​​My first daughter is a busy, harried mother of two blonde, blue-eyed angels -- a precocious second grader and a mischievous pre-schooler -- and she is about to give birth to my third Viking grandchild (presumably) . . . any minute . . . Really. Any. Second. But she took the time to send me a series of ecstatic texts last week . . . Not because she was going into labor (she is now) but because she is just on the edge of her first paid writing gig.

Something deep in our genetic coding takes precedence and compels us to put our words, our hearts, our purpose to page . . . as I am doing now as I wait.

She is me but with a more fully developed sanguine heart and with an energy that defies logic and makes the world a better place . . . Always bubbling over with plans and thoughts and words and stories that must go somewhere. She is brilliant and compassionate, wickedly funny and tenacious in her pursuit of all things life. She has a genuine love for the elderly that also manifests in her life's paid work . . . And a love for the hearts of other mommies who have experienced the same struggles that she has -- post-partum depression, grief, deep insecurities, the pain of rejection and overlook, and just plain woman-tired -- she writes to these women, indiscriminately.

She is real, my little girl turned Little Mountain Momma . . . again and again . . . and again . . . who showed up as the biggest surprise of my life over 31 years ago and turned my life right side up . . . when she was barely a thought . . . 

But considered a choice.

She is real . . . and she is good. I could see it from the day she was born . . . too good for me and where I was in life . . . Just barely 19 and broken . . . With walls built of grief, deep insecurities, the pain of rejection and overlook, and just plain woman-tired already. She was too good for me and I wasn't ready for her. I wasn't ready to give up the dream of the life I imagined. I wasn't ready for the financial responsibility. I wasn't ready to look after  someone else -- indefinitely -- when still trying to find myself. I wasn't ready for the battle of wills that ensued from a seven pound human being and extended well into adulthood (hers and mine;). . . 

​I wanted to sleep. She wanted me awake. I wanted to nurse her. She was diametrically opposed, preferring a bottle. I wanted her safe in a private school. She wanted to stay in public and hated me for a while. I said no boys. She found one from Indiana at summer camp when she was thirteen . . . and married him (not that day). She wanted me to get a flu shot and and a Whooping Cough vaccine before I held her new baby. I wanted . . . well . . . not to . . . 

But do you know what? Nobody is ever ready for the complete responsibility . . . the lifelong commitment . . . . of another human being. Babies have a way of making you while they're breaking you. She deserved better. I got better. She demanded it from the beginning. It was a formidable job for a newborn, but from the day she was born -- even before -- she began chipping away at those walls. On the day she was born, she blasted out a whole section . . . The one with the sign that said: It's all about me.

But in a second . . . in the time it takes to quell the flutter of a heartbeat . . . In a second it could have all been obliterated . . . And I would have never been changed . . . by the ocean blue of her newborn eyes . . . by the white-blonde tilt of her three year old head looking upward for Jesus in the clouds . . . by the compassion poured into the world in the wisdom of her words . . . by the Viking grandchildren she chases . . . the joy . . . the miracle of her  -- and them -- in the world . . .

because I had a choice in her.

And women march . . . not for what's real . . . but in righteous anger for fear of losing that choice. I should pray God forgive them for they know not what they do . . . but my own righteous anger flares because I don't really believe that. My human grace doesn't match God's . . . and maybe it shouldn't . . . maybe that's not my job here.  So here is what I want to tell them: 

March for what's real. March for equality. March for equal pay. March for family or freedom or better child care options. March for respect . . . for common sense . . . for choices that honor and protect all human life. March for open borders or stronger walls or healthcare that works. Save the rainforests. Save the whales. Save the dogs and cats to the melancholy beseeching of Sarah McLachlan . . . Shout til your hoarse and you're heard. Or fight in your own quiet way . . . On paper or on your knees in prayer.

But don't fight for your right to kill unborn children. 

To mature, discerning, educated minds, there are very few issues that don't have shades of gray complexities. This is not one of those issues.

For God's sake . . . For all that is decent and holy . . . Stop demanding . . . Stop celebrating . . . Your right to kill unborn babies. They are not a mass of cells. They have beating hearts and functioning brains with nerves that feel the pain of the needle . . . The knife . . . The machines . . . They hear voices from within the womb . . . And recognize and respond to their mother's . . . their father's . . . their big sister's and brother's . . the family dog's bark . . . after they are born. They turn to the light . . . And recoil from harsh sounds or pressure or pain. They move and roll beneath our seeking palms. They get hiccups. They are calmed and soothed by the same music played for them before they are born . . . and after. We can see them in us in ultrasound pictures They suck their thumbs and wiggle their toes . . . they are the same thumbs and toes before and after.

