My daughter Lizzie fell in love with the circus after her first circus camp. A nod to the Taylor side of the family, I grew up traveling to see Phineas Taylor Barnum sites. I thought in adulthood, I'd be done with the circus. Yet, here's my daughter, in love with the Russian swing, the German wheel, unicycles and diablos, all things circus.
Balancing Lizzie's belongings on the curb recently, taking her to college in a pandemic, has felt like a circus act.
I remembered a time at a circus camp show, on the low trapeze when Lizzie was doing a flip with a harness. It was 95 degrees. The upside-down catcher swung down to catch Lizzie, and she slipped through his hands. She was falling headfirst toward the mat below her, and was pulled up just in time by the harness. She skimmed the surface of the mat, like an airplane doing a "touch and go." She got a rug burn, but no other visible injury.
When we dropped Lizzie off at college, I wondered if, like the trapeze, it would be too dangerous.
I wanted to scream, "I'm doing the best I can!"
But am I? Was I?
I take vows very seriously. When we adopted our daughter, I vowed to a judge in a courtroom that I would be a good mother to Lizzie. I also made vows about parenting her at her baptism. The two times I've wanted her birth mother's input were at her baptism and this dorm drop-off.
"I swear, I'm doing the best I can," I want to tell her.
Our first two children were biological. The first was born with a face that cried out, "Not this again." His expressions were, and still are, those of an elderly gentleman.
When the nurse took him to the nursery in the hospital, I thought, "Oh my God, I don't have him memorized. What if they get him confused with the others?"
We were wearing matching plastic bracelets, but still, what if?
I hadn't memorized all of him. I knew his soul, like a mother intuits the soul of the baby she's carried for nine months. I felt like I had the honor of being this baby's mother, and already I'd dropped the ball. Already I'd failed. They could bring me someone else's baby, and would I think it was mine? Would I get them confused?
Bring him back, bring him back, bring him back! I wanted to cry
Our second child was born with a shock of black hair and dark eyes.
"Well, who are you?" I wondered. His hospital photo looks like he's talking on a telephone. As a baby, I'd go to pick him up from his crib and he'd be in his room smiling. That's still his default face.
To adopt our daughter took two years. In November 2002, we received our dossier, we had a birth name, a birth place, a birth date. We had photos. I worked hard to memorize everything about Lizzie. I wanted to know her like I'd known the boys.
I wonder at our good fortune. I got to be in the presence of this child, raise her for 18 years. It was at great cost to her birth mother, which is never far from my mind. I got to be the one raising our daughter. I had the circumstances to allow for that, she did not.
At circus camp, I saw the camp director was having Lizzie get up and try again. I could feel the heat of tears dripping onto my already sweat-damp dress. I smiled at Lizzie and gave her a thumbs-up. If she was trying again, I wanted her all in.
I didn't want to watch. Yet, I was riveted. She climbed the ladder, I could tell by the tilt of her head, by the curve of her back that she was nervous. She took the trapeze bar, swung out, let go, flipped, the upside-down guy caught her, and then they lowered her to the ground with the harness.
I could not stop crying.
Now I wish I could tell her birth mother, "Look at our girl! Look at who she's become! She's a wonder."
Lizzie's friends say that she's their memory, she remembers everything. They call and say, "Remember when this happened, who was there?" Lizzie will recall it all as if it happened yesterday. I know in some part of her resides memory of her birth mother.
I want her birth mother to know that our girl is shining.
At the end of Lizzie's circus acts, she comes forward on the mat and puts her hands in the air. Ta-dah! Always, she is smiling.
