All tagged mother

Twenty years ago, one of my community college students wrote an essay about a day so busy that she forgot to pick up her seven-year-old daughter at school.

“Uterine atony,” I hear the doctor say as the neonatologist is showing me my brand-new baby. I glance at my blood pressure before looking at my son.

Whenever I visit we mostly sit as familiar strangers and talk about the tea. Once in a while, though, there’s a small window, five minutes max, when her eyes sparkle.

I’m two, maybe three, wearing a baggy diaper and standing in shin-deep puddle water. Leah’s here too, all pigtails and chubby legs and chubby cheeks.

The pastor raises his hands and loosely smiles at the Sunday regular crowd. Satisfied, he begins his prayer. "Dear Lord, let our children find prosperity . . . "