Baby Coo, Cat Tail Passes By
I remember where she was when she told me.
We were in Oklahoma sitting down having breakfast in my Nanny Bagwell’s kitchen nook. Ginny and Sal were watching the tv in the living room and my Nanny and I were still talking. I was nursing a second cup of coffee as she talked about what it was like to be a mother whose husband (my grandfather) was deployed overseas. How she waited to join my grandfather until she was eight months postpartum, and then how she had postpartum depression with both her kids. The sentence almost flew by into the next one until I stopped her. Until I asked more questions- I was shocked that after hundreds of phone calls she had never revealed this information to me. Me, who made an entire documentary about my postpartum survival. Yet here was my Nanny sitting in her kitchen, so casually and generously offering to me that I was not alone. That it happened to her, that she had postpartum depression. Twice.
I’ve always felt a sort of kinship and compassion for my Papa Bagwell’s depression (my Nanny’s husband). I knew all about his struggle towards the end of his life with his mental health but I never knew about my Nanny’s. Here was the strongest, surest woman I knew telling me that she had also had PPD. It was a revelation.
Fast forward two years and another baby, and lately I haven’t been feeling myself. I’ve been deeply overwhelmed by the monotony of everyday life waiting for that free hour or moment when I can somehow magically find the time, space, and energy to tackle everything on my family’s to do list. I feel like I’m treading water that somehow is managing to get deeper and deeper. So when my therapist asked if I was depressed I shouldn’t have been surprised but I was. Aren’t I doing so much better this time than last? Haven’t I been taking all the right steps and going through all the right motions? Haven’t I learned all my great lessons about PPD? My head swirled as hot tears fell to my shoulders.
After my appointment with my therapist, I thought about Nanny. Of the one person in my family who never judged a bad day and was always there to commiserate about how hard being a parent could be. I felt a great pit in my stomach because I can’t call her anymore. My family said goodbye to her this Spring. The grief, in moments like this, still swells inside of me.
I think about the poem I wrote after she died. The way it made me feel to read it at her service in Oklahoma. The space she can still take in my life. I stop to light a candle, to say a prayer, and read the poem. To know that even though she’s gone, I’m not alone and I never will be. I feel the deep grounding of my ancestors who surround me. Knowing that like Nanny, I have what it takes to walk this path again and come through the other side.
The trill of the ringer
Pause
Baby coo
Cat tail passes by
“Hello!!”
She yells.
It’s Nanny.
Always home.
Always open.
A safe place to land
When the rain drops
And the baby fusses
And there is no one else to talk to.
“Hi.” I say back.
But what I really mean is
Thank you.
For knowing how hard this is.
For not judging.
For seeing me.
Some weeks I call all the time
Snow days
Sick days
Inside days
Some weeks seem to go by without a call at all.
“I should call, Nanny” I think
And when I do.
She’s always there.
Texts.
Pictures.
Notes about my newsletter.
She lives inside my phone.
A ghost story about her mother.
Thinking about Papa.
Reflecting on her breast cancer.
Drinking Diet coke.
Sitting in Her barcalounger.
Breathing from Her oxygen.
The smell of vinegar.
Lives inside my phone.
Until the trill goes on
And on.
And on.
Unanswered.
Until the last call
Is now a prayer.
Pause
Baby coo
Cat tail passes by
“Hello!!” She yells.
It’s Nanny.
Until next time,
Erin
