Post by davidanthonyd on May 1, 2013 9:23:55 GMT -5
I didn't see a section for non-fiction, so I posted it here. The following piece was written around the time of my daughters birth in March. It is meant to capture a feeling shared by my wife and I and was intended originally only as an expression of that emotion. I am now considering trying to publish it and need the opinion of people I don't know.
I am looking for general opinion, as well as answers to specific questions. 1. should I add parenthesis after a new name with a brief description of who the person is i.e. John (my brother)? Would that add to clarity or distract from the flow? Any other suggestions to move this from a piece for me and my family to one for other parents?
Sophia rests on my chest. Her stomach expands and contracts in rapid motion as she takes the quick, tiny breaths of a newborn. A spot on her neck just below the chin contracts and relaxes to the same rhythmic pattern. I let her sleep on my chest and watch her breath. I like to watch her breath. As long as I can see her breath, I know she hasn't stopped breathing.
She has jaundice, but I don't worry about that. We know the causes of jaundice. We know the effects and the danger. And we know how to treat it. But a baby only practice breathes, until it is born. After that it must breathe constantly for the rest of its life. Hopefully, that is decades. If it stops breathing . . .
I worry about that from time to time when I can't push it down. We don't know why baby's stop breathing. We can't treat it. So I let her sleep on my chest and watch her breath and hope that the unspoken rule of life will not be broken.
We have in ourselves a knowledge of this rule. Included in this knowledge are certain patters - natural progressions in life. Spring follows winter. Age always increases. Pregnancy leads to birth, to life, to growth. God instituted these patterns. He created the universe to work with these predictable patterns.
As such, these progressions are not merely the observations of people. They are sown into the fabric of our being. Creations itself reinforces these progressions. They govern our predictions and expectations of future events. They are central to our concepts of justice and right and wrong.
We view these patterns and their predictions as unwritten rules or unspoken promises and consider them unbreakable. But experience shows that they are not as universal as our predictions. What happens when these progressions are disrupted? If one prediction fails, it lowers our confidence in every other prediction and in the very future itself. If spring does not follow winter, what comes next - another spring or fall or more winter? Uncertainty becomes the core element in our predictions. Even as future events continue as predicted by these unwritten rules, uncertainty persists. Because we have been awakened to uncertainty, we know that the natural laws are unbreakable only until they are broken. The promise is sure, until it fails.
Thirteen years ago, the natural progression of my life was disrupted. "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes me pushing a baby carriage." I had fallen in love. I had gotten married. One year and five days later my daughter was born.
I still vividly remember those first few hours after her birth. Jeanna, my wife, was recovering from the surgery that had brought our daughter into this world. We named her Faith. For those few blessed hours, I had Faith all to myself. I held her and envisioned how the promise of life would unfold. I could see her as a confidant young woman in a business skirt suit striding down wide stairs that descended from some important government building. She would have just completed her first day of some important job that would leave an impact on the world. I knew deep in my heart that this child was a gift from God. There was a special destiny on her life.
It should be impossible to die as an infant if you have a God-ordained destiny to fulfill. Moses was saved from the murderous hands of his Egyptian slave-masters, so he could save Israel from slavery. What if the reed basket had leaked and he had drowned in the Nile? There is no logic or purpose in that kind of death. So there is no way to predict when the next violation of the rules of life will occur.
Two years after the death of my daughter, my son was born. Three years after that, we had another daughter. (Am I supposed to say "another" if we now only have one, or do we still have two so "another" is the appropriate word choice? These are the questions a man asks when the unwritten rules of life are broken. The written rules of language must bend to these violations.) Each child was a gift from God. Each has their own destiny.
At that time, we decided to stop having more children. I endured a procedure to ensure our decision would be permanent. There is another rule that a vasectomy makes it impossible for a man to conceive more children. The medical profession even tests to make sure that rule will not be broken.
Last summer, we received another gift. My wife became pregnant again. But this pregnancy violated the vasectomy rule. As such, it came with a greater promise. There was life where there should not be. This was not the natural result of human choices - this occurred in opposition to those choices. God had granted life.
This life comes with a greater promise. We know that God doesn't break the natural rules without the expectation of results. Ten plagues in Egypt saw Israel freed from slavery. A jar of oil that did not run dry saw a widow freed from debt. A virgin birth saw humanity freed from sin. It is an unwritten rule - a universal understanding - that God's interventions in our lives are protected by his continued interventions. How many times did Jesus or Paul or Daniel escape death, because God's plan - their destiny - was not yet fulfilled?
