Sunday afternoon found the three of us in a pre-nap snuggle on the family-room couch, which was littered with storybooks and Little People. Mr. Chicken and I read while The Poo watched a soothing episode of “Little Bear.”
I had my arm wrapped around the child and she leaned into my chest, burrowing a little closer. She reached over and patted my waist, looking up at me with the smallest, sweetest smile in all the land.
“This is my friend,” she said. “You are my friend forever.”
Each day brings a revelation; how can my love be any greater than it was the day before? And yet, it blooms and reaches ever higher.
Friday evening after missing her bed and bathtime for a dull faculty dinner I snuck in her room for a peek at her precious face. She woke when I entered and I had the almost unbearable pleasure of snuggling her back to sleep in the guest bed.
Watching my baby sleep was so commonplace that for most of her early life it barely registered. As promised, the foggy days and wretched nights of watching her sleep in my arms flew away and now she is a big girl. Her bedtime is ritualized with books and loveys, and sleep creeps upon her while I am downstairs in my grown-up world.
Her long slender body pressed against mine, she turned her face to me. Her beloved Bunsie was tucked under her chin, and she gently stroked the satin of his ratty, attached blanket. Once a blushing pink and now a light grey, Bunsie’s ear fell against her cheek and she sighed contentedly.
Her eyes fluttered shut and her body relaxed into a dream.
When I hear of children in distress my mind immediately puts my daughter’s face on the tragedy. The Poo wanders in the snow before perishing of exposure. The Poo tracks bloody footprints around her mother’s dead body. The Poo is starving for food and affection. The Poo is in juvenile court, weeping and pointed in the wrong direction.
Since her birth – no, since her conception – my heart is more tender, more agonized. I can no longer bear the ordinary and extraordinary pains of this world. I want to reach out and bring them home to me, these children whose lives are over before they begin. These babies, whose sleep is not a miracle for anyone. My heart splits for mothers whose children are lost and I wonder how God can allow it.
How do we bear it, this terrible love?
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Beautifully written! It is that joyous pitter pat of my heart at those moments that keeps increasing my number of babies. We are working on our 5th boy! I’ll stop now….I think!