Love Under the Catalpas

The baby’s cries echoed through the monitor. My daughter sat frigid, her arms crossed tightly against her chest. With each decibel the baby’s voice increased in volume, Bravard’s patience dropped. Another high wale caused her to clinch her teeth and a tear squeezed from her closed eyelid.

I went into my room in search of my bag of those orange, foam barrels that could be squeezed to fit snuggly in one’s ear preventing sound penetration. I found them under the bed with several dust bunnies and a forgotten crossword puzzle.

I put the little bag in my daughter’s lap and kissed her wet cheek. “I’ll rock him a bit and you try to get some sleep.”

“Mom, I’ve tried that, nothing is working!” Her frustration was palpable. I just patted her cheek and headed to the baby’s room.

Michael had worked himself into a tizzy. He was standing and turned his head toward the door when it opened. When he saw me he fell onto his bottom then to his back sobbing louder. His poor face was sopping wet and bright red with pain and frustration. Teething was hard enough cutting one or two, but this little guy was getting a mouthful at once.

I cradled his body to my chest as I made my way out the front door and into the spring air. The catalpa trees in the yard stretched to the top of the old farm house. They were fully dressed, covered in new green leaves the size of dinner plates. Mother Nature had done a fantastic job this year, adding pearly jewels that the breeze rained upon earth. When they floated past their fragrance, something between frangipani and orange blossom, lingered.

I walked down the steps and toward the hammock strung tautly between two trees. Someone had used it earlier and the old, stained quilt lay across the woven mesh.

Gently I sat. As I hugged my grandson the hammock hugged me. Leaning back against the cotton I noticed how beautiful the last of the daffodils and the tulips were. They bowed and waved, dancing to nature’s music; young birds sang as they found love for the first time, squirrels chattered excitedly over a horde of nuts, bees gathered pollen to make their golden sweetness, lilies of the valley, those tinkling bells that only garden gnomes and fairies can hear, rang gently in the breeze.

As I relaxed more fully and pushed at the damp dirt with my bare toes, I was surprised at the myriad of color. I never realized there were so many shades of green. The hammock rocked and the colors changed, darkening through the layers of thickness, lightening as the sun’s rays pushed their way down to my face.

I heard several cows conversing somewhere in the near distance and the neighbor’s dog barked an answer.

And the baby laughed. I turned my head toward little Mikey and noticed a catalpa flower had spiraled downward landing on his face. Several others were parachuting toward us and they spun lazily on their ride to earth. Mikey swung his arms outward in excitement, his eyes wide and unfocused on the display that was taking place above us.

I kissed his forehead and began to sing quietly. “Go to sleepy little baby….go to sleepy little baby….it’s just you and me and the devil makes three…you know I love you little baby….” My foot kept the hammock swaying slowly.

A cloud moved overhead blocking the warmth of the sun. I continued humming but was reminded of all that was going wrong with my life; my partner had really messed up the money and was losing the house and business, my husband of twenty plus years had packed his things and begun a new life with someone he loved more than me, my mother had died, I was no longer communicating with my Dad or my sisters, and I was dead broke. At that moment I felt small, fragile, lost and without want of breath.

I noticed the gentle fuzz of the baby’s hair brush my cheek as he turned his face to me. His eyes, not quite green but still not brown opened and he gazed into my own, now old, grey and sad. And I saw love. My heart swelled so much that I thought, “If I die right now, I will die the luckiest person in the world.” Love filled me; I mean it really filled me. It made me breathe deeply. It pushed against my ribs and raced through my veins. And the sun returned and warmed the earth again.

Yes, I found love, right there, on that old hammock, under the catalpas, in the eyes of my grandson.