It’s been exactly 2 months since Lily was born. I have spent
the last 2 months getting to know my daughter, getting to know her face and her
body, her needs and her moods, getting to know myself as a mother.
I trace the outline of her little face and nose with my
finger. She is perfection: she is the absolute embodiment of innocence and
helplessness. Yet she is fused with a will and a survival and a strength that
surprised me. Suddenly through her I felt part of the human race and she was
carrying me forward – suddenly I had a sense of belonging. I’m no longer trying
to fit in. I am Lily’s Mom.
Nothing could have prepared me for the magnitude of love
that washes over you when you first connect with your infant. It has been my experience that on this earth
that there are different kinds of love – the love you might have for a parent,
for a lover, for a long time friend or for a stranger, all different, all something we call love. We experience it early on, but we are too young at the time it happens and do not take note
of either commencement or occurrence. It is simply part of the fabric of ourselves.
The love for your first child, it is unlike anything you will have experienced before. It is an ecstatic fearful sort of love, immediately: you are aware of it and immediately: your priorities are forever tilted towards this tiny moon that landed next to your planet and you are forever changed, affected forevermore by the tides of this tiny new and powerful entity.
The love for your first child, it is unlike anything you will have experienced before. It is an ecstatic fearful sort of love, immediately: you are aware of it and immediately: your priorities are forever tilted towards this tiny moon that landed next to your planet and you are forever changed, affected forevermore by the tides of this tiny new and powerful entity.
Lily was born on 20th of September 2013 under a waning
gibbous moon, after the harvest moon. In the few days after a full moon, you’ll see a waning gibbous
moon in the west in early morning. And in the days before electricity, farmers
depended on that blue moonlight to extend the day, to get things done. The full
moon closest to the autumnal equinox is known as the harvest moon and it was
always a welcome sight.
I gaze in wonder as on her very first day on this earth she
struggled on my belly to find food, and somehow knew where it was and what she
was supposed to do. After 3 days of
labor, my little one was indeed - a welcome sight.
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| My new moon |
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| Mommy, I was this big!! |
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| Home, at last |
