Hannah's birthday

"It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." — 1 Corinthians 13:7

I called Hannah this morning to wish her a happy birthday. She is forty-one today, which is a number that does not seem possible and yet there it is. I remember the June she was born more clearly than I remember most Junes, because Earl was cutting hay and had to come in from the field when my water broke, and he came in still wearing his work boots and tracked red dirt through the hospital, and the nurses gave him a look that he did not notice because he was already looking at Hannah.

She answered on the third ring. We talked for twelve minutes. I know because I looked at the phone after. Twelve minutes is longer than usual. She told me Caleb is out of school for the summer and she is trying to figure out what to do with him during the days, and I said I would take him for a week if she wanted, and there was a pause, and she said she would think about it.

That pause is the thing I have learned to sit with. It is not a rejection. It is Hannah making space between what I offer and what she decides, and I have come to understand that the space is necessary for her even when it is hard for me. I offered. She heard me. She will think about it. That is enough.

I sent a card last week. I send her a card every year, the kind with flowers on it, and I write something inside that I hope sounds like a mother who loves her daughter without any conditions attached to the loving. I do not always get the words right. I do not know if she keeps the cards. I send them anyway.

Hannah is the one I pray for differently than the others. Becca and Dan I pray for in the way you pray for people whose lives you understand, where the prayer is specific and grounded. For Hannah I pray in the way you pray for someone you love across a distance you did not choose, where the prayer is less about what you want for them and more about letting go of what you want for them.

She is forty-one. She is raising Caleb by herself and she is doing it well, from what I can see, which is not everything. Earl would have called her this morning too. He would have called her first thing, before the hay, before the coffee.

Lord, let her know she is loved without me having to find the right way to say it.

Ruby keeps a collection of prayers at her kitchen table. You can find them here.