Irreverent Eloquence

     My girls write gift lists religiously. They come rushing up the stairs after a commercial, eyes alight with tiny imaginings, a new and wonderful toy or game filling their heart with desire. "Mom, for my birthday, can I have...?" they say to me with a smile wide, gleaming white baby teeth sparkling and winking at me.      It is easy to placate them in these moments, to tell them, "Sure, write it on your wish list." Christmas is the same, though longer and larger. As the holiday looms in the distance, any jaunts we take to the store are replete with requests as sweet as they are naive. We lie, white lies, about a mysterious man with a gift-giving plan who will make their dreams come true.      I sit thinking about these lists and lies regularly, though they don't trouble me deeply for the girls because I know the trinkets are superficial and easily forgotten. It's more for myself that I worried. I couldn't ask for any birthday gifts...

      I'm totally blocked. I guess it's a simple writer's block but in my reality, it is a little more messy than being incapable of putting my words on a page.      Our baby was born. It was messy and unplanned and traumatic and tragic. He was already going to be early and his entrance was even earlier than expected. It was painful in every way possible, our son's birth.       But we lived. Barely. I'd love to clarify that for you. It's just that there-in lies my block. I don't have clarity. I have a jumble. Our son is here. He is alive and for now, seems well. I lived, am healing physically and am going to work on the rest. My daughters are up to speed on the baby's birth and we are going to talk through every question they have on life and death every time they ask. I won't pretend to know how my husband is managing this whirlwind we have been living for the last year.          So for now, here's my first...