Watching the Artemis landing with my mom

This is our second moon landing says my

mom as she grabs the remote and falls into

her red recliner. She tunes the TV to a NASA

channel and we watch. T-minus-seven or so

minutes. Till landing, but the first time you 

were in my belly, she says. How far along? I

ask. She’d just found out, she says. She

was scared. And unmarried. Volunteered

as a Sunday School teacher, had a dead-end

job in a pre-Roe country. No, I say. I’m not

hurt by the Roe comment. I get it. I get her.

My nearly 80-year-old mom who has been

there for it all, all the escape plans from

all the fathers who wanted to be called

daddy. We sip our ginger tea and watch

the capsule drop in the sea, twenty miles

west. This time it was the dark side of the

moon, she says. And I think about shadow.

And my friend who reminds me that shadow 

needs light. And I think about Artemis, the 

virgin Goddess of the hunt, and wilderness, 

and childbirth. We’ve come full circle says 

my mom. Now with a tear in her eye, she 

laughs at her pun. And I say I’m relieved

they landed. Safely. And the commentator

says something about the exact time of

the landing being 7:07 and seven-something

seconds. And I think there must be something

to all these sevens.