Day 8

Don’t let her be swept away like a dust bunny beneath the throne of God.

I happen to believe in the immensity of each human spirit- in the multi-colored, multi-textured cloth of each human-made, God-stamped soul (this is the God part, the ability to irrationally and thrillingly more-ify the world). 

In other words, my daughter can’t be repeated. She is the only human who will ever exist in this bright little blip of time, with these parents, with this DNA, with that particular impish grin, with those deeply thoughtful brown eyes. She is inimitable and thus profoundly sacred. I wish to shelter her in my arms-- gently, fiercely, for the duration of eternity. 

Today, the miracle of another day together (healthy, whole). Rash disappeared, health restored.

"Miracle" sounds dramatic given the mild nature of her illness- the possibility of measles (later confirmed negative), which is easily treatable in a one-year-old when caught so early. But the illness was nothing but the reminder of a truth: that the time we hold so carefully between us, cupped in our hands (carefully, if we are wise, like the holding of fine china over unsteady ground), is achingly scarce. That it is too easily taken, and always, always, too soon. Too soon we are left with memories like the whipping leaves of autumn- ephemerally glad and pungent with color (before the cold, methodical strippings of winter).

Yes, autumn is invading my writing, because this morning was warm with the scent of cool-wetted sidewalk from a nighttime rain; the sun dallied hours before chasing the clouds. A sign, I think, of a gradual change, the maturation of a world lit by pleasure, activity, extroversion, into a world of thought, isolation, preparation for the slow-growing seeds of winter (the slow-growing seeds again, how they creep into everything). 

A miracle, I say, to see her eyes so brightly gazing into mine, to feel her warmth in my arms like the warmth of eternal life. 

-Sondra