My Daughter needs me!

Today I went to the front office to check my "cubby". Teachers have cubbies, slots or such that hold adverts, letters from the district departments, principal mandates, PTA announcements , cute notes saying Thanks for Working So Hard, and urgent phone call messages are taped flying above your last name. Dr. So&So called...return call!

I rush to call as there were tests run on my daughter ...my heart beats faster and my stomachs churns. She's sick...we need to go back in for consultation and I need to tell her! Why do I always have to be the grown up? Duh... I barely keep it together so I call Duncan for steeling my nerves, for his wisdom or someone who will say it's going to be alright. It must be alright, she's my baby.

He's calm, sympathetic, comforting and tells me I can do this. You're strong, he says...she's strong, he says...you've done a good job, he says...I'm so very afraid that I'm concentrating on every word and syllable like they're life rafts-and they are! My heart rate slows to a trot and with 15minutes before my next class I'm back online for the 5th graders Folk Art lesson.

As soon as class is over I pack for dismissal, power walk through after school duty and get home at a record time of 3:25pm. My little girl is home, on the phone of course and immediately notices the distress in my face! (earlier I had decided to tell her Friday after school...worrying about her reactions) I blurt, "I need to talk to you baby!" Why? she says....the doctor called, I say...Is it bad? she says...yes, I say....real bad, Mom...she almost whispers...come in my room, let's talk, I say trying not to sound panicked.

She looks so little and young sitting on my bed (she is little,barely 5'& 98pounds & sixteen)...my God she's just a baby! She listens...not believing and runs to her room, slamming & locking the door (nothing new) and I am helpless and powerless to do anything but wait for her to get control of her fear. Motherhood, parenthood is not for sissies...faint of heart...be still my heart.

She's not only to die but it's not going to be easy. I can't take it away from her or wear it myself which I would gladly do, the coward's way I am sure because to sit bedside as a love one suffers is far more painful than any pain I have ever experienced so far!

In the afternoon, she bounces back and forth from mature beyond her years to a child in need of climbing in Mommy's lap for comfort. I take her to pick up fast food, Taco Bell, her favorite. As we drive she talks about a pet guinea pig named Tar Baby I had bought her years ago. My, how she needed something to hold and love on then (she was 13 awkward and depressed about the divorce but mostly about her Dad's absence in her life)...I got Tar Baby mostly because we were in apartments and I couldn't afford the pet deposit for a dog or cat. Loved that pig, she did but guinea pigs don't live long lives. I was there the day Tar Baby died, in Sara's arms, tears streaming from her big brown eyes and sobs coming from her entire being. She cried for all the hurt she was feeling at the time and I cried with her.

She reminds me that we buried Tar Baby next to the patio of our apartment. "Remember, Mom when we had ice and snow but there was one little flower that bloomed where I buried Tar Baby and nowhere else? ",she reminisces. "I remember, Babe"..."You cried and I cried all over again". She smiles, "but that was really cool Mom...I loved Tar Baby."

"Do you want another guinea pig, Sara?" "Will it help you feel better?" She shakes her head yes!

Bebe is a beautiful female tricolor guinea pig that now lives in my baby daughters room. I sit on the floor next to my daughter as she pets Bebe and Bebe begins her guinea pig purr.

the Queen prays for strength...