coming home

6 more days
i've missed her
and i'm a bit scared

see i remember
years
back.
that little blonde head, fennel and the ocean.
crayons and wood chips, your cold little starfish hands
eucalyptus shaded playgrounds and laundry mats
the # 6 bus

singing switchfoot, the doggy-paddle, making collages, reading, piano, clover, trader joes
crying under my sunglasses hoping you wouldn't notice
praying for no sticky thoughts,
wishing i could climb inside your brain to understand you.
letting go of college

the sine curve of you, up and down and down and up
the seasons of you
barely able to do homeschool, then year 6 student council,
little miracles, inconsistent but 
always and consistently
a mystery

you only see half of yourself
but all of you is here

we left 3 months ago,
on a flight held up by prayer
landed in the emergency room
of the hospital where i used to work,
where my father used to work,
where my mother had cancer.
i know the colored floor stripes to follow to find my way.
i remembered how to find my way.
there was no question of your admission.

there was no question of your not wearing those brown pajamas
(that marked your mental state)
you couldn't stand the feeling of your own skin.
how you could put those on?
the room was yellow and had one knobless door with a window into the hall.
six nights.
do you remember?
no cords or hot coffee. suicide watch.
that's what they were looking for - those secret service men in the hall.
i tried to distract you when they held down the screaming boyman next door.
had there been a mistake? where were the wood chips? and the smell of playdough? what happened to those cold starfish hands?
how did the great spinning world spin us here?

that's why. that's why.
the next week when you went to the inpatient locked ward.
that's why
i still can't type this with out a flood of tears.
because you spoke it all out loud.
in your rudolf fleece pants pacing back and forth
like a trapped animal in a place you had never been, surrounded by people you had never  met,
you kept saying,
"there has been a terrible mistake,
a terrible mistake-
this must be a terrible mistake."

because yes zoe. it felt like a terrible mistake.

this whole thing felt like a terrible mistake.
it was the week of thanksgiving. thanksgiving.
i was in the house of my husbands parents.
where i had spent thanksgiving when i was 18 and totally in love with the man it thought i might marry and did.
18 and in college.
18 and on my own.
and here nearly 30 years later i was back with my 18 year old daughter
but she wasn't with me,
she wasn't with her boyfriend, 
she wasn't on her own,
i had just left her
locked
on an autism crisis unit.
it felt like there had been a terrible mistake.

hardest day of my life.
but i'm sure there will be harder ones (please God i hope not).
but this is my life.
and it is not a terrible mistake.
really hard things happen.
and really beautiful things happen too.
so we have to be sure to pay attention to the really good parts.
and we have to really laugh.
as in until  our stomachs hurt.
and zoe- that girl can laugh!

she's coming home
i am still a bit scared of the transition 
i have missed her a lot
6 more days