This Little Light

Alphabetically speaking, Maria and I were destined to become friends. I was Askey. She was Barden. From sixth grade through high school we were in the same homeroom filled with other familiar A's and B's. We probably had classes together. We probably wrote important notes sprinkled with bubbled i's and promises to love each other likes sisters. I coveted her Swatch shorts and the way the boys looked, then looked away, then looked, then looked away. We ate lunch together with Tiffany, the wicked awesome girl with a heart-shaped locket from Dennis, the boy she'd left behind in Syracuse. Maria and I were friends of sorts.

In high school, we kicked it up a notch. I can still tell you her home phone number. I could draw you a replica of the dashboard in her Buick Skylark. Heck, blindfold me and I could find my way around her house to the freezer where the frozen yogurt was kept. I could probably even pick her handwriting out in a line-up today. We stood next to each other during graduation in 1991 when the speaker passed out on that first day of the rest of our lives. Back then, Maria and I were close. She gave me her Indigo Girls cassette, for crying out loud.

I'm not sure if we kept in touch after graduation. And I'm not sure when we got back in touch or how we got back in touch just we did. She had already had Maeve by then and maybe she had just had the twins, Liam and Owen. Through e-mails we filled in gaps and I learned about her from a different angle. Maria as a wife. Maria as a mother. Maria as a Christian. She was the same comfortable, quick-to-laugh girl I had known. And also she was this growing, reaching, loving, listening woman.

We both married military men. She married Ryan long before I married Joe. She had kids long before I did also. For that, I looked to her for perspective on the big unknowns. The unknowns that were in my direct line of vision. Like children. And some unknowns that were not at all in sight but were curious nonetheless. Like faith. I asked her ignorant questions because I could. Like what do you actually, physically do when you pray? She answered everything I asked with arms wide open.

We were pregnant at the same time. Me with my first. She with her fourth. Eli and Aiden will both be four in January. Since we are a part of the military I expected, hoped that someday our paths would cross. She moved to California. We moved to Okinawa. She moved to Virginia.

In April, her six-year-old son Liam was diagnosed with a brain stem tumor.

Two months later, we moved to Virginia about forty minutes away from Maria's family.

I wondered if I would be able to be a part of Maria's life. I wondered if she was shut down and would rather not have an old friend come knocking at her door. I wondered if I would be able to act normal around her. And what the heck was normal anyway? I wondered if I could stomach the sadness or if it wouldn't just be easier to fade away. I wondered why I was focused on my fear. Why was this about me?

When Maria and I did get together my throat unclenched shortly after my boys and I walked through her door. Like coming in from the cold, we hung out easily. I ate almost the entire basket of her banana bread. We talked about high school and Facebook, of course. We talked about our lives now while our kids wrestled and chased each other. We covered the mundane details of moving and preschools but also the extraordinary details of Liam's tumor and how no two mothers should ever have to have these conversations. 

Maria speaks candidly no matter what. I am simultaneously lifted by her breathtaking sincerity and gutted by the reality. Her family is up against something incomprehensibly cruel. Yet Maria exudes gratitude for how well Liam tolerates chemotherapy. Gratitude for the fundraisers in Liam's name. For the people who offer to clean her house. For the quilts. For the prayers. For how Liam's story has touched so many people. For the days they have with him. And for each and every one of God's blessings along the way. Amdist it all, she does not pass up an opportunity to be thankful for someone or something.

I didn't see Maria for over seventeen years. Yet when I see Maria now, I see my old friend. I recognize her voice, her hand gestures and her laugh. I love her all over again for who she is now. I'm proud that I had such good taste so long ago. If she was a stranger at a park today, I'd probably try to get her number. Still though I ache a bit for the times when we didn't know all the things we know now. I ache for the time she told me that her boyfriend had dedicated the song "Lady in Red" to her. I ache for the times we thought we knew more than we do now and we rolled our eyes at adults because they totally deserved it. What I do know now, because of Maria, is that, for the first time ever, I have some urges to embrace God, some God or just God-ish things.

We were generously given a huge box of books for the boys when we moved here a few months ago. There were several God books in the bunch. As I am so not religiously inclined, I brace myself for the questions when Eli chooses the God books. Usually he just wants to know WHERE God is. Everywhere, I say cautiously which never pleases him. I'm not even convincing to a three-year-old. Then on the way to school this week he asked me WHO God was. I gulped, bought some time with a fake yawn and then told him flatly that God was a power that protects us. He was quiet so I applauded myself for the fancy footwork.

After a long, thoughtful pause, he asked me if God killed monsters. I wanted to say yes quickly and confidently. Instead I thought of Liam and his tumor. I thought of my friend Nicole that was killed by the Taliban in August. I thought of my grandfather who is dying. I thought of the countless grotesque and violent acts committed on any given day.

So, no Eli, God does not kill monsters but maybe, just maybe, God teaches us to continue to love and shine despite the monsters. Like Maria and her family do.

Meredith wrote this original post for the DC Metro Moms blog. Stay tuned to Liam's story through his Caring Bridge journal.