Hovering

Hey...hummingbirds do it...kestrels do it...bees do it. There are scads of examples of hovering in nature. What do you think of when you think of hovering? My first image is of my mother hovering around my room when I was sick...though she didn't do it often. Maybe the mother was me hovering around my boys rooms hoping to know them better...glean some key piece of information from their sleeping bodies...hovering around when they entertained friends. Hovercraft...its not an easy skill you know. You can't appear to be hovering...so you have to practice being invisible as well. Ahhh, finding the empty film can or the note from a girl in school. I never hunted on purpose for the clues into the lives of my teenage sons. I was lucky. They left obvious trails and I was curious and curiouser, so I followed the signs. Hopefully, I learned to respect their privacy while satisfying my curious sniffer. Certainly I soon realized that I don't want to know all their private goings on. Keeping track of my own is a full time job and the day comes when a mother needs to trust her children to navigate their own journeys as surely as she learns to navigate her own. I explored hovering a bit when my sister Beth was dying. She was in a hospital bed for 4 and 1/2 years before she managed to slip out of this world. I went through lots of stages myself, before finally letting go. Somewhere between denial and anger and sandwiched between bargaining and acceptance was the stage I call hovering.
Maybe angels do it. Insects surely do. How about souls? There is a time when a body is way past useful but it hasn't stepped over the threshold. I've seen that place in Beth's life...when Dad was dying of lung cancer and everyone wants to know when it's going to happen. Now, my dog Hershey is fluttering on the threshold and the clock is useless. The only time that keeps proper time is her time. I get up several times a night to see if she is still breathing. The room is crowded. It's not just me and Stephen and my girl sleeping on her bed...but the presence of a fourth energy. The presence of death. The gas she passes and the smell of her breath all require a balsam pillow...the presence of the tall majestic trees...scent of the forest. The piney essence is restorative and fresh. My girl still breathes. We visit the nursing home where Stephen's mother hovers at her threshold. The balsam pillow would be welcome. Why is it so hard to allow...to let each single soul come to their own point of crossing? To let the creature take their time? Why does it seem like you have to do something? There is no grace in pushing someone over the threshold...so I wait and breathe and love...happy for the time...confident the choice will be perfectly timed. Hovering. We all do it.