I heard it before I saw it.
If you have a dog, you know the sound I’m talking about.
The strange inner gulp that their stomach does just before they vomit. You can see their stomachs heave in and out like a resuscitation bag in a slow motion nightmare.
Normally when this happens, I rush to open the door so that if he couldn’t make it outside before it came out, he could at least vomit on the hardwood floor and not on our bedroom carpet.
But unfortunately, I was rocking my baby that had just drifted to sleep.
So I watched helplessly as my dog got sick not once, not twice, but three times all over our bedroom floor.
I tried to tiptoe ever so gently to the door so that he could at least go drink some water, but he felt ill enough to just lay down next to his vomit.
So I crept back to the rocking chair, settled in to seal in the sleep, and considered my next steps.
After I laid my baby in his bassinet where he was blissfully unaware of what was waiting for me just three feet from where he slept, I guided my dog out to the backyard and ensured that he was okay.
Then I slipped on rubber gloves, found a paper bag to dispose of soiled towels, and crawled back into the bedroom on my hands and knees in the dark.
I cleaned up the spots as best I could, as quietly as I could, steeling myself against the smell and the reality of what I was touching. I scrubbed the carpet with dog cleaner while I wondered if it was safe for my baby to inhale, and then for good measure, I turned our air purifier up to its highest setting.
I crawled back out with the paper bag full in my hands with just enough time to clean myself up before the baby woke.
Parenthood is glamorous.
This is not the first time that I have watched my dog destroy something as I looked on helplessly while rocking a baby.
In the first week of my husband going back to work, I watched my dog tear up a clean diaper that had fallen to the floor when I was changing the baby earlier. I left the mess for later.
At this point, I have mostly learned my lesson—I either crate my dog during the nap time routine, or I ensure that he lays at my feet.
But that dog vomit situation was really something. How was I to know that he would be sick on the floor? What choice did I have when my putting my baby-who-does-not-like-naps down for a nap?
It seems like a lot of things happen as I look on helplessly while caring for my children.
My daughter started kindergarten recently, and I’m getting ready to return to work, which means that sweet baby I rock will go to daycare.
It’s a vulnerability I can barely take watching my little kindergartener walk into a school with big kids and dangers I am afraid to utter even to myself most days. I want to think only of her learning how to read and getting sweaty at recess, but horrifying scenarios come to mind every time I hug and kiss her goodbye.
This past weekend, I was home alone with the kids and the dog for the evening while it stormed. The wind was howling and knocking things over on our porch, spooking my chicken of a dog and gluing my eyes to the kids’ monitors.
The baby slept peacefully through everything. My daughter woke to the thunder requiring snuggles and the reminder that thunder is not dangerous—only loud.
I wish the other scary things in our lives were just loud.
I have sat with enough families on the worst day of their lives at a children’s hospital to know how close we all are to devastation. And as I rock a baby to sleep, thinking of how small he is, how very fragile he really is, I feel the vulnerability waft over me not unlike the stench of dog vomit.
The Church celebrated, Mother, Mary of God’s birthday the other day.
I wonder about her feeling of vulnerability holding a tiny child that she and her husband had dreams about.
I wonder if she thought about that tiny little baby when her grown son was killed, when her day of devastation came. Did she ever think the violence of where she lived would touch her son? Did she stay up late at night after putting the baby to bed wondering if her child would become collateral damage of the state’s greed and lust for power?
I guess what I am asking is what to do with this overwhelming sense of vulnerability. It’s not just the vulnerability of being a parent, but also of being a parent in a place where life is not precious.
How does this vulnerability not turn into paralyzing despair?
With the record-breaking heat this summer laying the desperation on thick, with the numbing news of mass shootings making up the soundtrack of our lives, I sing lullabies not unlike Mary’s, where the powerful are brought down low and the lowly are protected.
And I remember that there will always be mothers who crawl back into the dark on their hands and knees. There will always be dads and aunties and friends who steel themselves against the horror of what has happened in order to clean up, to “protect the joyful” as the Book of Common Prayer compline prayer goes.
And perhaps what I can do with this overwhelming sense of vulnerability is to remember how deeply embodied this faith is.
Mother Mary did not mourn abstractly. She stood at the foot of the cross, mere feet away from her baby.
The women at the tomb did not say their prayers from their bedrooms with hopes that they would get on okay, but they gathered up spices and walked to the tomb bleary-eyed in order to complete a funeral.
Jesus gave bread and wine and said “Remember me, my body. I was here.”
And when that would-be funeral turned into a miracle on the first Easter morning, in the days that came after, Jesus said put your hands to my wounds. And when you eat and drink together again, remember these wounds. Remember me. I was here.”
I cannot conjure hope out of thin air. It has feathers, you see. It makes a nest with the throw-away things and stands lightly, ready to turn a fall into a flight.
And so I make hope on my hands and knees, crawling into my son’s room to clean up the dog’s mess.
I make hope by rocking him to sleep, whispering sweet dreams over him, despite the mess that is being made so very close to him.
I wrangle my five-year-old each night into her pajamas and spread sunflower seed butter onto bread and let her elbows poke me as she climbs into my lap.
I practice hope when I remember this vulnerability and keep loving, keep trying, keep trusting that our best bet is to keep holding onto each other.
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