What We Owe

What We Owe

By Andrea Scarpino

My mother told me this story when I called her on Mother’s Day: she slid open the backyard’s glass door, and the cat ran inside with a cardinal in her mouth. She cornered the cat in the laundry room, and was able to pry the cardinal free. The bird seemed wounded or in shock—it wasn’t moving, although it was clearly alive—so she stroked its head and spoke softly to it before putting it outside on the deck table. She went back into the house and when she looked out again, she saw another cardinal had joined it. Its mate maybe, its friend. The second cardinal stood next to the first on the table, seemed to be nudging it with its head; offering comfort, my mother imagined. Protection maybe. Finally, after almost an hour, they flew off, one after the other.

 

What we owe one another: presence. Two bodies instead of one. How we care for one another: as best as we are able.

 

“We’re going to have to hold one another’s hands and walk through this together,” my friend and colleague Nancy said. Our Associate Dean has just died, and with her an incredible dedication, an incredible wealth of knowledge. The university where we teach is changing. The ground feels like it’s shifting under me. I don’t have enough time each day to accomplish what I need to accomplish. I struggle to sit quietly.

 

Before my brother was born, my mother and I played Mama Bird and Baby Bird in her bed each morning. She was the Mama Bird, and she would feed me worms from her pinched fingertips. I would chirp under the covers, her bed a huge nest. When I visited my father, I would climb into my grandmother’s bed each morning and chatter away before we went downstairs for breakfast. “Girl talk,” she called our mornings together. “We’re just having some girl talk,” she would tell my father.

 

When I am overwhelmed, I often retreat to my bed. My partner Zac comes and lies with me, lets me rest my head on his chest. He makes me elaborate dinners, indulges my fascination with silly reality TV. Yesterday, he spent two hours scanning documents that I need to teach next semester.

 

What we owe one another: time to talk and listen. Time to sit quietly. How we care for one another: by being present. By giving of ourselves what we can.