Saturated

“Are you kidding me right now?” I shout to no one listening. 

It’s 9:48 on a Tuesday morning and our power just went out. 

This is really bad timing. Is there a good time for a power outage?

Yes, I believe there is. The power could go out on a beautiful spring day when the sun is shining making a perfect excuse to go outside and bask in the joyous rays like proper prairie children. The power could go out on a fall evening when you just stocked up on candles at Trader Joe’s and now you can feel vindicated that your purchase was not impulse but in fact part of your preparedness plan and your family will praise you.

But the power absolutely should not go out on a Tuesday morning when you are trying to feed a second breakfast of frozen waffles to your three children plus three bonus neighborhood children who all should be in school right now but of course they are not because the teachers went on strike today because education is severely undervalued and you know this because in this moment you would consider giving the district a million of your dollars, and maybe some of your Trader Joe’s candles just so these kids could go back to school and if anyone doubts that teachers are angels sent from heaven that deserve a million dollars and good candles they should spend just a few minutes in my house this morning with these six hungry children without any power and I guarantee contract negotiations would be solved real quick. 

So…I’m a bit stressed at the moment. 

I pop my head out the door to see if this no power thing is just me. I’m not sure what I’m looking for as it’s 9:48 in the morning so there won’t be any lights on. But apparently my neighbor had the same delusional idea as she pops her head out at the same time. Or maybe we both just seek solidarity.

“Did you lose power??!!” She shouts with her whole body. I feel as if she could turn the power back on with the electricity of her rage. 

So…we are both a bit stressed at the moment. 

“I have a conference call in ten minutes and THIS HAPPENS?? Of all days!” Before I have a chance to offer to take her kindergartener into my makeshift unlicensed daycare, she turns around and slams the door. She’s gone to do the thing we’ve been doing for what seems like forever–making it through, getting by, surviving. 

Sigh. 

Inside I split two of the partially warmed waffles around the table and throw granola bars at the rest. A friend arrives with her two boys so we can all walk to the neighborhood library because we’re reaching for sanity and libraries feel like a good place to find it. 

“Is the library open when there’s no power?” I wonder aloud and she has no answer.

Ten minutes and four blocks later, our crew of eight kids and two haggard parents tumble into the library doors, greeted by the relieving signs of electricity. The children toss their winter layers on a nearby couch like it’s their home and scatter to the various sections that interest them. A librarian approaches us with stacks of games and puzzles and coloring sheets. 

“I thought there might be children wandering in today. I’ll set these out on the tables if you think it might help.” We smile behind our masks and thank her with our tired eyes. 

While vaguely supervising the children, my friend and I sink into the desk chairs and try to talk about the strike. But words feel hard. It’s mid-March and here we are again, just like we were two years ago–no school, broken routines, an unforeseen end. How did we get here? I know, or I think I know, but I don’t have the energy to think about how many ways we have failed our educators. I just need to get through this day, and hope the power is restored at my house. I just remembered I’ve used up all my Trader Joe’s candles. 

Yes, it is mid-March and we are here again. But in other ways it is different this time. We’re able to lean on each other more than we were when the pandemic first shoved us into our own tiny homes. Sitting in this warm library in the comfort of friendship and good words, I can feel my heart rate lowering for the first time all morning. We’re carrying each other–my friend, the librarian, even other people’s children I’ve brought along keeping my own entertained. We have our community and we know now not to take that for granted. 

Later that afternoon, I set the children up in front of a movie (praise be to God the power is restored) and a pile of snacks so I can pack up elements for a meal to bring to a friend coming out of surgery. When I agreed to do this last week I thought I was offering support to a friend. But today, with the opportunity to escape all of the children for an afternoon, I feel like she is supporting me. 

I mouth to my husband in the middle of his call “I’m leaving,” before slamming the door and practically running to my car. I’m pondering what I should choose to listen to on this kid free drive when the radio draws me in with coverage of the Ukraine war. 

The reporter tells the story of a man named Bryan Stern, a humanitarian with the non profit organization Project Dynamo that goes into war zones and rescues those trying to escape. Today he is tasked with the rescue of newborn twins from a hospital in Kyiv. Across the border in Poland, their father, Alex Spektor, waits to meet his babies, Lenny and Moishe, who were born via a surrogate. 

“They were too small to move in the days after they were born into a war zone. But as they grew stronger Kiev grew weaker.”

That last line hits me like a gut punch. Instantly I’m pulled back to reality, to my humble privilege of power and food and safe spaces. My day’s exasperation by the disruptions to my routine is nothing compared to the terror of parenting in the midst of war.

For weeks I’ve listened to the stories about war torn cities and bombings and it all seems so unreal, so distant, so other worldy. But this–the story of a father and his children–this feels real to me. That’s the thing about grief and atrocities. There is no need to compare, no prize for who suffered the most. Every parent understands fighting for the lives of our children. I can’t begin to understand what it is like to live in a war. But I understand the love of a parent for a child. 

With the solid comfort of my children safe at home, I sink into my seat and the story on the radio, fully invested in this rescue mission. 

I’m riveted by every twist and turn of the story. They stop at checkpoints, for fuel, to feed and care for the babies. I have to be careful to keep my speed in check as I drive. I want to race them all to safety. 

The reporter who is with Spektor relays back and forth with Stern and his medical team minute to minute updates of the journey. At one point in the story, the phone line they are using to communicate drops out. I gasp, and nearly miss my turn to my friend’s house. The reporter calls back again and again with no answer. All I hear as I run out of my car to do a quick dropoff of the meal is the sound of a phone ringing non stop. 

Tell me they make it. I can’t take one more bad story today. Not another. Please. Save these babies.

I race back to my car just in time. The mission crew is found. They are nearly to the border. They are safe. "My blood pressure will finally be able to go back to normal once we get rid of this precious cargo,” Stern says. Mine too, I agree. 

I’m making my way back home to my children as the radio tells me of the ambulance carrying two babies who are growing stronger by the day and making their final journey home, safe, and with their family that loves them. Tears stream down my face in relief. 

I’m nearly home when Spektor, finally reunited with his children safe in the hospital, gives one final word that will stick with me for sometime. "The twins, I just had to look at them and be saturated with their presence."

Saturated. Holding as much as can be absorbed. Containing the greatest possible amount of particles. Purest, brightest possible in color.

Saturated, he said, in their presence.  This man who waited for his children–for years to be born, for weeks to be released from the hospital, and then heart stopping hours as they crossed through literal war zones to finally be in his arms–nothing else matters to him. Not war or destruction or fear or even all the normal exhaustion that comes with new parenthood. His children are safe. They are with him. All he must do now is be completely absorbed in their life-giving presence. 

I’m thinking of this as I race home, to the children I thought I was already saturated with from all these endless out of routine days this week, this year, these last two years. I’m wondering now if there might be just a little bit more room in my soul to absorb another moment in their presence.

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