1 Mother 2 Another

Yesterday, school finally caught up with
Cora.


Hard.


We sort of made it through the afternoon and dinner and Cora began
to create an elaborate make-believe game – a sure sign in my
girls that they’ve got some stuff to process. All was going
fairly well until Cora blatantly took a bag of Maddie’s and
then refused to even share it with Maddie. When I gently but firmly
insisted, that was the. Last. Straw. And Cora fled to her room,
sobbing uncontrollably.

A few minutes later Maddie walked into
Cora’s room. “WHAT!” Cora screamed. “Cora,
I just wanted to say that I am sorry that I let my bag get between
us,” Maddie said. “My sister is more important and
it’s not worth breaking fellowship with you over something
that small, and I’m sorry that it did.” (Lest you swoon
at this, we’ve been working on it. HARD.)


“GO AWAY!” Cora screamed. So we tiptoed out.


My baby wailed. And wailed. And thrashed. And thrashed. I was
determined to love her through this, to not let her push me away,
so I waited patiently a few minutes, then went into her room with
clean laundry. “You don’t have to talk to me,” I
said to the lump under the sheets. “I’m just putting
your laundry away.”


Cora suffered this ignominy until I began casually humming
“Be Thou My Vision”, which is the song I always sang to
her when she cried as a baby. I could see how much Cora was
hurting, how overwhelmed by school and life she was and how she
needed to just howl at the moon for a bit, but I wanted to see if I
could push through the hard shell and give her some comfort.
Cora’s thrashing took on epic proportions, until she finally
got up out of bed and left the room.


So much for comfort.


My impulse was to take my humming and go – to punish her by
not speaking to her, not pursuing her any more, forcing her to come
to me begging for comfort. But this is a child, a baby, and
it’s not about me – it’s about her, and what she
needs. So I called her back without anger.


“Cora,” I said quietly as she stood vibrating furiously
in front of me, “if my presence bothers you so much,
I’ll leave – you can stay in your room. It’s
ok.” Cora stormed back in and shut the door.


I moved to Maddie’s room, putting laundry away there for a
few minutes. When I heard Cora’s door open and saw her leave,
I moved back into her room to finish with the clean clothes there.
I noticed that Cora had her writing desk out – a sure sign
she’d been making notes for someone in the family.


I should say here – Cora’s letter-writing is serious
stuff. Talk about a literal love language. Cora adores drawing
“I LOVE YOU” notes, putting them in an envelope,
addressing them, and leaving them in someone’s mailbox in
front of his or her room. She always wants to be there when you
open it, her tail wriggling in happiness, her heart overflowing as
she grabs you in a hug. This is the essence of Cora, of my Heart.


So Cora had been delivering notes and came huffing back into her
room, flouncing angrily into her seat. I thought she was beginning
the slow circling of me that would end with crawling into my lap,
but it appears I was wrong.


After a couple moments of silence, Cora said craftily,
“Someone will be sad when they see that Mommy and
Daddy’s mailbox only has one flag up!” Another
explanation – Brian and I share a mailbox but have our own,
differently-colored flag to denote the mail’s intended
recipient.


Assuming the mail would be for the person NOT responsible for the
current agita, I said evenly, “I’m sure it will be ok.
Not everyone gets mail every day, and Daddy looks forward to
letters just as much as I do. If I don’t get anything from
you I still have all my lovely letters from the past that
I’ve kept.”


Angry silence.


We danced around each other some more, with me finally declaring it
officially bedtime, which kicked off another round of screaming
sobs. I lay on Cora’s bed as she shook curled up at the foot.
“Baby, I’ll be here as long as you need me to,” I
said, which won me a kick in my general direction. I began reading
a book aloud – which ratcheted up the screams exponentially.


Finally I got up and said, “My love, I’m sorry I
can’t help you. I’ll go ahead and go so you can come up
and get comfy on the bed. I love you, though.”


And a hand sneaked out from the ball and grabbed my arm.


My baby climbed into my arms and clung to me, shaking, while I held
her and said, “It’s ok, baby, it’s ok,”
over and over. I walked over to her rocking chair and we sat down
in it with her still curled up like a ball. “Do you want me
to read a couple books while we snug?” I asked, and she
nodded. Cora got up to turn the light on for me, selected a couple
books, and pulled the blanket up over us. I began to read, got one
sentence into it, and Cora said suddenly, “Mommy,
where’s my desk? It was in the chair!”


“Kiddo, I moved it so we could sit down. It’s right
over there,” and I pointed. “But let’s just read
for right now – your desk is fine.”


“No, I need it! I’ll be fast,” she pleaded, and
stifling my impatience I nodded yes.


Cora walked over to her desk, pulled out an envelope, and walked
back. On it was written “MOMMY”. She handed it to me.
Inside, as you can imagine, was the “I LOVE YOU” note
she’s so famous for.


I almost started crying.


My baby had written a note for both me and Brian, and then to
punish me had only delivered Brian’s that night. But then she
couldn’t stand it and had to give it to me anyway. That note
was an admission of wrong, an apology, a thank-you note, and a note
telling me I was doing something right. And she gave it to me with
a smile and a hug.


She climbed back on my lap, we cracked open the book, and snuggled
in deep.