i guess that's life

It’s been an odd few days. I had a lovely birthday on Saturday—a really perfect day with breakfast in bed (strawberries doused in sugar and a vanilla latté). D and Stella and Zoë all piled onto the bed and I opened presents and the adorable card from Stella and Zoë, “I LOVE MOM” carefully spelled out by Stella. Then my dad took us out to lunch, we went to our nephew’s birthday party—a picnic at a local lake—and then we came home, dressed up, and D and I went out to a wonderful restaurant in St. Paul. The food was amazing, and we sat outside. It couldn’t have been more lovely.

Then Zoë got sick again—fussing, coughing, reversing the slow progress we had been making with weaning. Finally yesterday I took her to the doctor, and we were handed masks as soon as we walked through the door. I didn’t realize that Minneapolis is now a hot spot of the H1N1 pandemic. I also didn’t realize that a 5-year-old girl had died in the connected hospital the day before. I slipped my mask on and tried, unsuccessfully, to keep Zoë’s mask on, as well.

Luckily (luckily?), Zoë only had another ear infection—the second in a month. We left the clinic as fast as possible and picked up a prescription for a big-gun antibiotic. It was only last night after she received her first dose that I read the pamphlet of warnings: RARELY CAUSES TOOTH DISCOLORATION. WTF? I prefer to *stop* worrying once I begin my kids on antibiotics. Instead, I am doing constant teeth checks.

Then this morning, I was at the coffee shop, and when I checked e-mail, I discovered that a short essay I recently submitted to one of my favorite online journals was accepted! Accepted! I turned to the man next to me—another regular—and I was going to tell him my news, but he was intent on his work. So I waited until I got into my car, at which point I let loose, hooting and hollering. And when I walked in the door and told D, he hugged me and we rocked some high fives. I love that guy.

Then I put poor Zoë down for her nap and turned to an essay that one of my former students recently sent me—Sharon Solwitz’s “Abracadabra,” which is about the death of Solwitz’s son to cancer. (Thank you, Marilyn!) Marilyn told me it was amazing, and it is. It SO is. But reading it is like being repeatedly kicked in the stomach. (And of course I mean that as a compliment.) I have never read anything that does grief this well.

(“Abracadabra” has appeared in In the Middle of the Middle West: Literary Nonfiction from the Heartland and more recently in Creating Nonfiction, but you can read it online here. Brace yourself.)

So I guess that’s life—a wonderful birthday and a thrilling acceptance mixed right up with the death of a little girl and the raw grief and brilliant writing of Sharon Solwitz.