Ryley is enthralled with R2-D2. He draws pictures of R2, dreams about R2, and wanted to spend money from his recent birthday on anything R2 splattered. Luke Skywalker? Darth Vader? Who are they? To Ryley, “Star Wars” is R2-D2’s story, slam that book shut.

Last night Ryley and I were sitting on the couch. I was listening to him talk about R2 when he asked this question:

“Daddy told me an actor sits inside R2 and makes him move. Is that true?” he asked, grimly.

“Yep, it’s true.” I answered with that cocked-head-I’m-sorry look on my face.

“Is it David Hasselhoff?”

…float her basket over the sea
here on a barren shore
we’ll be waiting for
a tailwind to bring us your sweet cry
don’t you worry, child
I’m gonna sing you a lullaby…*

One of my husband’s favorite songs is “The Orphan” by the Newsboys. He wrote about it several months ago because it encapsulated many of his emotions regarding 2005.

I too have grown to love the song. Musically it is lovely, but the imagery is what haunts me the most.  

A mother weaves bulrushes along the banks of the Nile. She puts her baby inside the crude basket and pushes it away from the shore. The story ends well, with the freeing of the Hebrew slaves and the exodus out of Egypt, led by the bulrushed baby, Moses.

Every mother has woven a similar basket. Our fingers bleed from pulling and binding long strips of pliant green together. We braid and tie and hold the limber shoots between clenched teeth. As the baskets take shape and size out of marshy air we dread imagining placing our babies, our children, inside. Please, God, don’t require this of me…

Thankfully, most mothers never have to fashion the lid to keep the dear passenger inside for the journey across the waters. They will never feel their robes soak up hungry and greedy river or have to pull their shoes out of the muck of a lake’s lining. They will never cup their ears to hear the wind-carried cry.

I’ve floated my baskets away from my shore. They were light but contained so many hopes and dreams. No matter how long I live, I will always watch them and love them. Thinking about this, I feel striken when a woman must let go of her grown child. Amazingly, the 32-year-old or 50-year-old or 67-year-old child still fits inside the basket started decades ago.

It violates the senses. Logic. What seems fair or just or natural. My late-Grandma Alice buried two grown sons, my dad’s brothers. My friend, Jenn, lost her mother to a very sudden illness a week ago. She is concerned about her dear grandmother, who lost her daughter. Contemplating their sorrows, my heart buckles. I can’t compare my circumstances with theirs. It isn’t remotely the same. The only thing we share are the scars from the weaving and the wringing of our wet clothes.

After she died, my aunt found several things my Grandma Alice had written. This was dated in 1996:

I have known the very good times and now, again I have a bad time. One does not think that your sons will die before you do. But I know for certain that God’s plan is the best. And also, there is nothing I can do about it. Nothing bad will ever happen to them. I have grown to be philosophical about lots of things. But life has been very good and I appreciate my family so much. Lovingly, Mother.  

*lyrics by the Newsboys