For Granted

One of the best parts of Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays is picking Erin up from preschool. She will emerge from the door with an excited smile, as though she’s waited all morning to reunite with me. Mixed with this excitement will be pride, especially on a day she’s tasked with the most coveted job among her classmates. “I was the line leader today, Momma,” she will tell me, as she runs in for my hug. If I could bottle up her four-year-old voice delivering that one sentence and then drink it, it would forever cure me of my hunger for ribeyes and cocktails. Then, with her butter-soft hand in mine, we’ll traipse to our car. Along the way, I will mold her fingers like they are rolled-up pieces of dough, and I’ll imagine eating them — eating all of her, actually — so that I can keep her with me. In these moments, I want to send a group text to every contact in my phone: my heart is full.

But the moment can quickly change, just as it does today.

When we reach the car, she jumps into her car seat without looking, and hits (barely) the back of her arm on the metal part of the buckle on her car-seat strap. Now she is blaming me for the injury. “Mom-maaa,” she moans, “you poked me with that.”

"I'm sorry that happened," I say.

"It hurrrts." She scrunches up her eyebrows at me in accusation.

"I don't like it when you get hurt. Next time, be sure to look."

“I diiid.”

I kiss her arm and slide into my seat. As I pull out of the parking lot, I hear, “You forgot to give me my snack box.”

"It's in your backpack," I say.

“Buuut you didn’t give meee my backpaccck.”

Her continual whining is turning into a set of fingernails grating down all the blackboards of my elementary school years. I quietly count 1-2-3, turn my head, and point at the backpack with the cherry applique that her godmother had given her. “It’s right there beside you.”

"I caaan't reeeach it."

I quietly count 1-2-3-4-5 and say, “Talk in a regular voice, Erin.”

“I’mmm —.”

"Erin!" I yell. "Stop the whining. My goodness!”

She finally stops after we go three, four, or maybe five more rounds of the back-and-forth. And after I threaten her with no afternoon treat.

At home, I begin to prepare Erin’s lunch. After she washes her hands in the bathroom, she gallops to where I stand at the kitchen counter, inquiring about what I am making her.

“Stir-fry noodles,” I say, opening the leftover container.

“I love stir-fry noodles!” She wraps her arms around my leg and says, “Thank you, Mommy, for making me lunch. I love my mommy.” Her declaration of love is pure and genuine, and not at all rare.

I tell her that I love her, too, as I pivot from the counter to the microwave to heat up the noodles. When I open the refrigerator to survey what vegetables to add to her plate, she begins to pull out the produce drawers, reminding me that she does not like zucchini but that she does like “white broccoli” (cauliflower). She swipes her wavy bangs out of her eyes and asks me why broccoli is called "broccoli." She says it is a funny name. Then she tells me that they once used broccoli to paint trees with at her school. Next she wants to know if I've found any white broccoli yet. I can’t focus and I can't decide on anything, because her talking is constant and my physical space feels extra limited. She remains there, beside me, as though she’s a monkey and I’m her favorite tree.

“Erin, my love,” I say, “go sit down.”

“I want to be next to Mommy,” she says. “I love Mommy so so much.”

“And I love you, but I can’t make you lunch when you are so close to me. I can’t move. See?" I use my finger to draw an imaginary circle around us. "Now, please go sit at the table.”

She acquiesces when she realizes that I am not budging, but I don't feel victorious.

As I watch her small frame plodding to the table, her t-shirt untucked and her tiered skirt sagging at the hips, I begin to question myself. Like, why am I being this way? What the hell is wrong with me?

Later in the afternoon, Erin and I lie on her bed with a couple of books. She calls this our snuggle time. She likes to plant her legs on me, and she giggles when I ask if I can eat her nose. No? Then, how about an ear? It's just one ear. You have two of them. She never gets tired of this joke. After we finish Ling and Ting, a cute story about a set of twin sisters, she grabs my head with both hands and pulls it down to her face, where she kisses me on the lips. Her most generous gifts to her family are her immediate pardons and devotion.

"How much do I love you?" I ask.

“Bigger than big,” she squeals. A slight dimple on her left cheek unveils itself.

"You are so smart," I say.

"You always tell me that."

When I begin to stroke her back, she lifts up her t-shirt. “You can caress me if you want,” she offers.

While the tips of my fingers crawl up and down her small back, familiar voices are pushing down the door of my head. Erin's innocence is tender — plain and simple — like the warmth of the afternoon light that shines through her window. Yet it is at times like this that the voices surface. We will all die. They find me only to remind me of this certainty. It can happen at any minute, any second. Snap your fingers, and you will be dead. Gone forever. Life with your family will cease to exist. Forever. Just like that. Can you imagine that? What you built together, are most proud of — talk about devotion — will end, as though none of it had even existed. Just like that. Gone. Forever.

I remember the talks I had had with Danith about why we can't live forever. “The cells in our body break down,” he explained. “Our body is not built to run indefinitely.” “But science could eventually remedy that,” I said in return. I know, I know the fundamentals of it all. It is the circle of life — even trees will eventually lose their last leaves. But the reality is still too hard to swallow. Then Danith shared his personal belief, removing the science from the explanation. “If we live forever, knowing that we will never die, then we won’t try at anything. Why bother? We will hurt each other and destroy each other because we will have no fear of losing anything. We will take life for granted."

After I put Erin and Nora down for the night, I find Danith on the couch reading the news on his phone. I want to read, too, but stretched out in a comfortable bed. I pace back and forth, unsure of where to go tonight to accomplish this goal. In the basement, where it is extra cool and I could read with two thick blankets warming me? In the office-slash-guest room, where the bed linens are white, beige, and a pink that is as light as the sole of a baby’s foot? Or in my and Danith’s room, where the mattress is large and where Nora happened to fall asleep tonight? Honestly? I want it all.

Then, I know.

I push open Erin’s bedroom door. Some nights, she sleeps with her fingers interlaced underneath her head. Other nights, she has her arms planted straight down at her sides. And some nights, when she sleeps with her father, she loops her arms around his neck. Tonight, she is sleeping on her side, facing the door, one hand cupped around her ear, creating a V with that arm, while the other hand rests at the point of the V. Her face, soft and quiet like the first glimmer of a morning, is perfection. I run out to Danith and describe to him the image of our youngest child. He agrees that her sweetness could send us to our knees at times.

I lift Erin's sleeping body, and, as though she recognizes my scent, she immediately latches on to me, curling her legs around my waist and setting her head in the crook of my neck. I’ve been telling my friends how grateful I am that she is long but lean, weighing just enough for me to still comfortably carry her for a few yards. Soon, I point out to them, she will be so heavy that I won’t be able to.

I whisk Erin to my and Danith’s room, where I had decided that I would sleep with both of our girls tonight. I picture myself cradling Erin in my arms as I am holding my tablet with one hand to read, while Nora sleeps beside us.

Instead, I walk Erin to one of our blue overstuffed chairs and gingerly lower myself into it. I push the ottoman over with a foot, and then extend both legs on top of it. A few feet across from me, Nora is in a deep sleep. I adjust Erin’s knees against my hips and her arms along my sides, to ensure that she is resting comfortably on my chest, then drape a blue knitted throw blanket over both of us. I feel the soft purr of her breath on my throat. Her hair tickles my nose. I play with her fingers. I squeeze my arms around her body and pat her bum. Soon, too soon, I will not even be able to pretend that she is a baby. I allow myself to sink under her weight. Please, God, I plead, please don't let this end. Please don't let any of us die. I promise to do better. I promise not to moan or whine about my girls again. If you keep me with them forever, I promise not to take my life for granted.