The Art of Caring

“Do you need anything,” asks Maeve, skipping into my room.

“I’m okay, Mapi,” I respond, turning my head away from my screen and keyboard just enough to look at her, “Want to grab some toys and play beside me?”

“You sure? What about water or a snack,” she offers, shaping her fingers into question marks.

“Merci mon amour but I’m okay,” I repeat.

Pensive, Maeve looks around the room before marching towards a tiny blanket then towards me. As she drapes it around my shoulders I can feel her tiny hands patting me. “There you go Iman, all nice and cozy now.”

Later she’ll find me laying on my couch in the late afternoon sun and ask, “Do you have a sore tummy?”

I won’t have a sore tummy. I’ll have a sore heart, a stiff neck, and a deep ache for our mother has died. And even working a mundane corporate job locked inside my house is hard. And trying to be a good big sister for the tiny human draping my shoulders is harder. And believing in life’s aptitude for joy is hardest. So I’ll lie and I’ll let Maeve come in and bring me water and pat my head softly because children learn by mimicking.

When my mother had cancer and Maeve was a baby, she watched as we hurried ourselves around our mother, sister, wife, friend. She watched as we rushed to bring her water, blankets, caresses, and worried looks. She watched as we asked her about her sore tummy and her sore joints and her sore mind. She watched as all the attention that was supposed to be hers got sucked out by tumors and their insatiable pit of need.

I can’t give her the time she didn’t have with the mother I know well and the one she won’t remember but I can tell her about what she lost. So when she asks about the woman that made us family, I’ll tell her about the laugh she can’t recall, the curls she barely touched before chemo’s snip. I’ll show her how she danced with her hips. I’ll remind her how they built puzzles, how they’d say goodnight to the moon after storytime, how, when Maeve cracked her skin, our mother would kiss her wounds and say, “Bisou guéri tout.”

And when I’m tired of keeping the pain from having its way with me, I’ll let her help a little because she doesn’t know any other way. I’ll let her see me laying on the couch and I’ll let her see me shed a tear. I’ll let her hug me and I’ll let her tell me, “I miss Maman too.” I’ll let her in so she knows grieving is welcome.

But I won’t let her see me hugging the bottle I keep under my desk. I won’t let her see me cry until the vessels in my cheeks burst. I won’t let her see me kick strangers' gates and yell profanities to the sky on late night walks. I won’t let her see me grip my mirror to try and convince myself that none of this is real, that our mother isn’t dead, that the pandemic hasn’t come.

I won’t let her see me lose my mind. So everyday, I will rise and I will make bed and I will pour whiskey in my coffee and I will have my meetings and I will take my late afternoon nap and I will keep toys for her in my room and I will bathe her and I will sing her a lullaby and I will roll myself a joint and I will start again and again and again.

Until I feel better. Enough to see that it is thanks to her. Thanks to her being there to wake for, to hide vices from, to laugh with, to marvel at. Thanks to her needing grape leaves and tomates, eyes that could read and hands that could soothe, arms that could reach and backs that could carry, lips that could kiss and words that could say, I’ll take care of you.

So next time she asks, “Do you need anything,” I’ll reply, “You’ve already given me it all.”