A hundred years ago . . . Or fifty . . . Or even a few decades ago, we didn't know a fraction of what we know now about how a baby develops. Now we have the technology to look into the womb months before they are born and study facial features to determine who they look like . . . To understand unequivocally that there's an actual person tucked safely within protective layers of maternal flesh and membrane . . . a separate and equal human being. It should bring a sense of shame to all complicit that we've actually been killing babies increasingly indiscriminately and in increasing numbers since Roe vs. Wade . . . Just because we can. . . Because someone told us we had a choice. Instead of feeling shame, though, we choose to ignore what we know -- yes, we know we're killing babies . . . It's long past the point of rational, reasonable argument -- we just call it something else . . . argue from a different podium. It's a woman's body. It's a woman's choice. Oppression. Injustice. Unfair! Inconvenient! Not "viable" 

No, it's not. It's a baby. A child. A person. I know it. You know it. We all know it.

February 1, 2017 .  . .

The photo on the left was taken of my brother and me last month high on a mountain in Colorado. There's no mistaking we're family. It's there in our cheekbones, the curve of our jaws, in the set of our mouths . . . and there's something in our eyes . . . But knowing who we look like has never stopped us from obsessing over who we are.  Our Southern grandmother was always quick and proud to tell us about our Cherokee Indian great-great grandmother . . . but we've checked all the Ancestry.com census records . . . and we can't find her anywhere. So for his birthday on the mountain, I gave my brother an Ancestry.com DNA test kit. He spit and now we're just waiting. It'll be fun to find out for sure. But while we're waiting to find out just exactly how that spit will define us, we're waiting on something else so much more important . . . something else . . . or someone else who will show us who we are . . . and more importantly, who we've become . . .

Any day now . . . any minute . . . my oldest daughter will give birth to her third child . . . my third grandchild. We don't know exactly who this child will be yet. We're not even sure if it's a boy or a girl. Collectively, we have a lot of conjecture, a lot of hopes, a lot of probablies . . . But the absolute certainty is that this child . . . along with its older sister and brother . . . represents a legacy of love.  He or she will be adored . . . safe . . . allowed the freedom to grow and thrive . . . with all the hopes and dreams of a family hanging on their every smile, every heartsong, every unique and God given gift they bring to this world. Those of us who have fought hardest for these simple things -- the way things should be -- feel the profoundest joy . . . and that is reflected in the words of this memory about a family come full circle . . 

I will rise above myself . . . my pain and my fear, my indignance and indulgence . . . to love myself and to love you through our fallen world. . . I will leave behind negativity and words that cultivate it . . . It’s not fair, I can’t, Who did this? and Why me?  will not be a part of my vocabulary. . . and I won’t listen if you say them to me. I will undo what happened to you by making something different happen . . . I’ll weigh the facts against your feelings . . . and then I’ll feel every bit of it and hold your hand while you cry. I will forgive you when you hurt me . . . and strive to understand the reasons . . . I promise not to be the reason and I will ask your forgiveness if I break that promise. I will understand if you can’t forgive me. Forgiveness only comes after grieving and some of us never stop. I will always love you. Never and Always are a set-up for failure and disappointment . . . I will add them to my possibility and make adjustments as needed. I apologize in advance . . . I will try, I will listen, I will rage, and I will die daily . . . and then I will give it to God and begin to love again. 

I was halfway down the mountain and on the very edge of a brand new year when the writer’s panic began to set in. Like a child holding too tight to a handful of sand that is slipping away. . . blowing back to the ocean on a breeze . . . I needed to hold onto the memories.  

But these are not grains of sand that wisp away . . . and not the blue expanse of ocean where waves of grief are carried back to shore over and over. These are bold stars over purple-black peaks with bursts of glory that I want to remember. I want to stay on the mountain this time. And so I write. . .
​
December 29, 2016:
​
Some traversed in quick infinitesimal flashes . . . some fizzled downward like wayward fireworks. . . Some hovered over an arc quickly and just long enough to evoke a sense of wonder. And then . . . there was the one . . .

Not unlike the last one when I wrote,

 “If I never see another one like it, it will be enough” . . .

This one was different, though.  We can never be out-surprised by God. This one hurtled from left to right . . . like words on a page hurtled through the cosmos in a straight line . . . like a declaration.  And there was no arc . . . and there were no resting places.  It hurtled forward . . . burning and glowing and taking my breath . . . and taking me with it.

And I knew this would be another one of those years.  Like 42 years ago to the day . . . and like 31 years ago . . . I would give birth to something beautiful and irrepressible to carry me in this new year . . . Not to a person this time, but to my soul and my destiny.

And I will not rest until -- with all the passion and intention of a divine comet -- I have burned myself out on the pain and the glory of my story . . .

This year.