on this day, in this house

on this day, joe is wondering if he can leave me alone for a night to use the knicks/bulls tickets an icu attending gave us last month. on this day, i am drinking coffee and tea and water and trying to keep the edge out of my voice. on this day, isaiah is getting sick and crying and sleeping in a cyclical fashion. on this day, joey is sneaking marshmallows and practicing magic between trips to deliver water and puke rags. we are a family and we have a stone. i imagine you too have a stone, different shapes and textures, perhaps more than one. but you are a family and i hope that with practice and love and patience you are able to carry your stone. the following words are from barbara crooker, and sometimes they carry me.

THE STONE

was heavy.
The family carried it with them, all day.
Not one could bear its weight, alone.
Yet how they loved it.
No other stone had its denseness,
its particular way of bending the light.
They could not take the stone
out in public,
had to keep it home,
let it sing songs
in its own strange language,
syllables of schist and shale.
When the mother's back ached,
the father took the stone for a while, then passed it
from sister to sister.
The stone became a part of them,
a bit of granite
in the spine,
a shard of calcite
in the heart.
Sometimes
its weight
pressed them
thin, transparent
as wildflowers left in the dictionary.
Sometimes
it was lighter
than air.
The stone did not talk.
But it shone.