know about my transgression. I was sworn to secrecy. He isn't worried about them. He is still looking at me. I laugh, "he isn't even going to be at the airport, President!"

But President Thurston's worries are nothing compared to my father's when I get home and things get moving much faster than anticipated. Scott's already asked for my hand when Dad pulls me aside and tells me that February is a good time for a wedding. It's July. We're done with waiting. And a week or two later, when we show up at my father's work and I have a sparkly diamond on my left ring finger, I realize I have never seen the color drain out of my father's face so quickly.

It's his fault and he knows it.

And on the way to the Temple that next September, he tells me that it isn't too late to change my mind. I just laugh and say "I really do want to marry him, Daddy!" But he still locks me in when we pull up at the Temple, and my mom has to tell him to unlock the door so I can get out and get married. We joke about it later.

And  for the first year and a half of our marriage, that boy from high school drives the bus that takes my husband to work.

I find it funny and ironic.

And sometimes I wish I could remind that boy of that conversation we had way back in high school at the age of 16, just a month after I'd met my true love but didn't know it yet, when that boy still drove me around everywhere we went, when we were on that little backroad between Richmond and Cove and I expressed my desire to serve a mission but my worry that I would never get married if I did.

"Well," he said, with that twinkle in his eye that made my teenage heart just soar,"I guess you'll just have to find someone who will wait for you."

And I want to say, I found him.

And he waited.

 

my three favorite blue-eyed men from Sandy, UT: Scott, my Dad, and President Thurston

Some Life Lessons I've Learned this Week...

All week I have been praying to know what I needed to write about this week. I didn't want to just write something, I wanted to write something good. Something that would resonate with people. Something that would touch somebody's heart. And by 10:00 last night, I still hadn't come up with anything, so I decided to crawl into bed and think about it in the morning.

After my husband kissed me good-bye this morning (I made him come back and kiss me again, properly, which ended all thoughts of going back to sleep), I realized that this busy week has helped me learn some things about myself and about life.

Monday morning was a pretty typical Monday morning--drag myself out of bed, say a little prayer, take some medicine, putter around until it is either time for breakfast or Kevin wakes up. In my puttering, I ran across a worrying post from a friend. This wasn't a particularly good friend, or a particularly close friend, but still someone I came to care about while I was a missionary in Texas. He'd been going through what sounded like an awful divorce on facebook (since I'm friends with both him and his wife, I'd seen both sides of their posting, and my heart is sad for both of them, regardless of those words like "fault" and "blame"). His posts were getting so depressing, and they were starting to slander the church I know he once loved, and just the day before I'd gone to hide his posts from my wall, but for some reason I didn't. On Monday morning he wrote something that was very clearly a suicide note. I read it, said a little prayer, and got sad.

And then I ignored it.

But I kept thinking about it. I felt like I should do something, but I didn't know what to do. Was there someone in Texas I could call to check on him? I had no idea who. Was it any of my business anyway? No, not really. If he hates the church then he probably doesn't value me very much, since when he met me I was an official representative.

And then Kevin woke up.

And I wondered how many other people, like me, had seen it and not said anything. What if it was a ploy to get attention? To paint his wife as so awful that she would drive him to kill himself? Both are valid questions.  But what if, he posted that, and waited to see if anybody cared, and nobody did, and he took drastic measures?

I picked up Kevin and sat her on the floor next to me while I wrote him a short message.

And I learned that you never know who needs your voice. And even if your voice isn't needed, you never know what it can do to soothe your conscious to know that you've at least tried to do something.

Tuesday found me at a stoplight waiting to get on I-15. I'd avoided the freeway for two months now, but I decided it was finally time to get on that on ramp. Plus, there was a lunch date with my husband to an appetizing Chinese place waiting for me at the end of the off-ramp, and if that wasn't motivation, I didn't know what was.

As I was sitting there, waiting for the light to turn green, I reflected on my life--where I'd been, where I was going. I realized that throughout my whole college career, I'd been working toward Plan B, possibly because I didn't believe that my Plan A of becoming a wife and a mother could ever really happen for me. And now that I have Plan A, sometimes I think about what Plan B could have been like. And I realized that God has been taking care of me all along. While I was never one of those girls that went to college just to find a husband, that was part of the plan while was there, but it was part I never really thought would happen for me. And I am grateful that I trusted the Lord's timing enough to set Plan B aside while I fully enjoy what Plan A has to offer.

