I know I use the word privilege a lot when I speak or write about my life and all the encounters and experiences it affords me. I do so because it is the one that genuinely sums up how I feel.
A few weeks ago, I was birthing partner for a very special friend and helped her welcome her child into the world. I sat by her side for hours in a hot, airless room witnessing pain and struggle and hope. I held out a hand and wished there was more I could offer. I cut the cord which had been literally the life blood of a child for the past nine months. I held a tiny child in my arms very soon after their entrance into the world.
My insight into the miracle we call life has a new facet to it. The term "birth pangs" has taken on a much deeper meaning.
Perhaps what struck me the most was the stark juxtaposition: of airlessness and the need to breathe deeply, of pain and of beauty, of fragility and of resilience: and how it stood as a reminder of the complications and contradictions that make up this messy, miraculous reality we call life.
It was an immense privilege to be a tiny part of their story.
I thought at the time there was probably a poem in it. It has been fragments ever since. And now it has found a shape.
Just beautiful. What more can I say . . . A poem for every new parent and every new-born baby to treasure.
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