A Letter To Joe and Clara

Joe and Clara,

I'm writing this to you from the plane flying Seattle. You are in Minnesota, though who knows where you will be when you read it. I'm writing it now, instead of when I get home or even when I'm back on the ground, because whenever I travel alone, without Daddy, and the two of you, if I am not entirely convinced that I am going to die in a fiery plane crash, or bloody car crash, or that some other horrific like event isn't going to unfold, well I'm not entirely unconvinced of these eventualities either. I have taken to telling and making your father remember the password to my Hotmail account anyway. He's very good natured about it, which is to say that he makes me feel just crazy enough to dismiss my anxieties and believe I'll see you all again, but not so crazy that he isn't taking my worries seriously.  It's tricky business, but he's always up for it which is just one of the many reasons why you should know that you lucked out in the father department.

Still, the plane might go down or, if it doesn't, the car might crash, so I need to be sure I tap all the sap that tends to be running on these trips I sometimes have to take away from you right now.

This post started when I read the following sentence in the new book of essays by Anne Patchett I began on the flight out here: "Sometimes you don't realize what's lacking in life until you find it."  Your dad, again--I didn't know what I was missing until suddenly, I wasn't because he had appeared on the scene. But it's the same with the two of you, you see.

I wanted to have children, but it's fair to say that once that pitch was hurtling toward me, about the only thing I wanted to do was duck in terror. (It was no better the second time I was standing at home plate than it was the first.)  Of course you shouldn't duck, and I didn't which is how I now know, I had the children I was meant to have.

Joe, I see you. The other night--a night on which I was reading to you and Daddy to Clara--Clara padded into your room to give you a good night kiss, and you made a strangled moaning noise and shrank back from her. I was horrified!  Jesus Christ! If you aren't at least friendly with Clara, who are you going to talk to years from now about what a nut your mother was? (Like how she acted like the plane was going to go down whenever she had to travel alone. Daddy and Clara are the only people, really, who are going to get this, and Daddy will have his hands pretty full with said nut, obviously.) But when she padded off, pretty nonplussed by your rebuff, and I asked you why you didn't want Clara to kiss you, you sighed and said you just wanted to read books. And I mean I totally, totally got this. You love Clara sure (duh; she should already know this), but it was time to shut this day down down and read some books. There aren't many days (any?) I don't feel the same way. I see you and I think I feel you, that I get you. But you are your own creature, for sure, make no mistake, and you will think and feel a thousand things I could only ever guess, and only a fraction of which you will ever tell me. I'll settle for that though, and it won't even feel like settling.

Clara, I see you, too. I see you in brief, but intense flashes, flitting around in your flouncy skirts and sparkly tights, talking about something else that's going to happen "when you turn into a princess." Such a confident and flashing whirl you are, with such spirit and heart.  I will never forget the moment, in the Raleigh house garage, after I had wrestled you into your car seat in grim determined silence, when you looked at me with your face as red as the moment you were born, and screamed for all you were worth, eyes boring into me.  And then it was over. Spirit and heart. You feel everything, or seem to. I see you, and I hope so much that you feel my gaze and know how much my heart loves yours. I believe what other authors have written--that we won't ever fully know the hearts of others, even those closest to ours.  So I know there are some make corners of yours that will always be hidden from me and I think that's o-kay.  It's got a strong beat that I think I could hear anywhere, which is enough for me.

I quickly realized that when I was terrified of having children, what I was really terrified of was becoming a mother. The two things usually go hand in hand, but they are different things, somehow and, I suppose, can be mutually exclusive depending on what you consider being a mother. Someone once told me that I would be exactly the mother each of you would need. I didn't believe it when I first heard it. I wanted to, but I can't say that I did. But I do now.  It's come true, I think.  "Sometimes you don't realize what's lacking in life until you find it." The two of you have made me a mother.  Sometimes it's SO LOUD I can't figure out how I'll ever have a complete and coherent thought again, but somehow, in all the noise, there you two are, and I see you.

And I'll see you Thursday night. The plane will not go down.  The car will not crash.  Your father has told me so.

Love you both so much,
Mommy