Like a baby babbling in the backseat.

Green light.

On Wednesday, it became officially spring. At least in my mind. I went to the mailbox without a jacket on. I held my sleeping daughter in my arms, her head cradled against my shoulder with one hand, and I realized that suddenly I felt lighter somehow.  I felt every ounce of the twenty-one snoozing pounds in my arms, but I felt like a butterfly leaving her cocoon.

The sunshine warmed my arms, my face, my soul.

Spring was here.

I was free.

And I realized that I had been harboring winter in my mind for the past few months. Do you ever feel that way? That you grow so used to the cold and the slush and the snow that it sometimes gets inside you and doesn't allow you to really breathe in and breathe out and just let go of things that don't matter, to get over it, to give up and just be happy without having to have a reason to be happy?

And thus the unburdening of Spring began for me.

Thursday taught me that there are experiences that I once understood and enjoyed as a child that I now view with a parent's eyes. Sometimes it is a movie I watched over and over again during my childhood, that I now understand as an adult. Sometimes it is the way I take in a book or news story or an opportunity to serve.

Last night my husband and I sat in one of the sealing rooms of the Jordan River LDS Temple. In our church, we believe that families can be forever if you are sealed by the proper authority and we make time to serve in the Temple so that these ordinances can be performed for those that have passed away. We held hands as a sweet and tender couple, probably in their sixties, explained to us the significance of the family names they had brought, and an overwhelming feeling of joy entered the room. And when they started to tell us about one pink card that had no name except "Miss Brough" because she had only lived for a day, I remembered a similar experience I'd had with my parents before my mission when we had sealed a little girl who had died before the age of accountability (in our faith we believe that to be eight years old) to her parents and the sealer told us that this simple ordinance was all she needed. Then, I appreciated the work as a child would, thinking how happy she would be to be with her family again. Last night, I was simply overwhelmed thinking about how grateful that mother must be to have her baby officially belong to her for all eternity.

And when we got home, I opened the door and Kevin, who moments before had been happily playing with her babysitter, started to wail uncontrollably, as if to say, "you left me! How dare you leave me! I am not happy with you!"

I picked her up and held her close and imagined another mother, somewhere on the other side, holding another baby girl close and whispering words of comfort in her ear.

And now it is Friday morning. And there is only one bite of my leftover Pi Day pie-breakfast left on my plate. And I've realized that every week's post doesn't have to be a winning entry. That is not what this blog is here for. The point is to keep on writing, keep on sharing, keep on living. I can stop worrying about whether what I write is good or not. It is what it is. I am taking off that burden. I am just going to use my voice and know that even if it doesn't reach a friend, it will reach me.

Because for me, writing is the little bit of Plan B that helps me make sense of Plan A.

One Year Later

I have decided that there is nothing better than a sick baby to give you some perspective on life. Last night as Scott and I took turns holding Kevin so she would sleep through her first-ever ear infection and accompanying virus, I realized that there is something majestic and rather beautiful about that quiet moment at 3:30 am, when you look out the window and the city lights sort of look like stars on the ground and your baby's hair tickles your nose as she snores away on your chest, her fever finally broken, and Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck are quietly running across Rome and the black and white of the film just makes your heart happy because it fits your mood.

And in that moment, I am grateful. Grateful that I decided to forego being grumpy about not getting any sleep. Grateful that I have a moment of quietness to appreciate the wonder of being still. Grateful that, 11 months later, that nurse I kept expecting to show up at my door to take my baby away from me never came. Grateful to have time to remember.

One year ago tomorrow my water broke. I am going to make Brown Sugar Muffins to celebrate. Because that's what I did right after my water broke and I didn't realize it. I made Brown Sugar Muffins to take to a family in our neighborhood who had just had a baby. I didn't know I was about to be in the same boat. Bless those Brown Sugar Muffins though, because I think they are the only thing Scott ate for the next 24 hours as the craziness set it.

50 hours of labor. Back labor. The kind that doesn't register on the contractions monitor so your nurse just keeps trying to give you tylenol and you keep looking at her like she's crazy and saying you hurt and need to be checked. Because, after all, if the Ambien hasn't helped you sleep for more than ten minutes, tylenol isn't really going to do anything.

