wish

hi preeta and rob,
i've been feeling lately that we are given or create the child who teaches us the greatest lessons -- who reflects the best and worst sides of ourselves, helps us to face our weaknesses and reminds us of what is most beautiful. that is such a reassuring new space to enter! i feel like people enter colleges or relationships not quite feeling in the end that it was a good match, but people always love the human being that comes to them. they may feel they need a vacation sometimes -- just as we need a break from even the best book -- but always there is a feeling with babies of something big and good happening that needs to happen. babies create new ventricles inside our hearts. even as i myself enter the new life phase with some trepidation, i think of my friends who have children, all of whom have said that they didn't know why they waited so long, they wish now that they could have known that sort of love even earlier, life is so short. and i think of what the poet mark doty said when he sat with his partner who was dying of aids -- "all the love in the world goes with you." i repeat that to myself almost subconsciously when people are married, when i've learned that someone has died, when babies are born -- a call that says we aren't ever alone, we are already and always surrounded by the love of the people we know and have created.