But what value is a greater promise that lasts only until it is changed? This is the uncertainty that we faced. We began to prepare for the arrival of our new baby. We needed everything - clothes, bottles, cloth diapers, crib, change table, etc. etc. Some items we purchased. Others were given to us. Each time a part of me wondered, "How much should we prepare? If this growing promise is not fulfilled, what will people think as we return their gifts to them?"
I pushed the feelings down. There is no reason to worry. Mother is doing well. The baby is growing well - at least as far as the ultrasound and fetal monitoring can tell. Worry is pointless and unfounded. Everything will be fine. So we continue to prepare.
Then we learn that my wife has gestational diabetes. This condition is usually not harmful to the baby, so there is nothing to worry about. They caught it early. We are treating it. There are risks of minor complications and one big one. The placenta can age more quickly and fail late in the pregnancy. The baby - when it could live and breathe outside the womb - is suffocated inside the place that was designed to keep it safe. But nothing was going to happen.
Finally, Jeanna spoke the words that we had been trying not to think - trying not to feel. "God wouldn't give us this baby just to take her away. Would he?"
I did not answer. I only looked at her wishing I knew the answer. I knew the unwritten rule. She knew the unspoken promise. But we both knew that life doesn't always follow the rules. A small part deep inside me felt compelled to change her words to, "God wouldn't take her away . . . unless he did." Finally, I spoke the response in my heart,
"He wouldn't take Faith away either."
She looked at me, and I looked at her. Each of us was wishing that the other could speak that promise with certainty. There is a proper order to things. There is a sequence of events - a way things should happen. But neither spoke that promise. Neither could. We had already seen it broken.
And day passed into night into day. Time progressed as it should. The baby grew and the big day grew closer. The baby got to the point that if something happened; she could live outside the womb - the age Brenna died.
Brenna was my brother's daughter. They had dreamed of this first child for some time. Her pregnancy was high risk, but we told ourselves that God wouldn't have let them get pregnant just to lose their baby. And then their baby crossed that line - the line where modern medical intervention could sustain it outside the womb. I breathed a sigh of relief. They were past the most dangerous place. Then Brenna died.
Now we were crossing that line. We felt safer - and more vulnerable. A new promise that might mean nothing. But Sophia didn't die then. She kept growing. All measurements - ultrasounds, heart rate, estimated size - showed that everything was going well. We had nothing to worry about.
At 37 weeks, Jeanna didn't feel the baby move almost at all for two days. What did this mean? Had something happened? Should we go to the hospital or would that be paranoid?
(Why do we have this sense that we must face our fears by not acting in a way to alleviate them?)
We did go to the hospital. The baby started to move about the time we arrived - like a car that won't make that strange noise when the mechanic is around. Her heart rate was also good. Everything was fine.
As we left the hospital room, I suddenly felt overwhelmed and relieved. My whole body felt exhausted. My legs felt weak. I had to fight back tears that rushed to my eyes. I had been postponing my dread, until I had a reason for it or an answer to it. Now, I had the answer. There was nothing to fear - yet.
And so the birth date approached. She remained healthy. Signs remained promising. The odds are that she would be born normal and healthy with no unusual issues or complications. The next day comes and the next. We face each day with hope and expectancy and uncertainty.
When she is born, what will happen? She will fall asleep. She will wake up. That is the natural pattern. Except the time that Aiden fell asleep and didn't wake up. Aiden was by sister-in-law's son. A perfect healthy boy who did all the things a baby should, until he didn't.
Brenna was gone before she was born. Faith lasted 25 days and Aiden two months. Esther is seven years old and Josiah is ten. John was near death at 2 and is healthy at 35. Tim almost died in his twenties. Now he is 54.
Which one does Sophia get? One month or two or a lifetime with grandchildren of her own? The unwritten rule says that she gets her grandchildren. The odds are in her favour. But we know all to well that odds only pay until they don't; the rule is absolute until it is broken; and the promise lasts until it fails.
Until then we will continue with the hope that the promise is not in vain. We will feed and change and bathe and burp Sophia. We will do all the things to raise a happy, healthy child. And we will let her rest on my chest and watch her stomach expand and contract as she takes quick, tiny, newborn breaths. We will act as though the promise is certain even as we face uncertainty.
I am looking for general opinion, as well as answers to specific questions. 1. should I add parenthesis after a new name with a brief description of who the person is i.e. John (my brother)? Would that add to clarity or distract from the flow? Any other suggestions to move this from a piece for me and my family to one for other parents?
Uncertainty
by davidanthonyd
by davidanthonyd
Sophia rests on my chest. Her stomach expands and contracts in rapid motion as she takes the quick, tiny breaths of a newborn. A spot on her neck just below the chin contracts and relaxes to the same rhythmic pattern. I let her sleep on my chest and watch her breath. I like to watch her breath. As long as I can see her breath, I know she hasn't stopped breathing.
