by Jane Lotter
I ponder that one for a moment. Now that I’m a mum, I no longer believe in telling half-truths. I believe in giving as honest an answer as I can. Because perhaps if people spent more time being honest with each other, especially with children, there would be less unhappiness in the world.
I know I couldn’t love Emma more if she were my own child, and I know it’s possible to find heaven on earth, but this is a new kind of philosophy. I mean, really, is everything—everything—in the world connected? Finn, Pennsylvania Station, Tully, dollhouses, me, Orson Welles? Every leaf, every insect, every raindrop, every person I ever met in my entire life? Are they all connected?
So finally I tell her, Yes, everything in the world is connected. And in my opinion, what’s up in the sky as well.
“I thought so,” she says, dropping her stone into the palm of my hand, and running off to splash in the water.
Personally, I can’t say I’d given it much thought before, certainly not prior to becoming a mum. But now that I’ve considered it, now that I’ve made peace with so many things, and now—to paraphrase brave Bette Davis in Now, Voyager—now that I have a home of my own, a man of my own, and a child of my own—
Well. I’m quite sure it’s true.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jane Lotter was a Seattle-based writer and humorist whose work has appeared in national publications. Her hilarious column, Jane Explains, ran in the Seattle Sun, winning several awards, including one from the Society of Professional Journalists. Jane’s only novel, The Bette Davis Club, won first place in the Mainstream category in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest.