My Version of Ecclesiastes

Curious friends have asked me how having a baby has changed things for me, and each time I've wanted to spend half an hour in deep thought before answering. But since that would make an awkward conversation, instead I've quickly said something about how tired I am all the time, or how much fun it is to see someone develop from an infant into a person.

I think if I gave myself the half hour of reflection, this would be my answer: the single most persistent way that having a baby has altered my world is by reminding me that life as I know it could fall apart at any second.

I remember when I was in my mid-twenties and single, having a revelation of myself as a fragile, mortal individual. I imagined I was in a boat, surrounded by friends and family in their boats, but in my own vessel I was alone. My boat could spring a leak and go under at any time, and though my loss would affect others around me, ultimately they'd suffer no long-term damage. And I? Well, I'd be absorbed into the eternal bliss of heaven, and whatever that means, it'd be good and I wouldn't miss my little boat.

When I married E, I recognized some of the risk we were taking. Two people in one boat meant that when one person left life, the other would remain with permanent loss. We jokingly argued over who would get to die first, neither of us wanting to be the one Left Behind. The argument could only be resolved when we agreed to die simultaneously, in a car accident where both of us accidentally fell asleep on a road trip peacefully unaware we had careened off a bridge. My apologies to people who would have been saddened by this arrangement, and to Cal Trans for theoretically having to repair the bridge railing.

So now, we have this baby.



She's small and fragile and innocent and happy. She needs us. And she's kind of in her own boat. I mean, she's part of us, makes us a trifecta of love, and without her we would be incomplete. But she's not one with us the way we're one with each other. Somehow, her life is both essential to and separate from ours. This makes our boat arrangement infinitely more risky, and infinitely more delightful. The depth of joy we have in our small family is too profound to be sustained forever.

"The pain now is part of the happiness then." I hoped to cite C.S. Lewis as the source of this quote, but as far as I can tell it was the invention of Shadowlands, that movie about C.S. Lewis. Either way, with a little flip the quote becomes a perfect expression of how I view our family from this side of struggle. For months now I've reveled in the fact that "the pain then is part of the happiness now."

Every night when I pray for V before putting her to bed, these words just burst out as the most accurate way to express my full heart: "Thank you, God, for another day with my sweet baby." It's hard to imagine the possibility of a night when I can no longer say that to Him. But since I'm aware of the possibility, the reality of today is so sweet and so rich.