Hankie

Ok, this is that uncomfortable part of every ceremony when the guy gets up in front of family and friends and tries to make a speech about how great and supportive everyone's been and how much it means except he keeps getting choked up and stopping for awkward silences and giggling inappropriately and going on weird, emotional tangents. At first, everyone's moved, some even dab a tear from their eye, but there's also dinner waiting to be plated, drinks to be emptied and dancing to be done. Eventually there's a restlessness as the poor guy mumbles on, completely overcome by the pool of love surrounding him.

Everytime I think about all of the messages and acts aimed towards us from the moment Cati got pregnant to now, I become that guy. Everything from sweet emails to my brother dismantling our house and bringing it to the hospital so we could have traces of the homebirth we'd planned, they accumulate around our heads like constellations, ones we'll sit out back in the grass and point out to Haraldur some day. "See that one, the one that looks like a giant cake? That's the apple cake that our brand new friend Trevor brought us two days after you were born. And that one over there, the one that looks like a speeding car? That's Grandma and Grandpas racing all the way down from Portland and Colorado to meet you after you were born. Right next to it is an empty laundry hamper, the one we could never get filled because Nonna lived with us for the first week like an invisible cleaning angel. And see those stars all piled together, like a mound of gifts? Those are the wonderful gifts and insights brought to us by recent and not-so-recent mothers. And that circle of women holding hands? The midwives and doulas and nurses and doctors who lowered you from Cati on a pillow of light."

I don't think I've ever felt so well loved in my whole life. Right now I have Haraldur in a wrap, snuggled up against my chest with two crossing soft panels enrobing him to me while I write this, and I feel myself and Cati and him supported in the same manner. In the host of many reasons to have such a miraculous and beautiful and sweet child, one I didn't expect was that it quickly flashed a light on the true hearts that surround us, far more than we had any right to believe in. Haraldur has changed our lives in wondrous ways, and so have all of you. It's a scary thing having a child, but having everyone be here like this has made it seem like the easiest thing in the world, like jumping out of an airplane and knowing the birds will never let you fall.

Ok, dinner is served. Thank you.