the best Mother's Day present ever

the best Mother's Day present ever

You may or may not remember this incident from a few months ago:

*We finally emptied the boxes in the garage onto the new bookshelves. When I got to a big box of my art books, we found the damage. Termites? Mice? Mold? Hard to tell but there were bore holes and crumbled boxes and ravaged books everywhere. I felt personally assaulted. Before having Rio I wandered upon Art History and fell immediately and wildly in love. I haven't had the time to pursue it in the least little bit since I naively signed up for the consuming job of parenthood. To see the books destroyed, literally turned to dust ... made me feel like *I* am disappearing. Little by little, holes chewed through, complete destruction in small but irrevocably lost locations.

Well, last night at midnight Bear came 'back from a work emergency' with a huge box in his arms. In that box was every single one of the books that had been destroyed - and more. I was literally moved to tears. When we came upon the destroyed books in the garage I was pretty much speechless. I cried, which upsets Bear hugely, but I couldn't even really talk about it. The cut was deep and complicated and I did what I always do which is to simply absorb the hurt and move forward. Alone.


When I opened that box last night, it was more than a bunch of books. It was the clearest signal yet that Bear really really gets me. Gets me when I get very quiet. Gets me when it's important.


He'll probably continue to be late. He'll continue to tell me he's out of clean socks, not running out of clean socks. He'll no doubt continue to pitch in a little less than is ideal, chew with his mouth wiiiide open, drive too fast and 'forget' to do the trash. But when it is important - really important - he's right on the money.

Thank you Bear. You are the best friend an accidental mom could wish for.