Row the Boat Gently

Tripp is bouncing on his trampoline. He is wearing fire engine red pants and a blue and white striped shirt.

"Wo, wo, wo you boat gently down the steam!" he sing-shouts.

I am keeping time with a tambourine, and Ollie is chewing on blue wooden castanets shaped like monkeys.

"Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily life is but a deam!"

After the eighth round, I insert an alternative verse. As Tripp sings "merrily" - or something that might be "meow, meow, meow," or a combination of both, I sing, "I want more ice cream!"

Tripp flies off the trampoline. "No-o," he says, amused. "Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a deam!"

"But, I like to sing I want more ice cream."

"Okay," he says after a few seconds of reflection. "I like to sing life is but a deam."

Later, in the bath, as Ollie splashes the water from his perch in a purple safety chair, his entire body quivering with delight, Tripp sails his boat - a tiny truck perched on a blue rubber duck - "awound and awound" the tub. He sings it his way, and I sing it my way, and then he chuckles, gently acquiescing, as we both sing the chorus together I WANT MORE ICE KEEM! Even his mother joins in.

This is how I do it when I go back to visit my family. First, I play with the boys, building cities from Legos, where all of us live in Tripp's imagination. I hold Ollie who lives to bounce, his muscular little legs mighty springs, propelling him endlessly from the floor or my lap. Ollie and I touch noses. Tripp and I read books about real planes.

"This is an experimental plane, " I explain. "Here are the engines."

Tripp nods, leaning in. "Experimental pane," he whispers.

"Maybe some day you will fly in your own plane," I say.

"Wis you," he says.

After supper and bath time and jammies on and some more singing and jumping off the plastic potty, it's bed time, which is sacred time for my daughter and her boys and their dad, and I know it's time to go.

*

Mom is lying in her hospital bed when I walk into her room at home after leaving my daughter's house. The rails of the bed are draped with quilts, and she is tucked in up to her chin, cosy and safe. Joyce, the young night time care giver from Ghana is leaning over her, her hand on Mom's heart and they are saying the Lord's Prayer. The trust in my mother's eyes and the kindness emanating from Joyce opens my heart and the tears come.

"Hi, Mom," I say softly, "It's Amy."

"Oh, Amy. Have you written any books today?" I study my mother carefully, look into her blue eyes, which can barely make me out, note the transparency of her delicate skin. I touch her face and kiss the top of her head.

"No, not today," I laugh. "How are you?"

"Oh, you know, I'm forgetting everything."

I think about how hard it must be for her, how frightening to lose her bearings. Sometimes she thinks we're all in Vermont, and she asks me to come by for dinner. She might be back in time to her childhood in Garden City, where she played hopscotch with her best friend, Mary T., where her grandparents had a farm, and their own railroad car. She remembers watching Lindberg take off from Roosevelt field - or did a few weeks ago. She asks for her mother, her childhood dog, Nicky, talks about playing a particular golf course, worries about what's next, worries her life has not held meaning.

Once, when we were sitting together at lunch, she asked what I thought heaven is like. Being a Buddhist, I wrestled with what to say. What's needed here? I wondered.

"I think it's a beautiful blue sky Adirondack day," I said, "and Dad and all your friends and everyone you've ever loved are waiting for you. There's probably a big party somewhere, and bridge and golf."

I have no answers, but I know what's important is to let go and enter her world, wherever she is, with all the love I've got, hold her hand, kiss her.

The song is right: Life is but a dream.