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Ezra

I spent much of the day crying-- tossing around a once empty bed
that I now share with my laptop,
tablet, phone, and tomorrow's sermon--
looking for jobs--
planning post-seminary life--
trying to decide where I'll relocate to in 2019--
And daydreaming about Ezra.

Ezra--
my son.
My future.
I daydream about Ezra often, these days.
No, I'm not pregnant.
I want to be someday.
I want so badly to experience motherhood--
to watch my kid play in the backyard--
to treat the wounds he'll garner
on the multi-colored battlefield of
jungle gyms and sandboxes
with peroxide.
I daydream about Ezra--
going on mother-son dinner dates--
teaching him how to eat sushi--
how to order mommy's favorite glass of wine.
I have visions of carrying him on my chest
while teaching midweek Bible study.
I imagine looking out from the pulpit,
Sunday mornings, seeing him--
and all my children--
staring back at me in awe...
or misbehaving in the back pews
(which is the likelier scenario).
I see Ezra rocking seersucker and Sperry's
on Easter morn,
behaving like a model citizen.
And Moriah--his sibling--
fighting her way out of ribbons and bows
that are suffocating her robust personality,
running her tights and destroying hymnals.
She will be my "Pay back" child, for sure--
for all the years of trouble
I put my mother through,
I'll deserve it.
But Ezra--
my son,
the apple of my eye--
will inspire me to be kind to his younger sibling.
He will remind me of how
in the year of our Lord, 2018,
I so desperately prayed for him to
come into being--
how I spoke his name into the universe
during my weakest days,
in the weariest of hours,
between the wails and hyperventilating,
and declared victory over my life,
for his sake.
Ezra--
my son.
My future.
You are a reason to press on.
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