she trusts me
In the late afternoon, having satisfied my heart on sweet conversation, I convince myself to take our mother-daughter mugs–empty now, but still warm in my hands–to the sink. But in that pregnant moment between the decision and my middle-aged groan, Riley squeezes into the chair beside me. It’s a chair and a half, but there are two of us, and despite my immediate shifting, we bunch up. Awkwardly, except not, I realize, to her, Riley leans her head down on my shoulder. I try to touch her leg, offer her some reassuring pats, but manage only to tap her knee a few times with my fingertips. In place of any comment, she snuggles deeper, settling in.
I wait quietly what I hope to be a sufficient amount of time, and then I nod toward the invisible gremlin pulling me out of my chair, and I say, “Well…I suppose I should start working on our supper.” I lean up as if to make good on the plan, but Riley seems unphased. In fact, she extends an arm across my chest like a seat belt.
“It feels like I just sat down,” Riley yawns, stretching the other arm overhead like she always does when she’s reluctant.
“That’s because you did,” I say flatly. The task monster yanks, clutching my unfinished work in its hands. I move again to rise, but Riley falls sideways until her head finds my collar bone.
“Mom?” She queries, waiting for my attention.
“Yes?”
“If I get my wisdom teeth out on Friday at 7, what time do I take my pills?”
As the teeth remain unseen, the surgery is a complete mystery to her; I had expected her questions. “Love, not lists,” I whisper to myself.
“Huh?” Riley says, as I take my free, open hands and use them to smooth her hair, to pat her back.
“Well, I don’t know. I’ve got a note in to the doctor about that.”
“Oh,” she accepts, without satisfaction. “Will you tell me what he says?”
“Of course.” I gather her in my arms as best I can, wishing I could surround her like God does me, thinking this is what it means to trust with all your heart: She’s pressed so hard against me I can feel her heart beating. Riley leans on me and nothing else, and on Friday, she’ll get up sleepy and head to the car in her pajamas; she’ll trust where I take her and to whom, content that I know what to do.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Who is going to take Adam to school? Since you’ll be with me?” I’m not sure, but it sounds like she applies the slightest emphasis to that last phrase, combined with a hint of resolve.
“Dad will take him, because yes, I’ll be with you.”
“Oh, that’s very nice of Dad. Because you’ll be with me…at the doctor’s office.”
“Yes, I will,” I say, smiling as this repetitious conversation turns Biblical. Before God sent Moses and the people of Israel into the Promised Land, God said, “I will personally go with you.” But Moses, seeming not to hear or maybe frantic with faith, replied, “If you don’t personally go with us, don’t make us leave this place….Your presence among us sets us apart.” And then God said (I imagine with his own emphasis), “I will do as you ask (Exodus 33:14-17).”
In the face of uncertainty, Riley’s only determined to be certain of me. I lean closer to her, wondering how I could want to be anywhere except right here, bunched into the chair with her. “I will be there with you,” I say again, as firmly as I can manage. “Are you worried?”
She considers this, both because she’s literal and because she always wants to feel the “correct” way. Emotion still remains, for her, too captivating, too bursting with unpredictability, too much. “I’m not worried,” she says carefully, “I just don’t know how I’ll do.”
“Well, you’ve never been through this before,” I say, grinning all the more over the top of her silken head, because didn’t she just, by way of alternative explanation, describe worry? Isn’t worry really just our concern over not being sure how we’ll do?
“That’s why I tell you not to worry about everyday life,” Jesus commanded in his famous sermon on the Mount, after warning his listeners that a fixation on gathering material resources can undermine your trust in God (Matthew 6:25). But did Jesus really mean to tell us we shouldn’t have questions about the future we can’t see? Can we trust and still wonder how we’ll do?
It’s in the kitchen, leaning against the closed cabinets, after Riley has moved on in peace, that the word nerd in me finds the dictionary definition. Worry really describes a whole lot more than wondering. To worry is to torture ourselves with disturbing thoughts, or–I read this part and winced–to be seized for mangling, especially by the throat. Curious, I look up the Greek word too, the one used by the gospel writer, and find that merimnao means to be divided, torn apart by forces moving in opposing directions. I soak in the definitions, still feeling Riley’s curves pressing into my own, still feeling the weight of her questions against my collarbone. I think of the kinds of things over which I sometimes truly worry, the thoughts that seize me by the throat and threaten to mangle me, and I recognize a different thread, blue-blackened by the fight between what I think I know and the details that still remain unknown to me.
Amazed, I realize Riley is, as she likes to be, literally right. She has not actually been worried at all, because in Riley I witness no such torturous tug-of-war: She simply knows she doesn’t know, and in that, she possesses humility, integrity, and wisdom. She has questions, so she comes to me, whole but seeking truth, singular in her reliance on my knowledge and my presence. She trusts me, and that’s the tight-wrapped fact that keeps her at peace instead of tortured, sheltered rather than seized.
“Oh, for the faith of a child,” I whisper, still leaning against those cabinets, then gather myself to cook.
