Today was my final Dr appointment for awhile. I guess we made it to some kind of milestone.
I am often thinking about what I will tell you about this summer...your start at this outside-the-womb human thing.
I want to tell you that I subsisted on a sea-saw diet of despair and friendship. That you pushed and pushed and pushed me until I could only find gratitude to hold on to. That, for a time, you cured me of vanity for I no longer worried about the shape of my figure, the veracity of my thoughts, or the successfulness of my work.
That your story began with people. It began as a story set among the pillars of an ancient amphitheater, and I sat down to hear the poem. These people loved you through ice cream drop offs and caffeinating your parents and covering work and homemade provisions and long texts and cross state drives and cross country flights and rocking back and forth and listening ears for our struggles and deaf ears for when we couldn't calm you, and so much overwhelming graciousness. I'll tell you about each pillar by name, because they all waited very patiently to hear yours.
I will tell you the whole truth, including all things female. Especially the female parts perhaps, for that's where the lion share of demand was aimed. Though you were born different than me, your story started with parity. We were equally helpless.
I'll tell you all the flowers were blooming and we saw some and missed others because the heat that we and they endured made it impossible to keep up at times.
I'll tell you your father grew older in age and younger at heart, as is his way. And that he kept you alive, because he kept me alive.
I'll tell you I wore my moods like wounds and waited for healing. I'll tell you your smile was both enough and never enough to heal me, and I imagined mine was the same to you.
That's where your story started, love. With spring flowers and supportive people-pillars and a dad who lives life like he's always making art. And my persevering smile, and yours.