Welcome to the world, little one.

What a remarkable day.  Yes, every day is remarkable, but today was different, for one glaringly obvious reason.  Today was little Ella's birthday.  As in day of birth, as in today.  K’s goddaughter, and the tiniest little puckered fruit of beautiful I have ever seen, Ella joined the world at quarter after ten o’clock this morning.

There is nothing quite like holding a newborn baby.  That squishy little bundle of unimaginable preciousness.  The pure hugeness of what she has to learn, has to see, has to experience in this rattling world.  She hadn’t even seen night yet!  She is a little bundle of semi-awareness, her sensations and emotions pure of words, expressions cross her tiny face that has absolutely no sense of itself.

What an unimaginably precious thing that is.

What an incomprehensible responsibility, for the parents, for the family, for the peers, for the world.

How can humans do the horrible things some of them do, when each of us was like that at the beginning?  And how wonderful that other humans (most of the first ones too) do the wonderful things for each other that they do!

How wonderful that this soul was born here, today.  This place, this family.  What a mind-bending case of luck, that she came into a loving family that wants and supports her, while so many others are born into so much less…

I only have two other experiences of holding a newborn baby, and to be honest the second one is somewhat vague in my mind.  But I remember that first one, and I remember looking down at this creature and knowing without a doubt that I am on his side.  That he can call on me for anything, and if it’s in my power, it’s his.  It was true that day and it’s still true today.

I felt that same way today, for this new soul.

What an incredible gift that is.  To feel a dedication that is totally uncomplicated.

The love of a parent must, by necessity, be a more powerful and more complicated thing.  I am still not planning on ever becoming a parent myself, but today I feel absolutely blessed to have held that tiny, vulnerable body with it’s invincible, precious soul and known that feeling.