Some days

 

Often when I pray, I use a phrase from the prayer Jesus taught us: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth...”

What I mean to be  saying is “A bit of Thy kingdom come here, to us, today, please.” I pray, sitting in an Amish bent rocker looking out the second story window where beyond our yard I see people walking to work at St. Mary’s hospital, delivery trucks stopping at the Canadian Honker, patrons leaving Caribou Coffee clutching cups. In this in-between time while we wait for Kingdom to fully arrive I’m asking if God would share a tiny cheese cake of a thing to hearken us, and those we meet, to Himself. I’m saying I welcome a bit of Pasture into this house, into this day, even an atom of it so we remember who we are and where we’re headed.

Night before last I didn’t sleep much because I forgot to set the alarm but didn’t want to wake Denis by turning on the light, and whacking the buttons, so I kept watching the lit numbers until 5 a.m. which I don’t care that you get up that early all the time and think nothing of it, it was EARLY for me.

I was driving to Minneapolis (about 1 ½ hours from Rochester) to pick up my Mom at 7:00. She was flying in on the Marvin Windows plane. They arrive at a little terminal - tucked near the big one - that accommodates small corporate jets. CEOs with leather briefcases and the Minnesota Wild team, for eg, come and go. Security is drive up to the gate pick up a phone and tell them, “I’m here to meet the blah-blah-blah and the gate pulls back. No monitors, I mean none I see, no information, but really nice lounge, fireplace, bathroom with hairspray and shoe polisher, though I have no use for either. And fyi, people up in Warroad who have remote connections to Marvins can get a seat on their plane, for a price, and if they have room. Okay you really wanted to know all this, didn’t you?

So, I arrive and wait until I notice NO ONE is coming or going. It’s 7:30 and no Mom. Can’t reach her by cell phone or home phone. She’s left no messages anywhere. The desk says no plane is scheduled and no info but I can call Marvins. Jodi in Scheduling and Tours answers. Long pause. She says, O no. I think we told her the wrong time. She was supposed to leave at 6 p.m. not a.m.

In Warroad she’d been waiting forever out at the airstrip and there was NO ONE there either, but finally a guy showed, checked the schedule and said, ah. It leaves at 5 p.m. tonight. When Mom finally reached me, she’d hurried 36 miles back home to call as she’d forgotten her cell phone. The leather lounge chairs are pretty nice, but I couldn’t sit all day waiting without computer or book. And shopping for 12 hours at Mall of America is, well, I’d rather eat cockroaches. So I drove back home to work. Returned to meet her late afternoon. Again, I waited and waited, wondering what happened now, I finally got a call from Mom who reported, “We’re on the ground in Duluth! (pause) But we’ll be arriving in Mpls around 7:15.” She did arrive at last and we had dinner together. But I was wondering about God’s Kingdom arriving in my life on “this day” and whether it had.

You hoped I’d have some big message? Sorry. I’ve taken all your time to say I drove six hours and it was kind of meaningless and boring. All I have to report is I saw the sun rise – not an option at Toad Hall even if you’re up early. The colors made me think of melons. Layers and layers of hazy pinks, corals, salmons, purples. Fields of snow reflecting light so soft … so fleeting, it may have been my cheesecake for the day, though having a Mom, especially this Mother is pretty nice any time.

It was Mother's Day

The Great Aunt never had children, though we assure her, she’s been like a mother to us and we love her for it. I don’t think this is enough to heal ancient feelings of bereavement – anyway, she rather despises the notion of being “in touch with one’s self.” She just knows it’s Mother’s Day, we’re getting ready for church, and she’s in a bad mood. She looks beautiful in her pink turtle-neck and gray wool jacket. She adds the finishing touch – dangly earrings. She manages to hang the left one. Then she hands me the other and commands, put it in. It’s a crap shoot. Sometimes I can get it through, today I can’t, no matter how I try. She’s giving me orders as she leans her head this way and that and we move toward the light so I get a better view. I push aside her hair and grasp her lobe between my thumb and forefinger for the umpteenth time. She says, just push it through the front hole. Have you? Have you? Now push down, angle it down. DOWN! PUSH! I get it in the front hole, but it refuses to come out the back. I’m wiggling the post, watching it pooch out against the transparent pink flesh, groping for the back hole. The tissue is so tight I’m afraid I’m going to pop another hole in her ear. I think I’m hurting her. You’re NOT! she says. She sighs deeply when I give up.

At church I notice the one earring still swinging from the side of her head – we forgot to remove it, but I won’t embarrass her by taking it out during prayers. She’s still in a temper about Mother’s Day, and has already anticipated that the pastor will make a big to-do over it. He tells us the church is blessed by women, that all of them are our mothers in Christ whether they have children or not and we honor them. But she’s not buying it, even though she is to us. Even when the kids pass out carnations to every human remotely resembling adult female.

We rush out after the service into driving wind and rain, knowing she’ll quickly forget this was a “special” Sunday. We take her to Elly’s Pancake house because, she informs us, she hasn’t had pancakes in years and years. Comforted by coffee and bacon fried crisp, her face softens and she smiles broadly as she watches the bobbing two-year-old at the next table - whose father is forking bits of pancake into her mouth, syrup dribbling down her front, and she, clapping sticky hands. I reach across and briefly hold The Aunt’s hand, thank you. Not for anything in particular, just thank you.