The mud puddle

Love still, always shows up

I almost missed it.

It’s not most beautiful part of my walk, this patch of dirt in front of the gym near my house where drivers park as close as possible to the door and their cars leave ruts that fill with muddy water. Mabel, my dachshund, sniffed the air and ground in equal turns, walking determinedly, and our brisk paces matched.

It was so clear even in my peripheral vision that as I zipped past, I could see it. I had to stop and backtrack, make sure I’d seen it right. Yes indeed, there it was: a heart-shaped mud puddle, gilded with leaves that had just recently started falling. I walk this route often, especially when it’s been raining because the trail is paved. But I had never once seen this heart-shaped puddle in the ground there before.

*

A couple months later, I stood over my mother’s hospital tray in a hospital room in California.

“Madame,” I said dramatically, one hand on the lid covering her entree and the other folded behind my back, assuming the pose of a waiter in a fancy restaurant, “your entree.” She gave me a little laugh in that low, gravelly voice so different from the one I knew to be hers, the one that always seemed to release any knots of tension inside me. I lifted the lid dramatically, and we both paused, taking in the anemic appearance of the diced chicken and rice. “Huh… okay. Want me to sprinkle on the flavoring packet?” She replied with a vigorous nod. “There’s also gravy if you’d like.” We had learned through a disappointing surprise that the stuff in the small bowl beside her plate was not caramel pudding as it appeared, but a thick, gelatinous gravy. “On the plus side, they gave you blueberries again!”

I eased into a vinyl chair across from her, opening a packet of hummus and carrots and a box of Everything crackers. Part of me still tensed, watching every bite she took and how she chewed and swallowed, in case she started choking on the food since her muscles were weakened by the stroke. Part of me hated that I had to do this, that it reminded me of watching my own kids eat when they were younger, that she had been so dramatically changed in a few short minutes of bleeding that couldn’t be seen. But part of me relished this sacred moment with just my mother, to care for her as she had cared for me time and again.

“I love you,” I said softly. She finished chewing and swallowed—once, twice, like the speech therapist had told her to—then met my eyes and said in her slurred words and low voice, “Love you too.”

**

“Why does this guy keep flashing his brights at me?” Matt growled as we zipped down the autobahn on a chilly evening in January. “I got over, and he pulled in behind me and flashed them again! He keeps doing it!” I turned in my seat and craned my neck to see the car, and sure enough, the bright headlights blazed into my eyes. This very standard behavior in the left lane of the Autobahn didn’t make sense at all.

Just then, I took in the fading light of the sun behind us, remembering how we’d pulled out of a brightly lit parking lot a few minutes before and it all made sense. “Are the headlights on?” I asked. Every time Matt drives my car, he turns the headlights off the “auto” setting I keep them on. I’ve told him a few times not to because of the times I’ve accidentally driven with them off thanks to this habit of his. He smacked his head and turned the switch on. The car behind us eased back into the left lane and sped around us as Matt gave a sheepish wave of thanks. I leaned back into my seat, thinking about this stranger who wanted to be sure we wouldn’t go any further into the darkness without our lights on. It seemed very kind.

***

“Look, Mom, my bruise is in the shape of a heart!” Annalee scrunches her leggings up as she sits on the couch beside me one afternoon and points to her knee. She got the bruise a couple days ago after an impressive collision with our patio furniture while on her rollerblades. I glance up from my laptop to where her index finger points. She’s right; the bruise takes the form of a perfect heart.

Annalee and I always look for hearts together, finding them in leaves or rocks or cracks in the pavement. But her heart-shaped bruise doesn’t give me the same kind of delight as those discoveries. In fact, it kind of makes my queasy at first. I don’t want to think that my daughter’s hurt can take the shape of a symbol for love. I’d prefer always being able to find a line between happiness and heartache, laughter and sadness, neatly organizing the world into Good Things and Hard Things. Instead, in the mistakes, in the messes, in the hospital rooms, in the darkness, in the broken blood vessels, in the dirt—there Love shows up. And when I stop to notice, it takes my breath away.

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