Kris Nina Haedrich
TWO MOTHERS  

(Second place award in prose)  

I became a minister, not so much out of faith but in search of it.

            The day after Danny was listed MISSING, a relentless invasion of disappearings began.  My rolodex was not in the drawer.  The cat’s flea collar,  just purchased at the A&P, vanished.  The bath water leaked away while I was on the phone.  Everything I wanted to eat, to wear, to do, to say, to be, eluded me.

            I couldn’t cry.  I threw my great  grandmother’s copper lustre pitcher; and then that too was gone.

 *** 

            Three days later, the cat didn’t appear after breakfast.  I phoned Yvonne.  “Hey, it’s like a bad dream,” she said.  “Your internal being is trying to process this nightmare; work with it like you would analyze a dream.  Write it down.”

            I couldn’t find my dream journal.  Did I leave it at our last group session?  I roamed in circles searching for a pen, paper.  I screamed, “This is insane; my sanity’s been abducted too, for Chrissake!”  In the full length mirror by the hall tree, I recognized a candidate for crisis counseling.  I picked up the phone and began rifling through the inevitable accumulations on the telephone table searching for the phone book -- “if you’d like to make a call, please hang up and try again; if you need help, hang up and then dial your operator” --  I could see Danny’s pudgy hands trying to help me search, “Phone book hiding Mama?”   I dialed 911.

            “What is the nature of your emergency?”

            “I keep losing everything.”

            “Try the lost and found.”

 ***                            

            I hung up embarrassed and wandered outside in my house coat.  “Try the lost and found” played like a litany in my head, and I ran.  Block after block, a great emptiness chased me, overtook me.  I knew it had beat me to the lost and found.  I collapsed onto the manicured lawn of a modern rustic structure (my father liked to refer to this architecture as contemporary California coal mine); and I began ripping up big handfuls of grass, watching the severed blades slip through my fingers and sink into the great green oblivion.

            “Are you looking for something?”  The smooth voice preceded his shadow by just a fraction of a second.

            “The lost and found.” 

***

             That was nine years ago.  The building was The Friends Unitarian Fellowship.  He was the minister.  I sat there getting grass stains on my good lavender robe and elaborated the enormity of my losses, in chronological order:  (I) my parents’ death when I was in college, a statistically rare automobile accident -- “these kinds of collisions almost never happen,” the insurance company assured me   (II) my first husband’s undiagnosed coronary artery disease and sudden heart failure -- “there doesn’t seem to be a high family incidence, so hereditarily it is not necessarily significant for you son Danny,” the doctor explained in an optimistic tone of voice   (III) the recent divorce from my second husband during his third “it doesn’t mean anything” affair   (IV) DANNY ROLANDS -- MISSING  Age: 4  Hair: blond Eyes: green   Height: 3’3”  Last seen: entering men’s restroom, Northpark Mall, Davenport, IA   Wearing: jeans, purple down ski jacket  (5)the rolodex (6)flea collar  (7)bath water  (8)great granny’s pitcher  (9)the cat  (10)my dream journal  (11)sanity  (12)the phone book

“You need a belief system and a good cry,” Pastor Peter James stated. “You are without faith and that is your greatest emptiness.”

 ***

         One thing led to another, as they say: long talks with Peter, church choir and membership, seminary and ordination, assistant pastorship in San Anselmo, my current position as chaplain in a juvenile correctional facility.  Danny would be almost thirteen years old now.

         The belief system helped to restore sanity.  The cat reappeared.  I found the rolodex in the glove compartment of the car.  I think the flea collar never made it into the grocery bag, but with sanity on line again, I bought another and got the bathtub drain repaired.  The host of our dream group dropped off my journal.  The phone book had fallen behind the cabinet and was recovered through the cleanliness that comes with godliness.

         But the great emptiness persisted, like an arid wasteland where more has been lost through evaporation than is gained from precipitation.  A vicious cycle of high pressure systems seemed to support this barren climate.  And the tears would not come.

         “You need a sense of closure,” a therapist told me.  “With no body, no grave, no ceremonial farewell, at least part of you is still looking and never finds; hence your sense of emptiness.  Devise a ritual: write Danny a goodbye letter; have a memorial; dig a grave and symbolically put him and/or the letter into it.  Some of the above, all  of the above.” But none of the above, nor anything else I could contrive felt right.

            I called Yvonne.  “Hey, you’re not ready to let go yet,” she said.  “It’s like you can give direction to a dream sometimes, but you can’t really control it, know what I mean?” 

***

            This morning, driving home from a conference in the Redwoods, I rounded a curve on the Avenue of the Giants and saw a large doe poised by the right shoulder of the road. I slowed and stared at her.  A strange familiarity assailed me, almost as if I should recognize her.  I pulled into a small turn-out, soft with redwood needles, just a few car lengths short of where she stood, and shut off the engine.  She remained motionless, looking across the road.

            Doubts about my ministry plague me almost daily, one of the reasons I had chosen this conference--Who Are You Really Trying To Save?   I opened the car door cautiously. Lingering dawn entered, damp and refreshing.  I sat for a moment breathing deeply the green forest scents.  As I stepped out into the stillness, I felt awkward, unholy.  Then, barely audible, I could detect the drone of a motor in the distance.  I was afraid the doe would wait too long to cross, dart out right in front of a car.  I advanced, determined to usher her safely across the road, save something during this ministry.

            I was amazed she did not move as I approached.  Then I saw her fawn lying in the northbound lane.  She waited for it to get up, follow.  Slowly I took another step.  Her left ear swiveled, like a satellite dish honing in on another station.  Then, her head turned slowly and we stared into one another’s vast emptiness.

            I could definitely hear a vehicle winding closer now.  I stepped into the road, lifted the fawn and laid it on soft mulch under the trees not far from her.  Leaning on my van, I watched her go to it, nudge it, wait.  A truck roared past.  She startled but did not flee. She nudged again and again. Waited.  Finally she turned and disappeared into the forest.

            At last I cried.