 |
|
Fleeting, Sacred Time
|
Edie: My Last
I find newborns sacred. When I hold my newborns, I feel a connection to something bigger than myself. A connection to God, to my parents, the whole universe. I feel peace and wonder. It’s like magic to hold a tiny head in my hand and smell those little toes that never touch the ground.
My last child, Edie, is no newborn anymore. She’s hardly even a baby. By all rational definitions, Miss Edie is a toddler. She doesn’t fall asleep in my arms in the rocking chair, and she doesn’t stare helplessly at the ceiling fan. She doesn’t drool. She doesn’t have bracelets and anklets of fat.
Now Edie’s feet are dirty. She is learning to walk. She can say a couple of words.
Not a newborn anymore.
It’s been a sacred privilege to have five babies. Four of them have graced my home and I’ve cherished those fleeting, precious weeks of babyhood. I look at Edie and her wispy mullet hair and her sturdy legs. My last baby is going, going,…gone.
I harbor no regrets. I have kissed, loved, smelled, hugged, cuddled, nursed, rocked, walked and nurtured each of my children in their fleeting babyhood. But no matter how much I have cherished that tiny window in time, I still can’t pause time. It remains a strange, fast and unstoppable force. I’ll never have a newborn again.
|
|
|