Kevin kicking off the monitor they had strapped to my abdomen to keep track of her. The nurse has to readjust it every ten or twenty minutes or so. It was an omen, we recognize that now, that this girl was never going to passively do anything she was told until she was good and ready to do it. She wanted to come now, and come now she would.

Scott sleeping on the little couch in the hospital room. Me trying to watch Anne of Green Gables and the Chronicles of Narnia. He has no idea I'm in labor. Like for real labor, not just the pains they told us would be there as they try to keep me pregnant for two more weeks. I knew I wasn't going to last that long. I gave myself two days, and now, on the morning of the second day, I finally wake him up and make him hold my hand and count with me through the contractions, which the nurse is still oblivious to. After hours of me begging for a doctor, he seconds my opinion and voices concern and she gets on it. 90 minutes later they finally come.

Dialated to an 8. Show time. Somebody get this woman an epidural.

I wonder now if I could have made it through without one. I was so close. I'd already done the hard parts all by myself, transition pains and all. I only needed an hours of worth of meds to get that baby out. But I was so tired. And I hurt so bad. And after two days of labor, I probably would have passed out in the delivery room without one. I realize that now.

Forty-five minutes into the pushing, the doctors are surprised she isn't here yet. They told me it would only take a few pushes to get her out. She'd be small, barely over four pounds. Do you like hair? The doctor asks, playing with the fuzz on the top of her head before it crowns. He is wearing a Texas Longhorns lanyard. I like him immediately.

Only a few more pushes, they tell me. Hurry up or your epidural will wear off. I look at the clock on the wall.  At precisely noon, she comes. Wow! She's big! The doctors are surprised and totally caught up in the size of the umbilical cord. This doesn't look like a 32 weeker. I've been saying my dates were wrong all along. I wish my regular OBGYN could be here to hear them now, but I'm grateful he isn't, because I never really wanted him to deliver her anyway.

She cries immediately. And I look at Scott and our first thought is not, "what a beautiful moment, look what we created, I love you so much." Our first thought is relief. She's crying. Her lungs work. She'll make it. We're going to be okay.

They lay her purple body on my chest. She looks more like an alien than a baby, but I don't care. She reaches for my finger. Grips it hard. And I realize two things: one, she is a fighter. two, she needs me.

They take her away. I have a job to finish. I tell Scott to go with her and the two nurses and I all remind him that he needs to take pictures. Details are beyond him at this point. How much does she weigh? How long is she? What is her APGAR score? I ask when he comes back to me. He has no idea. He is simply mesmerized by her.

They let me hold her on my chest for a few seconds, then they take her away. And I am wheeled up to a recovery room. My family is here: mom, sister, aunt. Dad and brother on their way. In-laws waiting with them. I have no baby to show for all my hours of work, just pictures. I finally get to eat something. I try to take a nap. I can't. Something in me knows that I have a responsibility now, one that means I have to make sure she is okay before I can sleep peacefully.

I make Scott wheel me to the NICU before I am probably ready for it. Adrenaline is the best recovery agent there is. I don't feel anything except concern for her and concern for the fact that my hair hasn't been washed in three days.

The nurse lets me hold her, just for a few minutes. I cuddle her close. The wires and tubes and monitors are invisible to me. I adore the little red bow in her hair. I am grateful it isn't pink. I run my fingers through her hair, stroking it, feeling it's softness, which reminds me of a baby chick's feathers. She seems to like it, even though the nurses tell me that premature babies don't like being stroked. She responds to my voice. She lets out a small sigh and settles into my arms.

And here we are, almost exactly a year later, in much the same boat: she responds to me. I am beyond tired, but not noticing because my needs stopped coming first a while ago and I can't sleep until I know she is okay. My hair hasn't been washed in three days. There are more important things. Is she breathing? Is she sleeping? Is she feeling better? She lifts her head, looks at me to make sure I am still there, and breathes little sighs of relief as she settles back into my arms, her little fingers reaching for me and gripping my shirt. The wires and monitors are gone now. She's been miraculously fine since we brought her home. Her pediatricians can't believe how well she has done, being so early. I can. I learned that long ago.

One. She's a fighter.

Two. She needs me.