I was putting away his clothes, folding the tiny t-shirts and shorts and rolling up the little socks while listening to Cole play in Chessa’s room. His feet padded toward me and I looked down to see him carrying a book.
“One second buddy,” I said. “I’m almost done and then I’ll read to you.”
Then I looked closer and saw the book and a lump formed in my throat. A random collection of nursery rhymes and lullabies that I read to Chessa when she was his age. I had forgotten all about this book. I put down the laundry and pulled him into my lap. He flipped through the pages and stopped at the same one Chessa used to like.
Where did you come from, baby dear?
Out of the everywhere into here.
Where did you get those eyes so blue?
Out of the sky as I came through.
I rocked and for a moment he sat still. As I read the familiar poem I was flooded with reminders of rocking his sister in that very chair, reading to her and thinking about all the people in my life that she’ll never know.
What makes the light in them sparkle and spin?
Some of the starry spikes left in.
Where did you get that little tear?
I found it waiting when I got here.
I thought of my Pap and how much and he would have loved these kids, hating that he was gone before they came. And I closed my eyes and prayed that their paths crossed somewhere in heaven.
What makes your head so smooth and high?
A soft hand stroked it as I went by.
What makes your cheek like a warm white rose?
I saw something better than anyone knows.
Whence that three cornered smile of bliss?
Three angels gave me at once a kiss.
Hours later I tucked Chessa into bed. She protested bedtime with the world’s best mean face and I held on tight to my last ounce of patience. The book that Cole and I had read was long forgotten as I tickled my girl under her chin and said micheviously, “Is that your mean face?”
She tried not to giggle but the corner of her lip and the glimmer in her eye gave her away. “Come on, you can do better than that! Show me your best mean face.”
I scrunched up my own face, crinkled my nose to demonstrate and she lost her edge and giggled. As I covered her up with the blanked I told her the story of how Pap used to make me giggle by asking to see my mean face when I was a little girl. She gasped and clutched her hands to her lips and said, “That’s so silly, mommy!” I kissed her forehead and said goodnight.
“Tell me another story,” she asked. So I told her about how I used to drive his little red truck on the old back roads. Again, she giggled and covered her face is astonishment that I was allowed to drive.
“Tell me another story.”
And so it went, minute after minute, story after story. Moments of my childhood and memories of my grandfather shared with my girl.
How did they all just come to be you?
God thought about me and so I grew.
But how did you come to us, my dear?
God thought about you and so I’m here.
*poem by George MacDonald.
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