Songs Of Kat

“Get my cup for me,” Flowergirl demands.

“No,” I say. “It’s right there on the table. If you want it, you can get it.”

“Get it for me!” she yells. Sometimes she thinks she is water and I am stone, that if she says something enough times, I will give in. This is not true. I have already been rounded to a good extent by life, and the divots she erodes are those I let her fill.

“You can get it as easily as I can. A mommy’s purpose is not to get things.”

But the cup, in this moment, is symbolic. She has created a false dichotomy about what it means for me to do what she wants.

I ask her, “What does me getting the cup mean to you? What does me not getting the cup mean to you? Do not create a test for love to pass. You know I always love you. Do not withdraw when Love does not do what you want it to do. That is not Love, that is Like. Love is this,” I say and quietly hold her. Slowly, she melts. A minute later, she tells me she is sorry.

This is one of the ways she heals me. She is my younger self. I get to try again, from the beginning. Together we can try to leave the anger behind.

And yet I wonder which cups I have expected Love to get for me. And have I built walls against Love when Love did not pass a test I created?