Dear Abby,
Why do I put my attention to the trivial, while the important stuff gets lost? Why do I spend time with people whom I hardly know, and let time pass without hailing those I love the most? I am like a horse with blinders on, seeing only the immediate steps in front of me, losing the landscape around me. Do you know why, dear Abby?
Stymied in the Southwest
It is so much easier to attend to that which is in front of my face, than to continually examine what is important in my life and attend to it accordingly. I can think of no other reason why I do not pick up the phone or mail a quick note more often to the people I love.
Blessed are we who are fortunate enough to have loved ones willing to carry the load. I have several of these forgiving souls in my landscape. They reach out to me, and put themselves in front of my eyes, and get my attention. I prance and whinny, and playfully step along with them awhile, until they recede again, leaving me to focus once again on the brambles under my feet.
There was this particular little girl. I first met her as she peeked around from behind her father, big dark eyes full of uncertainty. She was six then. Not long afterwards, we found ourselves at a restaurant. Her father was apologetic as his daughter was defiant and rude. I understood that she did not want to share her Daddy with this strange woman. I got it. After dinner, we went to sit at the beach, and rudeness gave way to giggles as we sat and drew pictures on each other with the charcoal bits from a beach fire. Our relationship began.
Within a year, this little girl became part of my daily life, as her father did. We were a team, the three of us, exploring the landscape of the county. We often found ourselves in nature since we were young and broke, and the countryside was free. Our favorite path through meadows and gullies is now a freeway corridor. But I'll never forget our secret waterfall where we would picnic and navigate the boulders barefoot. We were becoming a family.
Snippets of memories. New Year's Eve at the Sycamore Inn. (She and I made a country inn at my apartment, complete with check-in and dinner. We spent all day setting it up. Her dad rolled his eyes at our goofiness, but bless his heart, he played along when we were all ready.) For her eighth birthday, I bought her Lee Press-On Nails. She might as well have won the lottery.
At nine, this little girl became defiant again. Maybe it was the ring that made me act differently. Maybe the prospect of actually becoming her mother made me think that I was supposed to be in control. Her ninth birthday with all her little friends around was not a proud moment for us. She was rebelling and I did not know what to do about it. I felt a child myself. What did I know about being a mother of a soon-to-be preteen? As it was, I never found out.
Love does not conquer all. Or maybe it does, but he and I did not possess that kind of love. Our team of three became two and one again. But I could not bear leaving behind this sweet dark-eyed little girl. Her father and I remained friends, and she and I evolved to have our own relationship, separate and unique. I drove miles to pick her up from her grandmother on weekends. We would have girl chats and do each other's nails. I yearned to teach her, my first feeling of homeschooling I imagine. I can still hear her chanting her multiplication doubles and state capitals. "Shy Anne, Why Owe Me!" I even taught my own daughter years later, "What is the capital of Alaska?" She would answer as my dark-eyed little girl once did, "I dunno. D'you know?"
She and I continued to be close through the next few years, as I developed a relationship with the man I would actually marry. I told him that this little girl would be a part of our lives, and he always supported that. He knew that I had promised that if anything happened to her father, I would become her legal guardian if she asked. We had that understanding as we planned our wedding with our twelve-year-old flower girl.
As it were, she made it to adulthood without incident. Soon after I was married, my little girl moved a short plane flight away and proceeded to grow up. I was able to visit quite often because my work took me there quite a bit. She also flew down to see her grandmother, so I was able to see her then. We continued along.
I think my blinders went on when I had a daughter of my own. Not that my daughter replaced my little dark-eyed girl. There was room enough for both in my heart. It's just that when the life is being sucked from you, you tend to get distracted. Then I had another child. My life was full of joy and brambles. I never forgot a birthday or a Christmas, but there was so much to do, what with applesauce and diapers, and later with schooling and playdates. I was so thankful that my dark-eyed girl continued to visit about once a year when she would come down to see her grandmother. Through her efforts, she developed a relationship with my two children, and they adore her.
Just last night, in fact, she was here. She had come down to be a bridesmaid in a friend's wedding, and had taken the effort to spend time with me and my family. I was stunned by her beauty. She has grown into a gorgeous woman of twenty-eight, as lovely on the inside as out. But something about this visit was different. She thought maybe I was different. Or maybe it was seeing her and my daughter the same height, acting like sisters. Whatever the difference, I saw my dark-eyed little girl as a full-grown woman, and we connected as we have never connected before. It was a wonderful but short visit, since she had to drive off by four in the morning to catch her plane. So we said our goodbyes before going to bed. When I awoke, I found that she had left her bridesmaid's bouquet for us, three dozen white roses.
I want to walk beside her as she enters the next stage of her life, and I am so thankful that we have come to this point together. The blinders will be coming off so I can see the love around me, instead of worrying about the brambles underfoot. Thank you, my dark-eyed girl, for being one of those forgiving souls in my landscape.