A Parade of Shoes...

Clac cloc, clac cloc, clac cloc, clac cloc, clac cloc, a rompus echo consumes the day.
She's now on her ninth pair of shoes... strewn and mishappened throughout the house.
Indiscriminate to the strength of their sound or shape, but partial to color and those that sparkle.

I'm uncertain about what the appeal is for her. It is certainly nothing that I nutured with my
own obsession for shoes smothered into thirty-five shoe boxes in the basement. Shoes that
are now four or five years dated. A fashion cemetery for me but for Avelina a wonderous
bounty for parading and clac clocing on our wood floors...

Amidst

Amidst the tapestry of our lives
her little eyes are woven like two
raised birds that flutter in our center

She is sewn into my mother's
condition less affection
though she is her own creation
with an inertia driven by a source
aflame beneath her feet

It is her own beautiful struggle
to exist in joy in spite of
and because of my flaws

... her breath is as essential
to me as my own

Jennifer

The email below is from my friend Jennifer, who like me lost her first-born daughter. Her daughter, Olivia died three months after Amaly due to similiar brain trauma. Both of us used the same midwife. Also like me, her second born was a daughter, Evelyn. Our living daughters now play together....

"Aida--
A moment to share with you . . .
Today I was nursing Evelyn to sleep for her morning nap and soaking it all in. Her soft cotton pajamed body, her wisps of blonde hair curling ever so slightly, her little hand holding my shirt as she nursed and drifted into slumber. The little feet pressing into my belly, kneading like a kitten. Those kicks drive me nuts sometimes but today I cherished the kittenness of it, wanting to soak it all up and hold on forever. I got so sad knowing these moments will pass that this profound intimacy will become a blur of told and re-told stories and some snapshots. Will I remember her smile with just 4 teeth and the way she holds her mouth a squew so they look crooked? The pride that radiates from her face when she rolls into a crawl? How those little feet feel kneading against my now soft belly? I know losing Olivia makes my drive to hold on so deep, my fear of separation so vast. I just watched her sleep and i cried for this day melting into the 11 months that have already passed. I hear Lisa outside pulling in her trash cans. I know she grieves deeply this week, the anniversary of her 17 year old son's death. How could she have him that long, love him, nurse him, hold his hand, send him to school and on a first date and still lose him? How do we survive knowing this is possible? Then I went to your blog and found just what I needed--you standing in and writing from that space we share, the same and different. Being able to come to to you there is so comforting. I know your book will be that place for many to come to know that we are not alone. Thank you.
love you, Jen"