Adventures In Motherhood

Pain in the neck is what brought me to the brink, broadsided by a white Ford Explorer at 40-miles-per-hour in the side sliding passenger door of my Honda Odyssey minivan eight years ago en route to an MRI for neck and thoracic pain. A pain I imagine began sometime around my third child and after my mother moved to Colorado. Lying sideways, suspended by a seat belt harness, my burning ear smashed into the side curtain airbag, suffocating by fumes of smoke, I exhaled a sigh of relief my children were not with me. How did I wind up here? My life needed to slow down except for the 8-month-old child with RSV at home, my fourth, who needed his mother’s milk and care. Shards of broken glass poking out of my blood stained flesh, a pounding hematoma in my left ear, interrupted by a constant ringing from the firecracker explosion of impact, warm salty tears of exasperation and hopelessness consumed me. “No wonder you have pain in your neck,” my mother stated with gusto when the pain became d

Sitting alone at my kitchen table holding a glass of Cabernet, I feel my shoulders release from captivity. Staring at my grandparents' mission style table, its dark wood and deep scratches from a century of abuse, straw no longer poking out of the wooden chairs I've since recovered, I remembered my dad tried to repair the wood; long gone are our table conversations. It's Valentine's Day and my husband is of course working late, because every day is Valentine's Day after four kids and nearly 24 years of marriage, right? I breathe a sigh of relief. At least the three boys are playing Wii in the basement; their noises of negotiation ensure me I am safe to let down my guard. Dinner can wait. I swirl my glass of wine watching it lap the sides of my stemmed glass. God damnit, why is she still affecting me? The bitch, the teacher who questioned my judgment, walking away and waving me off like a child today.  Staring at the deep groove in the table that sits six, a