A case for palindromes

Do geese see God?

It’s the eve of a 10 day stretch of palindrome dates, holidays if you dare. April 20th, or 4/20/24, starts the only series of dates this year that are palindromes. In light of this news, you might find yourself asking, what is a palindrome?

A palindrome is a number, word, phrase, or other sequence that is the same backwards and forwards. Sometimes, the words or sentences are especially unusual. I like it that way.

I once wrote a story for children about squirrels and it was a book full of palindromes. The main character was Bob the squirrel.

My love of palindromes goes way back, but it is especially helpful and comforting during the whirlwind year we’ve had. I am hopeful that my love for minor holidays (Flag Day or Earth Day, anyone?) and strange and unusual things will be one of the legacies I leave behind one day. Only half-kidding.

If you desire to participate in the fun with me, post a comment with how many palindromes you found in my essay.

LHappy Palindrome April and may your days be filled with nothing less than a kayak, a race car, and a taco cat.

Here are a few stories and other things on my mind lately in no particular order. Order is only useful for palindromes.

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•A year of sweet Butternut, aka Samuel, aka Sammy, aka Sam, aka Sams, aka king, aka bub, aka Sammy Wammy, aka Sammy Pajamy, aka Sammy from Alabamy•

The day Sammy came into the world, I was in the NICU faster than you can say, “was it a car or a cat I saw?”

Even though I had a natural birth and had to wait for the placenta to come out of me (the dear placenta that held on), as soon as I was semi-back together, I was out of that bed.

You couldn’t have chased me if you wanted to.

Nurses run. But mine knew better than to run after me, or try and find me. “I’ll be in the NICU; be back later,” I told my nurse. I think she knew not to get between a mama and her new baby, period.

I’m a believer in taking care of yourself, but it was far more important to make sure my sweet Butternut (nickname in utero) was going to be okay. Breathing difficulties and feeding challenges started as soon as he came into the world, as well as the beauty and love that is Sammy. I didn’t want to miss any of it.

I wonder if God let me temporarily become some mind of strange mythical creature who could give birth and then move about almost normally. I don’t advise this. Child birth is painful and you’ll pay for it later if you do too much right away. Still, there’s a mama super power I believe I was given in this situation that cannot be overlooked.

I can’t believe Sammy will be turning one in a few weeks. What has happened in one year - two open-heart surgeries and tons of memories made embracing the days and weeks finally at home- is enough for anyone to say, “wow, that’s quite a story.” This statement, for the record, is what I heard last week when I started physical therapy to help with two back-to-back child births and the havoc so much medical stress has wreaked on my body.

If I had to do the last year (and trepidation of the pregnancy) all again, to feel the weight of it so that Sammy didn’t have to, I know I would do it in a heartbeat. I would go through it all to get Sammy at the end. To know I birthed the bravest boy I have ever known.

My sweet Lulu made me a mom, but Sammy made me a warrior mom. I know being a mom or dad means being fierce no matter what, but there’s something that changes you when your baby has to endure things you wish you could bear for them.

As most of you know, I can talk and talk and talk about the love Sammy has brought to us, how he has changed us. I can recite these themes and the beautiful story that is Sammy over and over, backwards and forwards. Forwards and backwards. Just like my beloved palindromes.

Sammy is one of my favorite stories.

As these are the days of palindromes, I will share a few more stories I know backwards and forwards.

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•Dance parties•

My friends and I had dance parties in college. The geeky kind, where you bust out some pop songs and start dancing in a tiny dorm room. This has always been a way for me to relax. God must have known and seen my need then, because He brought the perfect silly friends into my life during years that are often awkward and challenging.

I don’t think of college that much with all of the current complexities, but I think dance parties and the joy it brought me sums up my college experience. I was happy to meet people who helped bring out the real and true me, and the weirdness and fun that can stay stored up without the proper outlet or release.

Now, it’s present day, almost Palindrome Day. Time to get goofy again.

I still like dance parties. Just like Bluey’s mum. Just like my dear daughter, Lu. Just like my dear pup, Moose. Okay, sometimes Moose gets roped into our dance parties. He keeps his eye on us. Thinks we’re a bit nuts. Doesn’t make a peep but we like to say we know what he’s thinking.

What in the world is happening all around me? Moose must ask himself this.

If any of us really knew.

I enjoy dance parties at home now though, probably to both Moose and Ian Husband’s dismay. I love dancing again now that we’re home. Not in the hospital. And I can run around at noon blaring music and dancing half-dressed if I want to. I can dance in the evenings and laugh at my husband who watches us and shakes his head. I can smile at Lulu, who has more moves than anyone I know. She probably came out of the womb dancing. The other night she proudly declared “Everybody dance now,” as we moved along to the beat of the song by that very name.

Yes, let’s everybody dance now.

Let’s make Sammy giggle and babble and let’s get goofy (also the name of an improv game) because we can. Because for this moment in time, we’re all together and everyone is well, and we can eat pizza and play on the porch.

