Sunday Morning ~ Stuck

May 27, 2018

Three midwives were walking along a path leading to a river. They came to the riverbank and saw a group of babies drowning in the river. The first midwife jumped in and started saving the drowning babies. The second midwife jumped in and started teaching the babies how to swim. The third ran upstream to find out who was throwing these babies in the river.

Someone told this parable in Savannah last week. I have no idea who wrote it but it captures what I often feel this career is like.

That’s as far as I got on Sunday.

I was pondering the subject: Injustice to African American midwives? The frustrations all midwives share?  I was stuck, writing, deleting, writing, deleting when Amelia called me from the bottom of the attic stairs. “Meme? Are you awake?”  The stairs are steep and she was on all fours climbing them slowly. I hadn’t seen her the evening before. Jet lag had me asleep long before she got home. I tossed the laptop to the side and ran to the top of the stairs and held my arms out. We got under the quilt and talked.

I thought I’d finish the blog later but then we made graduation cards for Brigid, and drove to Maine.  Amelia and James buckled in to the backseat of my mini and we followed their parents to the graduation party. We sang songs. We counted to one hundred. I answered the questions, “When you are dead are you still breathing? What makes your heart beat? How do the wheels on the car turn?” all easier to answer than the one swirling in my brain, “Why does someone keep throwing babies in the river?”