Haibun through a Collision of Love

Today is her birthday, Tamie's, my foster daughter, non-residental foster daughter, ex-foster daughter. I don't know how to refer to her anymore. I tried to call the last group home she'd been in. She's not there any more. I called the case worker, "Guess who I'm looking for?" I tell people that after she left me she's was in about ten different foster homes, three group homes, juvenille detention, as if to explain why she wasn't with me anymore, that it wasn't my fault. I told Tamie it wasn't her fault. Neither of us could be who we weren't, as much as we might have wanted to be. She arrived in 2002 and left in 2003. In 2004 I began to write about my short journey of motherhood, entrance into unconditional love, the lessons of loving and letting go. The writing is in Haibun form, a combination of haiku and prose. It is mostly a story about Tamie and me, but also references other lesson in loving and letting go. Happy Birthday Tamie, wherever you are.

Collision of Love, A Haibun for 2002

I thought it would hurt when I read your emailed answer, "I cannot hold in friendship with you anymore." I thought your cold and perfunctory abandonment of us would hurt, should hurt more than it did. I promised never to be perfunctory with you. I promised, in poetry, to brush your hair with tenderness and care, not like the quick rough strokes of your German mother. But I am not your mother. You are not my mother and you made no promises.

With a crooked spine,
creaking knees, and weary mind,
I walk my riddles.

I thought it would hurt, but the time had come. We were done. Rocky edges do not thrill you as they do me, even the windswept vanilla borders we walked; you could not plan for such fenceless loving. You could not control the outcome, write the script, master the equilibrium while the downy hairs at the nape of your neck shivered in anticipation. The time had come to let go. Like a thistle fairy in my palm, I could no longer hold you and you could not hold me. The time had come for a night breeze, green-black with mystery, to separate us,

drift you back to home,
me uneasily forward
into the unknown.

What next?

I write my riddles
with a Sumi brush and water
color abstraction.

I thought it would hurt more than it did when I called your caseworker to tell her I couldn't adopt you and they should probably find you another home before the holidays. Of course I cried, a throat rattling cry. It took two years to find you, two years of forms and foster care classes on Attachment Disorder and head lice. And prayers and candles lit to show you the way to me, and prayers and eight months of insemination because maybe, just maybe you were coming through my uterus, and then bleeding, and screaming, "What God? What are you asking me to do?" and more prayers and a phone call, "She has nowhere else to go. Her birthday is in two days, she'll be eleven." What the hell am I doing? The records said she set fires, stole, molested younger children, and punched her last foster mother. But I knew she was the one, you were the one; we needed to meet, to be yoked together at the heart. I needed to read to you at bedtime, braid your nappy hair, tell you about bleeding and tampons, leave sanitary pads in your bathroom, argue about make-up and halter tops, praise you at parent-teacher conferences (praise you to your face so you heard the words come from me, not second-hand, there was too much second-hand in your life already.) I needed to hold your spindly body between my open knees, while you punched your bedroom wall and screamed, "I hate you, you fuckin' bitch. You're not my mother. I want my mother." I needed to know I could hold you through your rage and my fear. I needed to know I could hold you through this collision of love.

I needed to know
I could love you no matter
what. You needed
to know I could love
you
no matter
what.

Your rage! We both knew you could kill me. You locked yourself in the bathroom. I locked myself in my bedroom, called your caseworker at midnight to say I can't do this. But I needed to know, so I found the key. I found you, curled in the dry tub, clutching all the blankets you owned. Was this a porcelain protection for you, or for me? "Come back to bed," I whispered through my horror. I'll sing you a song. Finally, tears came. I didn't know you could cry. You curled again between my legs, pressing your head against my breast, your mouth so close to my nipple. You apologized in pre-pubescent awkwardness, "Sorry I touched your boobie." I smelled the top of your head, "That's okay sweetie." You pressed closer as if trying to crawl back into the womb, the womb you could have come from, but didn't. You came from a poisoned womb that poisoned you and yet you still survived. I am your eighth foster mother in seven years.

Tomorrow we will
find mother number nine, but
tonight I need to
know if I can hold your hardened
body like the mother
I would want to be, loving
you unconditionally.

The time had come to love you and let you go. It was time for you to wander on to the next home. I finally knew who I was as a mother. You finally knew a mother who could love you. Four months was all we needed. I could tell you were relieved to be moving on, relieved of your duties to me. Of course you cried, crocodile tears. Someone once told you that you should feel sad at good-byes. You learned sad from the movies, how to cry at good-byes, "So long. Farewell. Auf wiedersehen." Good bye. We both knew it was time. I packed your belongings in my old suitcases, no more garbage bags of clothes for you. One week of grieving for me (maybe something I learned how to do in the movies, too). I re-painted your room

then went back to work,
teaching, as I am called to
do. So now what next?

I dream my riddles
free from attics and basements,
cluttered memories

I thought it would hurt more than it did when you told me, "I don't love you enough." You brushed your hand along my

arm like a haiku,
three brief strokes with the impact
of a tsunami.

I thought it would hurt, but I already knew by then, the hurt of loving and letting go. I knew I would not die in the sucking darkness. I knew the comfort, the familiar wet iron stench of grief, the reality that reminded me I was still alive. I knew my journey:

to love and let go.
I walked my riddles home
and wondered, what next?