Lilly the wonder baby is asleep on my left arm as I type. Her birthday is coming up in five days. One year ago we were in the hospital, and she came out to see us after floating around in body water for nine months. Emma had just graduated from preschool, and here we were, waddling into the elevator, going upstairs to have the baby. There should be a way to slow this process down. Why does life have to keep rushing by during the good parts?
Pushing the baby out, the mystery of the silent, wet person who snakes out into the air, the breath of joy and relief at seeing this new tribe member - someday a whole person who will know how to skip and button things. Her beginning is a vivid show for us, and she's too busy beginning to see it.
Later there are people helping us - food, juice, graham crackers, a sandwich (I didn't have to make) at two a.m. People helping, and everyone is so contented, glad to be there, or maye I just am. I have this new tiny Lilly next to me, she's more blanket than baby. I think about my gramma who only got to do this once, with my dad. Have little tiny baby feet, baby breath, ounces of love, only once, she was robbed. No wonder she was so, so sad.
I know they say women have a peasant's rights, that a poor woman's vacation is the days in the hospital after birth, that we get less money, less recognition, less power, less noteriety. Who cares. Look at this baby. Look what my body can do, man. It can completely remold itself after growing a person. It can grow tissue and then shrink, it can respond to a baby by making its own food. I'm not a woman, I'm a farm. I don't need to be powerful, I am powerful. I'm the vast Mississippi, who flows mightily whether or not there is a roadsign declaring her power.
These are easily the best times. There's a person in my life who takes up the slack and is always there for me and the kids when we need him. He's even there when we don't know we need him, and he gracefully hold us up while we complain, not realizing he's our rowboat. There is shelter, there are nurses, there are children, there is love. The hospital is full of safety and love. I think this is why it feels so full to busting. Since I'm in the hospital and in bed, there's really nothing to do but gather around the bed, be in pajamas, and look at the baby. We are swimming in love. We're sharing the time, and we're full without doing anything. Everything else falls away.
This is how I'd like to remember Lilly throughout her life. Like when she's just wrecked the car, or failed a test, or gotten locked out of her apartment building, or moved to Africa in the Peace Corps. She gave us this moment to stop and stare and appreciate that these are all supreme moments in our lives, even the carwrecks. Every path she draws out away from us in the world, draws all these people who are our family closer together, helping to make us a group. Prolonging that heart-swelling moment when she was just a reminder, in a blanket, of all the goodness, worth, there is in the world.
