Mother on the Lifeboat

A lifeboat drifts

It’s quiet

But it’s not

I just can’t hear anything

I’m deaf

I’m numb

I keep looking forward

Waiting for the rescue ship

That should have been here at the start of all this

There are only four people in this lifeboat

Not counting myself

And my daughter

Four people, all women

All exhausted from worry

Huddled together

On the side of the boat

I think they’re praying

But I don’t want to pray

I don’t feel like it

Unfortunately, it’s not concrete enough for me

At the moment

I’d like something a little more physical

Something harder than faith and water

I haven’t given up on my religion, mind you

But at the moment, God seems like a naughty child

I still love him

I’m just not interested in speaking with him

Until I know what his punishment should be

All those lives…

And all the rest of us

Who knows how we’ll be…affected

From this point on

My little daughter is asleep in my lap

Four years old

Her father…

He put us in the lifeboat

He put us in the lifeboat

And he started to say something

And then a rope snapped

And the boat started to fall

I’m amazed we’re not all dead

My daughter was crying

And eventually she just cried herself out

What am I going to tell this little girl when she wakes up?

And what am I going to tell her

The day after that?

And the day after that?

That no boat will ever sink again?

That better plans will be put into place when boats do?

That from now on we’ll only ride on planes and automobiles

And this will mean we’re safe?

What promises can I make to my child

That won’t turn into lies?

I overheard one of the women in the boat saying

‘What is this world coming to?’

And I wanted to remind her

That people have been saying that

Since the dawn of the time

I can even imagine it being the first thing

Eve said when she found out

One of her sons had killed the other

‘You did what?  My God.  What is this world coming to?’

A hundred years from now

People might laugh about this

In this moment, it seems impossible

But time has a way of erasing sensitivity

We laugh about Lincoln’s assassination now

We laugh about the Civil War

We laugh about that child murderer

Who used to lock up his victims in his basement and…

One day my daughter will laugh about all this

And that is both a comfort

And a concern

Something tells me being a mother

Is going to mean something

Very different from now on

I have to instill caution

And spontaneity

A love of life

But a practicality

Strength, and also

Compassion

I have to give her a heart like my mother’s

My mother, the actress, who was always the best

At playing melodrama

The salt would spill

Or wine would fall on her dress

Or she’d be reading the tallies of the soldiers

Killed in the war

And she’d say

‘Dear, dear dear.  My heart is just breaking!’

One time, as a little girl, I said to her

‘Mother, I’m worried about your heart

It keeps beaking!’

She pulled me onto her lap

And said, ‘Never fear.  My heart can break a thousand times

But my spirit never will’

When the rope snapped

And the lifeboat went down

I remember looking up at my husband’s face

And feeling my heart slowly begin to crack and fall apart

But then I looked down at my daughter

And my spirit tightened

So that I felt sure

That no matter happened

We would be all right

So now we wait

And we rest

And we worry

And we cry

And we hope

And we curse

And we beg

And we shiver

And we wait and wait and wait

And it’s quiet but it’s not

‘What is this world coming to?’

I hope my daughter never has to say those words

But only time

Will tell