By Jamie Holt
Unconditional love is not something I think mortals have the capacity for. Don’t get me wrong, we strive for it, we hope some big guy upstairs has it . . . but to say I love someone unconditionally would be false in my eyes. Not fair for them. There are always conditions. Always actions, lists, parameters when love is given or withheld. Mortals can’t love unconditionally. And since I am mortal and also an English major, two conditions I grapple with daily, I started to see punctuation as the same thing.
Conditional.
There is no such thing as unconditional punctuation. Periods signal an end, commas make lists, parentheses keep secrets, exclamation points use loud voices, and semicolons just want to have groupies tagging along even if they don’t make much sense . . . but what would unpunctuated love look like? What would love without punctuation be capable of? Without ends or lists or secrets kept? So I wrote the following essay about:
unpunctuated love
I think it was my need to snuggle a baby
that brought about the phrase two
minute cuddles and I would call my fifth
and last child and I knew it would be my
last child my only boy to my lap just as he
had learned to walk and tell him it was
time for two minute cuddles and the first
year of this daily routine he struggled to
still his body and last the two minutes as
I curled him in my lap and stroked his
hair and quietly talked to him while he
watched the timer count down on my
phone while I ran his blond ringlets
around my fingers and talked about his day
of chasing after sisters and what he
wanted for a snack and if the puppy was
being nice to him and if he slept good
and did he want to wear his jammas all
day or did he want to change because it
was a choice he could make and when
daddy got home on Friday what should
we do and the timer would go off and he
would carefully hand me my phone back
and say thank you for the cuddles
mommy and patter away to a new
adventure after his imprisonment in my
love
I did not know I was creating a need in
my son to come sit on my lap everyday
and chatter about life and replay his
highs and lows and I do not remember
when the timer of the phone was
forgotten and the time would stretch
into a whole movie that was forgotten as
he lays by my side under my arm stroking
my hand as he jabbers about life and
things he had read and thought about
and his lesson for family home evening
and I don’t get to choose when it is time
for him to come find me anymore and sit
on my lap at my desk as my legs go numb
from his body that now outweighs my
own and he is pudgy and twelve and
starting to stink in ways I never wanted
to enjoy but miss as he laughs and goes to
take his shower for the day and cackle
about mom gagging at his stench and the
blood rushes back into limbs and heart
and I do not want to forget his smell and
smile and silliness as he plops down after
school for my two minute cuddles
To trace this habit to its origin it probably
started when I spent quiet time with my
mom when I was a kid and crawled up on
her bed when she would wake up from
her bedtime while we were at school and
I would let her run her fingers through
my hair and I would chat about my
loathing of middle school and not having
any friends and what she needed me to
do so she could stay in bed two more
minutes because I would go iron her
nursing uniform that was white and crisp
and she had just sewn new buttons on
with a baby theme and I would run my
hands over her belly that bobbed and
tumbled as my sibling stirred to life and
pressed on her bladder and made laying
in bed another few minutes impossible
And then the day after Christmas my dad
and I rushed my mom to the hospital and
within minutes the tenth baby was born
and something was not right and before I
ever saw her she was rushed to the NICU in
St. George and then flown to Primary
Children’s in Salt Lake and mom was left
without a baby to snuggle and milk that
came in and was thrown away and my
father complaining about the four hour
trip to go pick up the baby that would
die anyway
So I did not mind being the one to stay
up at night and feed the baby and change
her diaper and miss sleep a girl in seventh
grade needed so my mom could go to
work and my dad could sleep and
perhaps ignore his daughter that was not
quite right and really I think he just did
not want to get attached to a child that
was not supposed to live more than a day
and she lived many months and I never
complained about rocking her to sleep or
getting up with her and sometimes my
littler sister who was just two years
younger than me but has a heart bigger
than Africa would want to cuddle and I
would tell her just for a few minutes
because we had a schedule to keep and I
would wrap baby number ten in a
blanket and give her the chance to get to
know her new sister until one night Dad
and Mom went grocery shopping and I
did our little schedule and I put her to
bed as I had for nine months and I called
my friend Natalie to chat for a minute
and I dismissed the feeling to check on
my sister and I dismissed the feeling again
to check on my sister and a third time the
words hang up the phone pierced my heart
and I stood to check on my sister at the
end of the bed in her yellow rolling crib
and I had missed the chance to ever give
her two more minutes of cuddles
And I lived my life from eighth grade on
in stages of grief dealing with my missed
opportunity to love a loved one so
twenty years later when my father was
raging about the cost of a funeral and my
mother was in bed on the last day of her
life knowing that the oxygen was not
doing anything but keeping the cancer
alive and the hospice nurse had left and
two of my brothers were diligently
standing watch to keep my father from
accidentally entering the room in his
angry and contentious state and I had to
take her pulse from her wrist and then
her elbow and then her neck as her
heartbeat faded and her breaths came
once or twice a minute and the room
distilled into some other place that I
could not see but felt a crowded presence
and I looked at my brothers and we knew
without speaking it would take more
than two minutes to process the passing
of our mother and there would be no
words to describe it to my father who
stormed down the hallway ten minutes
later irate we had not called him into the
room when he had not been in there all
morning and I hugged my brothers and
told them I was leaving and when they
want to talk about those few minutes I
do too and when my father wants to talk
about those few minutes I am at a loss for
words to describe something that has to
be felt not heard by repetition or
examination but by subjecting oneself to
the miserable contracts of life and love in
order to understand why just two
minutes can feel like an eternity
sometimes
And I do not know as I look back at the
last seven years since my mother passed
and the years of rarely talking to my
father if I wish I had spent a mere two
minutes explaining to him why I cannot
explain the passing of my mother in
words he will ever feel and looking
forward two minutes I think I will call
him and see how the Jazz did during their
last game and tell him about my puppy
who loves me unconditionally and would
love to meet grandpa and then maybe
someday he will understand what
unpunctuated love feels like but probably
not from me because I still can not put it
into words that someone can feel
This essay won 1st place and was published in the 2022 David O’McKay Essay Contest.