A Baby

She is 21 and, as of today, a mother of two little girls. Adorable biracial girls. She is divorcing their father in a few months, as soon as their year of separation is up. Her daughters came by her mistakes. Yet they cannot be mistakes.

I watched this, her second pregnancy. Watched her grow, watched her begin to walk differently to carry the weight, watched her eat spoonfuls of peanut butter in the mornings for extra protein, watched her lie down on the floor by the copier or in her office when she was exhausted, watched her face crinkle into a shy smile when clients asked her about the coming baby. Every time I looked at her, I think, I felt jealous. If it was a sin, I confess it, but my jealousy was mostly an awed jealousy, a wonder at the miracle I was seeing.

It amazes me, this child-creating life-making. It awes me to think of the warrior placing his seed in the maiden, the king entrusting his heir to the queen, the man leaving his future to the care of a woman's body. He is the strong one, the one to change nations, to conquer enemies, to lead revolutions, but his child is completely out of his hands. His woman carries his child -- his successor -- inside of her alone. She takes on the task of forming, feeding, growing, and birthing his child. He cannot touch his child except through the woman. He cannot love his child except through the woman. The woman offers herself to carry the child of the man she loves, to hold a part of him inside her, to show him her admiration. He is a man she wants to be continued, to be remembered.

It amazes me how lightly we see this. We forget how miraculous it is, how impossibly symbolic it is.

I hope that someday I get the chance to know what it is like. If I do, I hope I take the time to stop, stand on the top of a hill in the wind, look down at my body, and think of the magnificence of what is happening; to let my soul hurt with the stretching of beauty -- this little thing with a meaning so great my mind will never be able to hold it.