I wrote many months ago about the baby chickens that came to live at our house, and the wonder they inspired in my children. The baby chickens are now all grown up, and yesterday we found our very first chicken egg nestled in the coop in the wee morning hours before the school bus came.
When my youngest awoke she was delighted, her excitement over this small egg was palpable, her reaction at something so ordinary brought tears to my eyes. My children teach me so many things, but the most important to remember is the wonder:
Some of you may know that we are actually a family of five, though we have only two living children. Our son Henry died at four days old in the summer of 2009. After Vivien held the egg for some time she told me that she missed Henry (though of course she never knew him) and wished he could come see our egg. She talks about him often, at the most surprising moments, he seems to always be on her mind, teasing her with the idea of having two living brothers, instead of just one. Had Henry lived and Vivien too been born they would have been Irish twins, just 11 months apart. I think to myself often how close they would have been, what secrets they would have shared, how alike they looked when they were born and how they may have been mistaken for twins had Henry lived. I wonder alot of things about my second born, but what tears at my heart the most is imagining him with my two living children, and imagining the love they would have shared and how it would have filled us all up. After your child passes away, as Henry did in my arms in the evening of a seemingly beautiful summer day, the cup is never full again, no matter how many secret moments of joy you deposit there, there is always a space that cannot be filled. I see in Vivien that at three years old she already knows this instinctively, that no matter how much she wants Henry to return, he will never see her precious egg. The beauty is that she continues to love him and miss him, and continues to find joy in the ordinary gifts we are given each day.
Despite the grief we experience at the loss of our beloved baby boy, we try to live every day as if we may never get another, and there is joy, and it is breathtaking (even more so because we know what it feels like to be scraped clean of all things joyful). I see in my children a natural wonder at life, birth, death, and all beginnings and all endings. All at once this small egg we found nestled in the sawdust is a beginning for us and an ending because it will never become a baby chicken, but it is circular, this egg and many more to come will nourish us and we will live as long as fate deems it so.
As fall approaches and begins to settle in on the coast here, we see the cycle become evident again in many other ways. We plan on gathering leaves as they fall this year and creating rubbings with our crayons. We will walk in the rain and get new rainboots as the old have been outgrown. We will be thankful for who we are, what we have, and where we have been. We will be hopeful for where we are going.
Peace to all who read here, and joy as well, in all things, big and small.
