I have just pushed out my son, and I am shaking, and my parts are tender and sore, but I am energized, my eyes wide open for the first time in two days. I have reached down during his birth and felt his body emerge, his slippery, soft skin the thing that gives me hope as I push. Now all I want is to see my baby!
I turn over in the water, from hands and knees to sitting, to look upon the face of my child for the first time. He is the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on. In a moment, I am transformed. Until this point, I could have withstood anything and felt confident in my ability to rise above it. I have been an island most of my life, and not always to my benefit. Everyone has their neuroses, and mine has been to remain without attachment. In the time it took to turn from all fours to sitting, though, I am transformed. In an instant, I am owned by a child who has yet to open his eyes or take his first breath. My heart has been smashed open by the sonic boom of his arrival on earth. And in the shattering of its protective structures, my inner recesses give birth to softness.
During labor, cynicism took over for the last twelve hours. Now, though, now that I see my son before me, I am changed. He is exquisite, and while they are working on him to get him to take his first breath, I feel no fear. Perhaps I should, but I do not. I simply know somehow that he will breathe, and he will be well, and I welcome him. We are still connected by the cord, but it no longer pulses … his breech journey through the birth canal stopped its pulsing. So they cut it, and I watch them work.
Finally, they hand him to me. He is pink and wailing, singing the song of his own difficult journey. I put him to my breast, and those eyes! His eyes tell me his hurt and his indignation. He looks right into my eyes and sings his wailing song of difficulty. I cannot cry, I just smile and gaze and listen. I tell him I know how hard it must have been. After all, we have just labored together.
I recently read a story about a man who survived a plane crash in the Andes many years ago. Nando Parrado said that as he was trekking out of the mountains, hoping to make his way back to his father, he realized then that the opposite of death is not life—it is love. That is what this child has birthed in me … the most concrete realization that nothing matters or lasts but love. Love is the thing that sparked his new life; love is what propelled him from my womb; love is the substance of what pours from my breast each night at 2:00 a.m. when I give him my milk; and it is love that is the most precious legacy I can leave him.
I don’t always see this … the veil of daily existence can make so many lesser things appear to be real and of great value. But these moments…the ones where the veil is torn, and we see into the Holy of Holies … what we see there is pure love … pure, relentless love that makes lesser values shrivel and blow away like ash, leaving only the eternal.
