I had made an error! Wrote my own name wrong in an important document; let’s spare you the details.In the half hour, we seriously request School Admin to bear the burden of an errant momma’s mistake, oh no I couldn’t do the Legal route, I’ve never even seen a Judge, like in a court room, help. They finally look me in the eye with compassion, I could hug the lady but she’s wearing the steel armor of School Admins, though with a tender smile that says this document is a School leaving certificate and will need endorsement by the State, so. I can’t imagine anyone more powered than the young lady in powder blue sari and curled bun at neck nape. She could run for Prime Minister; I’d have melted by now at a momma’s misery, though she’s right y’know. Mercy & justice meet and kiss as I finally exhale: they are going to “see what they can do.”

Yessssss’m. Hadn’t I prayed just this morning, and hadn’t the God of Moses Himself told me this was a Red sea, but it could part at the power of prayer? Did I have the faith of even a mustard seed? Maybe. Maybe a hundredth of a mustard seed, a shrunk one!

As we leave school campus, there are teachers and bus driver who chat with Kitsy; School Principal is an angel, National Treasure I’m telling you. They didn’t want to send me away with a big No, they were kind.

When last had an Academic Institution spent that much time explaining a tangle?

Yea or nay, Judge, no Judge, whatever route this takes, I love these people who felt my heart pulse in my ears.

Hmm, things like this still make me turn into undiluted pulp. Like when their school socks, or shirt had a stain; when homework was not done, a lunch box missing, ugh, bus pass misplaced, a text book lost.

Old familiar feelings run through me, like lost sheep returning home. These were / are simpler troubles compared to the monsters staring us down this day and age: neighbor nukes, pandies( pandemics), bills in parliament… Ouch prices of this and that.

I’m resting, enjoying the panic of years that gently eased themselves out of our schedules: early morning frenzy between kitchen and front door, ribbons, badges, dog eared books and excited kids running back home with news they had to spill before properly getting off the bus…

Kitsy and I head back home as she exhales, “Oh Ma!”

Two words she uses on a whole variety of occasions; today it is wreathed in a peace I so admire in her. She’s a strong girl; where’d these kids learn to be so composed and calm while I’m swinging off the earth in great big arcs?!

we grin without words, at the way I am, then discuss how being a mom (and daughter) is being a mountain mid valley, a desert in an oasis and vice versa, a river, a drought, an ocean, an island, a forest, a volcano and a mighty rain fall all in one.

We have momos, a bowl of Thai soup.

“Ma, my treat,” she says. What can I say.