Fostering

After he had left

I looked around the bright,

Sunny space

he had given up, and 

I looked at the mess 

he had left behind

Some of my 

most important things

were smashed, 

and some of his 

most valuable items 

were abandoned.

So I slowly started 

to pick it all up.

It was too much to hold.

So then I began to 

throw some stuff in the trash 

that I knew 

I didn’t want 

anymore. 

I made a pile of his things 

and I would, 

every now and then, 

go upset 

the mound of it 

and yell. 

I’d yell 

and yell 

as I righted it 

again, 

too.

I began to try 

and salvage 

some of my things. 

Just when I thought 

they were fixed, 

they’d crumble 

in my hands. 

This, too, 

would make me angry 

because angry was easier 

than sad. 

I would go to throw out 

all that was broken 

and then would stop, 

not wanting to believe 

they had to go.

It would just need time.

Then I could fix it.

Sometimes,

I would take

one or two items

from his pile and

bring them to him

to see if

he wanted them.

He would shrug 

and say, thanks.

But when I would go to leave

I would notice

they were back 

with me

Instead.

And time and again,

I would try to deliver 

some of the things again,

not giving up, 

and always would 

return home with them.

He knew they were here.

One day,

quiet and thoughtful, 

I decided to try one more go 

at fixing my very important 

and broken things. 

I patiently fitted pieces. 

I looked at what was coming together

and would make small adjustments. 

Then I saw 

what would no longer fit 

and put those aside. 

Over time, 

what I created 

was something new. 

It wasn’t the 

important 

original thing 

and, looking at it, 

it wasn’t 

all together 

unfamiliar to me. 

It wasn’t what I expected 

nor what I was used to. 

It was here, 

though, 

in my hands. 

In front of me. 

And so I kept it.

 

My Name '24

My name is Kathleen which means “pure” and “clear”. I believe that may be how most see me as I keep my face up out of my muck in public- a lotus trying to reach the sun.

My true name, Kate, sounds like a firm and reassuring handshake, and my full name, Kate Burke, sounds like two belts of laughter as one is caught off guard by an unexpected joy.

My name comes from my brother as my parents were not expecting to need a female name- a girl after four boys. My gender was a surprise.

My oldest brother named me Kate and my mom protected it, making it formally Kathleen instead of Katharine, to be sure I wasn’t named after her mother in law who always made sure my mom knew that she didn’t like her son’s choice of a bride.

My name comes from Ireland and I have been there twice. Once with my Burke family- with brothers and laughs and walks with my Da in soft air. Another time I went with my Laird family the Summer just after my Da died, and my memories from that are of tight child squeezes, blustery hills that called my name and solidified I was Viking, Celt, and a romantic.

My Da used to make my name both very short and very long and just thinking about that makes me miss his voice and his easy love for me so I am going to stop thinking.

My original name is legally returning to me soon. I lost it for quite a bit, though could feel it knocking about in there. I’m using it illegally now because I have always been a little bit rebellious. It comes from the copper wires of my hair, now turning gray.

100 Word Stories

 100- Da

I left the kitchen since he didn’t know who I was. The tears were coming and they would just confuse him, so I ducked into the next room. There, I began to openly cry because being forgotten by your Dad is too much to bear, even as an adult.

I was startled when he entered the room. I looked up as I tried to dry my face and adjust my expression. It was then that something passed through his eyes. Some recognition of who I was to him.

“I helped you,” he said.

“I helped you when you would cry”.

100- Bird

I drove one very cold night to get my son from work. The late day melancholy set in with a song and dark road. I rose from my thoughts by the sight of a bird heading for my windshield, her breast lit up by my car’s headlights. She veered and I could hear talons scrape my roof. 

“Little bird, what’re you doing?” I asked, surprising myself with my voice, wondering if her feet were grappling to escape or hold on to my car. Probably, it was both, right? We want to hold on and be free at the same time. 

100- Owen

There was a small hall that separated our rooms

and 13 months that separated our births. 

We always shared a small window of space. 

We fought, we laughed, we defended, we shared. 

And then one day he took the big, pink clock-on-a-rope

from my shower and became 

Flavor Flave, 

every night, 

at my bedtime. 

And the only way to get him to leave was to say

“Good night, Owen”.

Not “Good night”,

not “Get out”,

not anything else but

“Good night, Owen”.

I had to say his name.

I never understood why 

and I have never asked.

100- Defining Love

When you tell me you love me, 

I oscillate between 

believing it 

because it’s what you think love is, 

and not believing it 

because it’s not what love is. 

Can it be love if it’s not what we want, 

and is it love because it’s declared to be?

That’s my mind’s work

while my heart tries to read the truth 

from your mouth and your eyes. 

And isn’t it all forgiven in the end, anyway? 

Since that’s just what I do? 

Always the fool 

trying to demonstrate love 

to someone else who knows 

how to make it serve only them. 

100- Waiting

When I went back into the hospital to see him, I had the dreaded wait for the double doors to open after announcing myself. I always felt the most anxious to be with him when I was in the building, and that was when someone else controlled my time. 

When the delay became longer than usual that day, I knew something was different, probably wrong, and the double doors just stared back at me, blankly, reminding me that I was powerless. When someone came out to tell me that he was taken away, I knew I didn’t have a say.

Second Hand Love

 
When I was first married,
I made my husband lunches 
to take to work.
After a while 
he started to throw them out
instead of eating them.
He wanted something better.
His co-worker said,
“Don’t throw them out,
give them to me.”
So he did.

When I was near the end of my marriage,

I had been asking all the years

for some company 

in the morning.

Every now and then,

my husband would agree.

And then he stopped

because he wanted to sleep.

Our foster said,

“I’ll take the morning hours with you,

I will give up sleep.”

So he did.

My husband became angry,

and I am not exactly sure 

what all that was about.

What I do know is that

my acts of love were trash

and my company was important 

to a boy.

And maybe my then husband

could not swallow

what he had thrown away.

Gone

What is gone? 

What does it mean and how is it chosen? 

When is it chosen? 

Why?

My daughter and I processed the loss of her classmate in college who took their own life.

Devastating. 

We both held between us the love of our shared college community and the loss that it now knows.

It doesn’t have to be personal to feel it as personal because 

it sets off feelings 

and questions 

and perspectives that feel 

heavy

and winded.

“They are just gone,” she said to me.

“Yes.” 

And I was rushed back to a time when our public school lost a teacher. 

My middle child couldn’t sleep the night she found out. 

It was the idea that it couldn’t be undone. 

It cannot be taken back. 

It can be a choice and not a choice. 

And while my younger daughter, all those years ago, didn’t like the unfairness of death, 

my older daughter is now grappling with

“What if they made a mistake?”

and they have taken regret 

with them 

wherever

they are.

Though my children have lost family members whom they have loved dearly,

it is these losses

more on the fringes of their day to days

that have brought up such

deep thoughts 

and questions. 

Within the safety of the space from their heart, 

their minds can process the enormity of what it means when someone is

gone. 

And what it is when someone is

gone. 

And when it is chosen

and when it is not chosen.

But never why it is chosen. 

Never that, really.

Child's Pose

In my earlier years of practicing yoga,  I always thought that starting in child's pose was wrong as I thought of it as something that had to be earned. 

Earned by doing the hard work, creating the shaking limbs, the prickly heat traveling down the spine and heating up the back. 

I don't think this way anymore.

Learning to start the practice in extended child's pose, which is both a stretch and a surrender, was very important for me because it was a dawning.

Sometimes, the surrender is the hard work.

Sometimes we need to stretch ourselves to reach the place that says this is too much 

or 

I need to slow down 

or 

I need to admit some truths

or 

I need to just go low 

low

low

with only me 

and my breath 

and my forehead as firmly pressed onto the ground 

as my knees 

and my toes 

and my palms. 

Sometimes our hardest work is the restorative work. 

Sometimes what it takes for us to stop all that we are doing requires so much more strength than the 

go

go

go of our lives which just strips us of our energy. 

It might not be 10,000 steps a day 

or

it might not be a two minute plank 

or

a from scratch meal 

or 

attending every meeting 

or 

saying yes to every plan 

or 

saying yes every time you are asked if you are OK. 

What it ends up being is our humbly realizing that we need to be understanding of ourselves

and of our bodies 

and of our brains

and of our thoughts 

and of our hearts. 

We need to be understanding what a real, 

deep breath 

can do to start healing the places 

within us all 

that we allow the outside world to 

berate 

and 

consume.

My Name '23

I was named by my eldest brother; my mother no longer fathomed a girl on the way after her four boys.

I was named Kate and then quickly given the formal name Kathleen to make certain it didn’t become Katherine, a name of someone who made my mother feel unwelcome.

I looked up the meaning of my name, both Kate and Kathleen, when I was working at a bookstore during graduate school. The personalities attributed to each name were different and all suited me well.

My last name, something I have always loved, I gave up for my marriage as it was one of the very few musts my husband ever had. 21 years later, and our musts no longer compatible, I have reclaimed my original surname and, my goodness, it fits.

It isn’t the same fit as before, and I have to get used to its fabric again. 

I do love it.

It is mine and I don’t have to replace it, ever.

Though it no longer matches all of my children, I already haven’t matched names with everyone in my home for a few years. And though I won’t share a name in my home as I have before, I share everything that matters the most.

I love their names. Don’t think for a minute that I don’t.

And.

I love having my name back around me, matching my brothers and my mom.

The staccato that I always relished has returned to me; two strong, single syllables. 

OneTwo.

Kate Burke

That’s me.

(photo credit, B who loves to steal my phone and captures some authentic me-ness)