On being the only one awake
Pittsburgh PA, late October. Some random hospital room. My freshly born daughter, asleep in my arms. Both of us completely naked, both covered in water and blood. David, finally asleep on the couch to my right. I’ve been awake for nearly 48 hours by now, but couldn’t sleep if I tried. I’m alive in an ecstasy, my body and mind and soul full of new life.
I’m the only one awake. There’s a sacred silence, a stillness. The wide window beside me goes from a shrouded black, to a pale yellow and blue, to the most glorious sunrise. Light filters gently in over David, over Rosemary, over me. This is the scene of a long, arduous, blessed labor. This is the scene of my newly-wrought motherhood.
Wilmington OH, early September ten months later. On the floor of my in-law’s guest room. A family wedding weekend, where we’ve all caught a head cold. Rosemary draped over me, grunting and snuffling like a piglet, rearranging every twenty minutes. David snoring gently, as he has been all night, on the bed next to me. I take deep breaths, calming my body in my sleep-deprived frustration over the sound of clogged noses around me. Rosemary rearranges again, and again.
I watch the dark room slowly lighten, the soft rays start to creep under the blinds to rest on David’s forehead, Rosemary’s hand, my legs. I call up my memory of that other morning, one of my most dearly held moments. A reminder. I breathe with a little more gratitude.
Therefore stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour. Matthew 25:13.
Motherhood consists of staying awake. There have been countless other moments in between these two events where I looked up to realize I was the only one in the house awake. Moments where I had patience and moments where I didn’t. Moments of humor, moments of anger.
These moments that are the day, the hour, if I can just remember to stay awake to Him.
The parable of the virgins, this line in particular, has always meant a lot to my spiritual life. If I’m ever not pregnant and/or nursing again in the next ten years it will probably be my next tattoo. Imagine! Imagine falling asleep, the Bridegroom on His way. Imagine losing the vigor of the call. Imagine rushing in those final minutes, already knowing you’re too late. Imagine the horror! It chills me, it stirs me. Yet one of my greatest spiritual faults is complacency. I fall asleep on this journey more often than I care to admit.
Mary Oliver was right when she wrote of prayer being attention. Prayer is remembering that every moment of ours is lived under the Gaze. Every moment we are held in being by the Breath of Life. The blinder we are to that, the less we live in reality. The blinder we are to that, the less prepared we are for His coming. We are given day after day, chance after chance, to practice attention to His coming. He steals into our lives in a myriad of ways, hoping just one or two will catch our attention. Look, He is there in the air, there in the dew, there in the mountain ridge, there in your spouse’s face. Pay attention. Stay awake.
Mothering is also attention, so much attention. Attention to wonder, to need, to learning, to health, my focus in full near ceaselessly. This leads me to believe mothering is prayer, all one and the same if we let it be. I am trained to be a professional attention-giver, and I am glad of it. Being a therapist made me a better Christian, and now a better mother. I could never pay enough attention to my daughter, to my God, to the sanctity of the first light creeping in on me, the only one awake. Impossible, yet the only answer. There is comfort in the impossibility. I do not need to finish the impossible work, only ever continue. At least I know what I’m looking for. At least I recognize the times I’ve got it right.
Right now, a tiny town in North Carolina. The shadow of a branch dancing on our carpet. Orange bell pepper stains on the striped onesie. A house plant, under-watered, reaching for the window. Presence, sacred, woven throughout the air, our napping bodies, the afternoon sunlight. He is here. I’m the only one awake, and He is here.
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