Oapey Meal

By: Stephanie Josiah 4/15/2011

My daughter, Ariana, calls Oatmeal "Oapey Meal"
and it's too dag on cute to correct her now

I'll wait until she's a little older

to set that straight

The boys are getting older

Nathaniel can say many things

mostly he says "no" and "Mommy"

but my favorite is "I yove looo"

It's been a crazy ride.
The past few years I've been battling
with demons
I'm not talking figuratively

My demons were "high risk pregnancy"
"little bugs" that
robbed me and my family of all of
our worldly possessions just-about
and my demons were "homelessness"

and my demons were "depression"
and "insomnia" and a "large grumpy man"

and a "leasing company with no compassion or remorse"

and an "awful feeling going into survival mode"
and a "where are all those friends that I thought I had from way back when?"

Even as I was in the storm and was screaming up to Heaven
fussing at God and His angels about how this was even worse

than the risky pregnancy that almost killed the twins

I was learning to stay in conversation with God

About anything... about the weather... about my daily frustrations
and I realized that as I've grown up, my words and His words
can be entirely complicated or heavy going back and forth
or they can be as simple as "Oapey Meal"

When I was a very little girl I saw God
He picked me up and told me I was in His family
and that He would be my father
and that was all I ever needed to hear Him say

So, Father, "I yove looo"