Something about this memoir of a severely malformed baby's short life, written by his 16-year-old sister, brought something home to me. One of those things I knew in my mind but that nevertheless struck me with new, raw power as I read her words.
How crazy that a substance as unimaginably beautiful as the soul must be contained in something so material and tangible as the body.
Why does the world require that he bring a healthy body with him?
Little Miracle is a gift, but he does not belong here. I do not belong here. None of us belong here. If the Divine desires only to grace us with Little Miracle’s presence for a few fleeting moments, so be it.
It is pretty crazy that a soul must be contained in a body, that the body must be healthy for the soul to stay with us.
A life so brief, and yet. Haven't we all had brief encounters with people who touched us deeply and permanently even in the few seconds or minutes that our encounter with them lasted?
I remember that in the seconds of shock after I learned my mother had died moments before I arrived in her hospital room, a big warm woman, a hospital nurse, African-American, with glasses and bright-flowered scrubs — she enfolded me in her arms and said to me: It's a beautiful day out there, honey. "A beautiful day to just fly away," that's what I told her. She wasn't alone.
I never saw that nurse before and never saw her again. I spent twenty seconds in the presence of that soul, twenty seconds in her embrace. My life is fuller and happier for those twenty seconds.
It's hard to know sometimes that, in this life, some people suffer so that others may thrive and grow. Suffer involuntarily even. Yet it's true. It's one of the inescapable ways that suffering has meaning.
If a short encounter can have meaning that lasts a lifetime — well, then, a short lifetime can have meaning that lasts — how long? Forever, no?
(h/t Amy Welborn)
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