tonight i got my ticket for seattle. so it's back to the pacific northwest in april for me to munch on the newest little abare's cheeks. a baby boy that will have me as googly-eyed and nuts as ava did.
i wrote my sister-in-law (newly pregnant and due in june) a letter trying to explain to her (someone who isn't prone to an automatic and assumed love of babies or children in general) my adoration of wee ones, and obsession with those that share my last name. even for me, a lover of words and explaining things on paper, it was difficult to adequately portray just how nuts i am. so i'm sure i did a pretty inadequate job, but today i read a quote in this book i'm reading in order to complete my doula certification.
this book is interesting, but also written by a feminist who sort of comes off like a psychotic private investigator who thinks the world/hospitals/health care providers are out to get pregnant women.
"babies, i speculated in that peculiar mystical state, are sort of leaky little understudies for God. with each baby the human species gets the chance to break out of the self into the service of something so "other" that the reasons for conditional love can give way to faith in unconditional love. most of us ordinary mortals can't manage that invitation to unconditional love on a daily, ever-renewed plane in the form of looking after the poor, the dispossessed, or the outcast all around us. but with babies, we get the chance to take one manageable baby step on the long hard path of the saints. - naomi wolf (misconceptions)
this really shared a little of what it's like in my heart. i remember jamie asking us to write something for ava's baby book before she was born, and me sitting there writing this letter to ava before i even knew what her name would be and telling her how much i love her. there's nothing i wouldn't do or give to protect her or make her happy. i get all sappy and teary just thinking about it now.
when i was in a relationship with a guy, i always understood it as a parallel to the love God had for me. which is why i had a hard time after he split - was God going to split too? when ava came along, she really wrote a pretty redeeming and beautiful story about what unconditional love is like. and she's not going anywhere. i won't let her! she gave me faith in the kind of love that is crazy, big, dramatic, ridiculous... the kind of love that will spend money and time (and did i mention money?) and travel thousands of miles sitting next to a fat gum chomper just to get to squeeze that chubby little body.
it scares me to think what it will be like if i ever have babies of my own. because i simply can't even imagine loving any harder than this. oh did tammy wynette know what she was singing... 'sometimes it's hard to be... a wooomaaan.'
who's given you the faith to believe in unconditional love? go on now, give 'em a squeeze.
2 comments:
I remember writing something like this right after Evelyn was born--just feeling such an amazing, overwhelming amount of love. And it was so pure, because she had done nothing to earn it, but my heart just overflowed with love for her. Babies have an amazing way of making that happen. I really loved that quote in "misconceptions" too...I remember reading it multiple times.
i remember that post! i was thinking last night as i wrote this... maybe i've written too many blogs about how much i love ava/babies. from the day she was born until now... so many. yikes. you know how us aunties gotta do!
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