We stand here, me and my little girl selves

From D.W.: I’m starting the process of putting together Rachel’s book. It’s a lot of work. And a lot of decisions. But one nice thing is that I get to sit with a part of her that very few people have seen and read words that very few people have read, at least thus far. The post below that she wrote in 2020 gives a few hints at the general narrative structure, so I figured it might be nice to give y’all a little preview.

It also speaks to one of the best things about having all of this writing to re-read and reflect on. It gives me the opportunity to communicate, in a way, with the myriads of different people that Rachel was in her lifetime. I can’t talk to the person she is today, but I can reach back in time and have a conversation with the Rachel from three years ago. Or ten. Or forty. The ones I knew and the ones I didn’t. I don’t have to wonder what she was like in the past because she’s told me. It’s a blessing in its own way.

Also, she talks about her tattoo in this. It’s pictured above on the left side. The one on the right side is what I did last year in her honor.

Facebook. April 10th. 2020

Jesus Meets the Women of Jerusalem

The last four years have been so strange. This is not what I imagined would be happening in my life or in the world as I sailed into middle age. Things that felt solid and sure for my whole life started to feel wobbly in dangerous places. I struggled—and some days still struggle—mightily to pull myself together. I felt like the bloom had fallen off the roses in so many corners of my little garden. Dry seasons will do that to the hardiest of any plant that loves color. So, I danced for rain in my own broken way, different than I had done in my backyard when the last awful drought in my heart and in San Antonio finally relented.

I cut off my long hair. I dyed it all the colors I’d wanted for so long because I needed to not mind what anyone else thought about how my dance steps looked. I saw my best friend in the flesh after six years of life only allowing us phone calls and we got tattoos. I cried my way through my fortieth birthday and then for a few months more after that. I found a new shrink, and even though he didn’t take our insurance and even though it was spendy and even though he was sometimes late, he also helped me figure out some big damn deals and got me on new meds. And he made me sit with two girls I had been ignoring for a long time, who gave exactly zero shits about my hair or my tattoo or why I cried when I woke up in the morning.

I sat with a ten year old who was convinced that if she could ever learn to sit still and just be quiet, she might have seen what was coming and known what to do. She is obsessed with information. She is terrified of not being good enough, of being left out or behind and not even knowing what she was missing—good or bad—until it was too late. She answers the phone on the first ring, every time. She reads the encyclopedia for fun and the kids in her class make fun of the words she uses and knows. She doesn’t understand why and she feels a lot of feelings about this. Also, she just started her period and her hair is awful.

The other one is almost 18. She would rather be anywhere else and I don’t blame her. She’s finishing high school and once the acceptance letter from the only college she applied to came, she clicked into autopilot. She’s gone every weekend. And when she’s home, she’s at the hospital or doing homework or trying not to be such a mouthy little bitch. This is not the time for it, honey. She knows she can get in her car and crank up the radio as loud as she wants and drive the back roads. She chainsmokes menthol lights and cries to Jesus about what a bunch of bullshit this turned out to be. She knows he loves her and that God has a plan. And she also believes that maybe God is also really sad about this too and that everybody’s body dies—even hers—and so maybe it’s ok but this way eats it and she prays for a miracle but knows that’s a 50/50 shot, at best. She talks less than she used to, but that mind is a hot mess. She’s just trying to make it until she moves into the dorm. She’s got books ordered for classes. She takes zero shit, but she doesn’t start it now. She put that away because it is Unhelpful. And all she really wants to do is help this be less bad. And she loves, loves, loves to over function herself into near collapse so you will feel better and maybe also say something nice to her about How Well She Is Doing In Spite of It All. Her hair is freaking amazing.

And so, here we three are now. We are feeling better. The girls know they are safe and that I turned out happy and ok. But they can really get loud and upset when they think the floor is dropping out and they are about to fall into the rain of a thousand dropping shoes. I ignored them for a long time, didn’t want to listen to anything they had to say. What could a ten year old and an 18 year old tell me about my life that I don’t know? I was there for it...and they remind me, so were they. So, here we are. Doing middle age together. With our actual real live amazing husband. We’re all still in various shades of delighted and besotted shock about that.

We stand here, me and my little girl selves, looking at this beautiful and broken Jesus. Jesus stands in front of us and gives his whole self up to us...all of himself. The totality of his days as Himself, all his beautiful selves and the One self that makes all of us one—he offers them up to me, to you, to all the little selves we carry with us. Just the same way he’s looked at every face he’s ever beheld—even the ones who spit on him and mock him and are dragging him through the streets. He stops, and he looks right at us. He asks us not to cry—tells us to stop. But we can’t. We are crying for him—for love—and for each other. Between us, we have cried enough to resalt the sea...salty enough maybe to float us across to the other side...

With love,

Rachie

~~Hamsa: a palm-shaped amulet with origins in ancient Mesopotamia. See also: Hand of Miriam, Hand of Mary, or Hand of Fatima. A symbol of blessing and protection.~~