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•Moose, the angel dog•

Every good story begins and ends with Moose. He’s not a palindrome but should be, because he’s constant, his quirky habits comforting.

Tonight, he sat on the arm of the couch. “There’s the part of him that is a cat,” I said. “There’s the part of him that is a dragon,” Ian said.

Please note all the Bluey merch we have.

Hi Bluey’s dad. You’re one of my favorites.

Silly games are delightful. I enjoy making everything into a game, and appreciate those who try to at least humor me and play games with me. No good deed goes unnoticed.

I’ve said it before, but I know deep in my heart that Moose is an angel dog. He’s been there in the most uncanny ways during the last couple of years. Knowing when we are sad or stressed. Sleeping under Sammy. Bringing our hearts peace through his calm and loving presence.

I heard a story the other day of an adopted dog who escaped the same day he was getting adopted. This was almost Moose. The little stinker almost made it through a hole in a fence.

He’d been through a lot. Street dog. Possibly abused due to the horrible hernia he has now (step on no pets!).

We often don’t know life can offer anything other than the tiny nibbles we’re living off of until we finally see there’s more. Life can be sweet. It can also be bitter, as our family and so many people know from experience. But even our sourest or most painful day had something sweet in it.

A lot of those days had Moose in it.

We got to bring him to our last hospital stay over Christmas, which I’ve mentioned before.

It helped bring a sense of home to a very difficult situation. I worried (only slightly because I didn’t have much capacity for more worrying) that we would lose him in Phoenix, as he was out of his element again. We put a gps tracker on him. As if he was in the CIA or something. Agent Moose.

I can imagine the tales that would be told if he was actually a spy (he still could be, my Mexican mystery). His handler, known only to the world as Ratstar, would cheer him on for every job. “Go, Agent Moose, go dog!”

We didn’t have any real (who needs reality, though?) grand adventures with him over the trip, once he got better from being sick on Christmas Eve. In retrospect, I’m wondering if he got sick on the day we had to rush back to Phoenix simply because he wanted to come with us. He knew I wouldn’t leave him if he wasn’t doing well.

There are a million reasons why it’s been good for my soul to have a dog during the roller coaster we’ve experienced.

To sum it up:

My angel dog isn’t afraid of the ride, in fact, he embraces it. And teaches me to try and do the same.

I don’t have a ton of magical insights tonight. I’ve merely been giddy over everyone being together at home for awhile now, enjoying positive news on how Sammy’s heart is doing, and learning to breathe again (literally).

I have begun developing new characters in my head and on paper for stories I’m working on. I have given myself permission to let my brain think about something other than making sure my baby stays alive. It’s a good, foreign yet familiar feeling. Like an old friend returning after a long journey.

For everyone who wonders about the line at the beginning, “do geese see God?” I would say I think they might.

I am curious about any creature who lives and breathes (and flies, in the case of a bird), and has their being in this world. Why wouldn’t they have their being knowing the Author of it all? How could they not see God, with the best view of His majesty and power and greatness.

Is it the same for dogs? Angel dog or no angel dog, Moose has been front and center to the miracle of Sammy. The miracle of two babies, actually. But he has seen so clearly the miracle of his bestie. With a year of Sammy coming and going and coming and going, Moose witnessed how Sammy fought and how God gave us grace.

Moose still doesn’t like it when Sammy goes to a doctor’s appointments. It’s like he can tell.

I bet he knew all about us, too, our hearts breaking and then trying to let God repair them in the same way He repaired Sammy’s heart. I am sure Moose knew that for so long all we could do is take a couple steps forward, and then so many steps backward. Nothing clean-cut and predicable like a palindrome.

I’ll still make my case for the palindrome, even if it’s unrealistic to regular life. I wish for all names to be a palindrome, but alas, they are not (but there are Anna’s and Hannah’s and Elle’s and Bob’s in the world, hello delightful friends).

Here’s a palindrome secret: As much as I love these fun words, my own kids’ names are not palindromes. Personally, I like palindromes when they peek into my life suddenly, and occasionally, like tomorrow.

I enjoy the excitement of the moment, for the blip in time they are there. Kind of like the small fragments of joy I try to find in living, no matter what circumstance.

There will, one day, hopefully in the distant future, be another valley for us.

In fact, I make it sound like our current daily life is a mountaintop experience all the time, what with all this dancing and palindrome madness. It’s not all whimsy, but compared to what we have gone through, it’s the Jungfaujoch in Switzerland. It’s all perspective.

Fun fact: I’ve been on the Junfaujoch. I would show you a picture but I didn’t have a phone with a camera back then. I’ll look for some pictures and circle back around. Switzerland really does have the most beautiful mountains.

It’s late again, but I am determined to get this out into the world. Running around with two under two doesn’t leave a lot of spare time.

From me, and Bob the squirrel, may happy days follow you and may palindromes be always on your radar.