Lucky Silence

Fin, we're so lucky.

Last night at 2am I propped you up against my knees, leaned back into my pillows, and we talked. You squealed and squeaked and squawked and did every other sound that starts with SQU. I listened intently, nodded my head when necessary, probed when you seemed shy, and smiled when hinted to. You fell asleep in my arms, and when I set you down on the bed next to me, you sighed, grinned, and proceeded on to the land of deep slumber and dreams.

Then it was silent in my room, just your breathing and the whirrs and hums of the house above us. Silent, just the wind blowing the grass outside our window. Silent, just my thoughts churning.

I have been silent. Haiti happened, and I've been silent. Chile happened, and I've been silent. I plug my ears whenever someone talks about the tragedies of these two earthquakes, quiver when I remember the one article I read about a hospital that collapsed in Haiti: the newborn nursery splitting in two, babies rolling everywhere...

I'm fascinated, Fin, with the presence of both light and dark. Juxtapositioning. How in the wake of my own light, the miracle of your birth, such darkness and destruction happens.

I am silent on this. I prefer silence. Maybe it's denial, but I don't care. There is nothing wrong with silence. There is nothing wrong with being afraid.

Fin, we're so lucky. We're worried about where our next good time will come from, our next brownie, maybe. Others are scrambling to clothe their three month-olds, wondering where their next laugh is coming from.

Makes me wish there was no beauty left. That we would all live in the dismal, all on the same level. Nothing seems fair except to explain it with poetry, God, and luck.

Finley, we're so lucky.

We can always remember this moment.