After we returned home from the hospital I began to hear a mourning dove outside our bedroom window. Probably eating the seeds on the ground below our neighbor's bird feeder.
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| Moments after birth he lay on my chest |
I searched for its meaning....someone said it was a sign of the maternal instinct...someone said it was a sign of healing... someone said it was the symbol of the spirit of God. All these I needed.
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| Moses, one hour old |
I listened for the dove. Its call like a tiny owl, it's presence, the grace of God. I didn't know what it meant, I did not want to mourn. But as I held my tiny baby, not yet a week old, all of me spilled out. I cried and cried and of course everyone said it was hormones. And it was, but something else too.
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Moses and Daddy: because I had a C-section Josh held him against his bare chest for a bit until I felt ready.
The anesthesia made me feel out of it. This picture is a day or so after birth. |
I have never felt more vulnerable. I have never felt more broken. I have never felt love like this. I can see how one might turn away in horror, locking shut the heart, for fear. There is an old me that would have shut down rather than risk loss. But this me lays down and lets my heart be bulldozed by love. This me mourns, I don't know what, but something must be mourned and healed. Something must be lost and given.
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He falls asleep on my chest.
I can hear him breathing, he can hear my heart
as he has all these months inside. |
A kindergarten class at the elementary school where josh works made a book for Moses. They titled it "Welcome to the World Moses"..."we hope you like it."
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