One Thousand

With my head perched on the sill of my bedroom window, I hear birds in neighboring trees through my wire-grid screen.  When I focus closely, every part of the world fits into neat little boxes.  Everything lines up with the coarse wire lines keeping the bugs out.  But when I fix my eyes far away, the lines become blurred; faint outlines of the little pixels that make up the picture of the larger world.

Lightning strikes. I count the seconds until I hear the thunder. One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand.  I count to eleven. The storm is not far off.  This weather is oppressive and, even without my chest cold, I find breathing wearisome.  Won't the storm come? Won't the clouds release their torrents and rid me of this weight on my chest, this weight on my mind.

One one thousand, two one thousand. Three. Four...  Seven.  It is getting closer.

Today is six months.  Six months ago today a little girl was born and named after my husband and me.

And for six months, we have waited, counting the seconds between flashes of lightning in her smiles and the rumbling thunder of the laborious courts.  Gazing through a screened grid at what our life could look like with her in it, focusing now near at hand, only able to see how everything should line up.  Yet always our gaze is drawn again far off, past the immediacy of what our lives would look like "if..."  Off into the distance of the big picture, revealing snippets of how our lives are being changed according to God's plan for us and for this little girl.

The birds are growing quiet.  Thunder follows lightening more closely, more loudly.  Two cardinals are nesting in the tree across the street.  I catch glimpses of them in my way in and out of the house from time to time, flitting from tree to tree.   Flashes of red amongst the burgeoning green of summer in New England.

One one thousand.  Two one thousand.  Any minute now.

On August 3 there will be the pretrial for the case.  Just over two months away.  The judge will assign attorneys to the birth parents and a guardian ad litem for the Babe.  Hopefully the next hearing, if one is even needed, will be scheduled soon after this trial.  She will be eight months old.  In two months, we will take another step toward resolution.  One one thousand, two one thousand, three...

The sea of green-leafed trees sways and bends in the heavy breezes heralding the storm.  As dusk approaches, I can see porch lights glimmer through the tossed branches, sparkles of golden light across a gray-green canvas.  Moist breezes draft heartily through my window, through the grid that keeps bugs out.

And the rain.  The rain will come and wash away the heaviness in the air and in the clouds, watering the trees and the musty ground.  In streams and sudden rivulets down black-paved streets, washing away the grime of a dreary winter, the gentle but persistent patter of the drops contrasts the burdensome groan of the thunder.  Wash.  Wash it all away.

When will the rain come at last?