We Will Be.

Baby Bird scurries across the floor, her hands banging one after the other. I am here, she says with her hands and knees. I am coming. First she reaches my feet and her hands wrap around them, her mouth opens and I feel fear as I watch her contemplate biting me with her brand new, sharp as knives teeth. Instead she stands on her knees and lifts her arms toward me. I pick her up and she nuzzles her tiny little head into my neck, then she pulls back and looks into my eyes with the intensity only a baby is able to pull off. The intensity of someone who spends all of life observing. The intensity of someone who Knows. Her face breaks into a smile and she hugs me tight. She cannot form words but she has just said, “You. Only you.” with such clarity that all my doubts go away. She has accepted me. Her love for me is unabashed. She reminds me that I am good. 

Because somehow in this day and age, I need to be reminded that I am good.

If our children are given to help us learn, my first-born teaches me to question who I am and my last-born teaches me to be who I am. 

I squeeze her so tight, wanting the world to stop, wanting her to curl into my neck and Be with me for the rest of time; but she squirms and wiggles, and reaches for the rest of the world. That moment of remembrance is all she needs. She must explore. She must climb. She must destroy.

She becomes a collection of her experiences. We will love and be loved. We will hurt and be hurt. We will be brave and fierce, and we will stand up for what we believe is right. We will all be a collection of our experiences and we will work together for the good and the holy. We will allow messiness into our lives, we will crawl over the laundry baskets and the climbing toys and sometimes we will fall on our heads. We will be broken and we will be lovely and we will be. Most of all, we will be.