Bitches be Starting Shit

Quite inadvertently, I gained a reputation as a badasss.

On an unsuspecting Wednesday night I trickled into Amestoy's for the first time in well over a year.  The bar was busy, the walls rattling from the music of the DJ.  Surprisingly, to me at least, was that most of the patrons were Black.  I don't really care - It's just that I live in East Bakersfield, where most of the population is Hispanic and among them, I barely qualify as Hispanic too.

Most of the crowd was dancing so there were plenty of open places at the bar and as I took one, the bartender grabbed my hand and asked how I had been.  I just stared.

"You don't remember me."

I don't.

"We went to high school together?"

"Oh, yes," I feigned.

"And I know your brother."

"Of course.  Remind me of your name?"

"Tim.  Timmy.  Like your brother."

No bells resound.

"Yes, that's right.  Hi.  Corona, please."

The DJ is sounding off about this mother fucking this and this mother fucking that.  It's Candice's birthday, so let's all give it up for Candice.  I take a sip of my beer as the crowd hollers, then parts.  On the pool table I see a make shift altar, with a poster sized photo of a young, beautiful girl, and candles.  I realize that Candice is dead.  Shortly thereafter, i realize that the DJ is Candice's father.

"Let's go release these balloons for Candice."

The crowd gathers the mylar balloons and walks through the front door.  I observe, drink in hand, as they count down and then I see the streamers part from their hands, moving upwards, as the balloons are released.  I few uncontrolled tears trickle down my cheeks.

The attendants make their way back inside and a man starts shouting at me from across the bar.  The woman with him is trying to calm him, and I am not sure he is talking to me.  There's a man standing beside me, running interference.  I keep asking, "What? What?" and the man keeps shouting.  Finally, I can hear him. "Are you starting shit with me?" The man running interference says, "You should ignore him, he's drunk."  I calculate.  The woman with him seems pretty solid.  There are two other patrons, plus the man next to me, between us.  I;m not trying to start shit.  But if he is, he's got to get over some hurdles.  Ultimately, he defuses, and the night goes on.

Tim comes around the bar and sits next to me with his glass of water, and tells me about life since high school.  He says that he has heard about me having been a bartender at the Wright Place for a long time now.  His customers are last-calling themselves, dissapating as a bartender always hopes.

A drunk woman walks up. "Bitches are always starting shit with me. What am I supposed to do? Ignore them?"

"Yes, ignore them," Tim says, and her boyfriend assists her out of the bar.

"Bitches are always starting shit with me too," I joke. "I'm just kidding.  No one starts shit with me."

"Well, I'm a dude and I wouldn't start shit with you.  Seriously.  You give off that vibe."

I stare for a minute.  "Yeah. I guess not."

"No one wants to start shit with you."

I'm pretty happy with this revelation.  I rarely walk into any place doing anything but pretending to be something I am not.  I am not brave.  I am not tough. Last night I promised Delilah I would rock her for one song.  ONE song.  Three songs, plus one abridged, later, I tucked her in her crib.  A couple hours after that when a frightened Eden called to me from her monitor, I invited her into my bed, where she consumed my pillow and my blankets and generally made me irrelevant.  Nearly any time they beckon, I will be on call. Just a few minutes before, I was slinking into the grocery store ten minutes before close to make sure the girls had flavored milk for their breakfast. They do love flavored milk.

The bar has been almost completely evacuated.  It's just me, Tim, the DJ and one of his friend.  The two of them approach the bar.  I am ready to go, so I turn to the DJ and say, "I am really sorry about your daughter."

"Thank you."

"I lost my son when he was ten days old.  I know it's not the same, but -"

"But you know how it feels." He grabs me, and hugs me fiercely, tears in his eyes.

"She was really beautiful."

"She was.  She wouldn't let anyone see her or take her picture when she had the cancer.  She wanted everyone to see her like this."

"Well, she was beautiful."

He hugs me again, and I leave.  He will not likely remember me tomorrow, but I will remember him.  Perhaps more importantly, I will remember Candice, a beautiful girl that I never knew, who was stolen by cancer, but who is remembered with love and loyalty.

Happy would-be 31st birthday, Candice.

Use Your Words, Use Your Fork

This never happens.

I walked into Delilah's room at 11:30 last night to give her one more kiss before I went to sleep myself.  Sometimes, she'll stir a bit.  Sometimes she will even stand up and reach for me, and I hug her for a moment and lay her down again.  But last night, she wouldn't let me go.  She clung strongly to my neck, her legs wrapped around my waist.  I relented, and sat in the rocker with her for a bit.  I could tell she had fallen asleep, but when I stood to place her back into her crib, she immediately woke and applied that strong grip again.  So we sat some more.

We rocked.  And as we rocked, I stroked the silky hair on her perfectly formed head.  No mother can appreciate a moment like that, unless she's also been told that her child's head did not form so perfectly.  It is a thing, and act, taken for granted by so many, but it's weight is not lost on me.  The tears fell from my eyes and I moved my face to keep them from falling on her, from interrupting this perfect moment. 

Everything about Delilah is perfect, and beautiful, and healthy, and strong.  She is growing fast.  Too fast. 

So I was stunned when a speech pathologist told  me what really shouldn't have been stunning information:  Delilah has a slight speech delay.

I knew this.  I knew that Eden talks too much, and Delilah doesn't get enough attention, and that Delilah wasn't saying as much as Eden said at that age, and that we shouldn't compare, but that at some point we would have to be concerned. 

I knew, but I didn't care.  I wanted my baby.  I didn't want her to have to ask me for anything - I just wanted to give it to her.  I don't want my 2 1/2 year old to transition to a toddler bed from a crib.  I want to lift all 30 pounds of her into that crib as long as I can.  I just want her to be my baby and I know that a good momma would let her grow up, but I am just a broken momma, made from a broken woman, and I am afraid of EVERYTHING. 

I've always felt that she was sent to me because of Gabriel.  Within minutes after her birth, I saw Gabriel in her face.  Eden was my rainbow, but Delilah is my shining star, a twinkle in the darkness that was my postpartum depression after both of the girls were born.  Eden is my girl, a little piece of me.  Delilah was for me. 

She is perfect.  She is alive, and whole, and here, and she's my last baby.  I know she is, no matter how much hope I am encouraged to hold on to, and no matter how young (or at this point, not too old) I am, and no matter how much my heart breaks every single day over this knowledge.  I know it, because it hurts too much to hope, so I won't.  I know that I might not be too old,. but I also know I
ve only got a 50% success rate at growing surviving children. And I know that the longer a heartbreak lasts, the harder it is to overcome, so I'll just speed through it. 

Tonight as I tucked her again, she again requested that we sit a while.  No.  She didn't ask.  She sat in the rocker expectantly, and reached for me as I approached.  I sat, and she curled up against me.  She grabbed the back bars of the rocker and pushed herself back and forth.  "Rock?  You want to rock?  Can you ask momma to rock?  It's okay.  I'll rock you.  Do you want a song?  Momma will sing to you.  Let's cuddle and rock, and I'll sing." 

In two days she will start preschool.  They will make her use her words and a fork.  They will try to potty train her.  She will grow taller, and leaner, as if she hadn't just stretched over night just a week ago.  They can do all of that.  Everyone else around us can do all of that.  I'm going to rock my baby.