She has jaundice, but I don't worry about that. We know the causes of jaundice. We know the effects and the danger. And we know how to treat it. But a baby only practice breathes, until it is born. After that it must breathe constantly for the rest of its life. Hopefully, that is decades. If it stops breathing . . .
I worry about that from time to time when I can't push it down. We don't know why baby's stop breathing. We can't treat it. So I let her sleep on my chest and watch her breath and hope that the unspoken rule of life will not be broken.
We have in ourselves a knowledge of this rule. Included in this knowledge are certain patters - natural progressions in life. Spring follows winter. Age always increases. Pregnancy leads to birth, to life, to growth. God instituted these patterns. He created the universe to work with these predictable patterns.
As such, these progressions are not merely the observations of people. They are sown into the fabric of our being. Creations itself reinforces these progressions. They govern our predictions and expectations of future events. They are central to our concepts of justice and right and wrong.
We view these patterns and their predictions as unwritten rules or unspoken promises and consider them unbreakable. But experience shows that they are not as universal as our predictions. What happens when these progressions are disrupted? If one prediction fails, it lowers our confidence in every other prediction and in the very future itself. If spring does not follow winter, what comes next - another spring or fall or more winter? Uncertainty becomes the core element in our predictions. Even as future events continue as predicted by these unwritten rules, uncertainty persists. Because we have been awakened to uncertainty, we know that the natural laws are unbreakable only until they are broken. The promise is sure, until it fails.
Thirteen years ago, the natural progression of my life was disrupted. "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes me pushing a baby carriage." I had fallen in love. I had gotten married. One year and five days later my daughter was born.
I still vividly remember those first few hours after her birth. Jeanna, my wife, was recovering from the surgery that had brought our daughter into this world. We named her Faith. For those few blessed hours, I had Faith all to myself. I held her and envisioned how the promise of life would unfold. I could see her as a confidant young woman in a business skirt suit striding down wide stairs that descended from some important government building. She would have just completed her first day of some important job that would leave an impact on the world. I knew deep in my heart that this child was a gift from God. There was a special destiny on her life.
It should be impossible to die as an infant if you have a God-ordained destiny to fulfill. Moses was saved from the murderous hands of his Egyptian slave-masters, so he could save Israel from slavery. What if the reed basket had leaked and he had drowned in the Nile? There is no logic or purpose in that kind of death. So there is no way to predict when the next violation of the rules of life will occur.
Two years after the death of my daughter, my son was born. Three years after that, we had another daughter. (Am I supposed to say "another" if we now only have one, or do we still have two so "another" is the appropriate word choice? These are the questions a man asks when the unwritten rules of life are broken. The written rules of language must bend to these violations.) Each child was a gift from God. Each has their own destiny.
At that time, we decided to stop having more children. I endured a procedure to ensure our decision would be permanent. There is another rule that a vasectomy makes it impossible for a man to conceive more children. The medical profession even tests to make sure that rule will not be broken.
Last summer, we received another gift. My wife became pregnant again. But this pregnancy violated the vasectomy rule. As such, it came with a greater promise. There was life where there should not be. This was not the natural result of human choices - this occurred in opposition to those choices. God had granted life.
This life comes with a greater promise. We know that God doesn't break the natural rules without the expectation of results. Ten plagues in Egypt saw Israel freed from slavery. A jar of oil that did not run dry saw a widow freed from debt. A virgin birth saw humanity freed from sin. It is an unwritten rule - a universal understanding - that God's interventions in our lives are protected by his continued interventions. How many times did Jesus or Paul or Daniel escape death, because God's plan - their destiny - was not yet fulfilled?
But what value is a greater promise that lasts only until it is changed? This is the uncertainty that we faced. We began to prepare for the arrival of our new baby. We needed everything - clothes, bottles, cloth diapers, crib, change table, etc. etc. Some items we purchased. Others were given to us. Each time a part of me wondered, "How much should we prepare? If this growing promise is not fulfilled, what will people think as we return their gifts to them?"
I pushed the feelings down. There is no reason to worry. Mother is doing well. The baby is growing well - at least as far as the ultrasound and fetal monitoring can tell. Worry is pointless and unfounded. Everything will be fine. So we continue to prepare.
Then we learn that my wife has gestational diabetes. This condition is usually not harmful to the baby, so there is nothing to worry about. They caught it early. We are treating it. There are risks of minor complications and one big one. The placenta can age more quickly and fail late in the pregnancy. The baby - when it could live and breathe outside the womb - is suffocated inside the place that was designed to keep it safe. But nothing was going to happen.
Finally, Jeanna spoke the words that we had been trying not to think - trying not to feel. "God wouldn't give us this baby just to take her away. Would he?"
I did not answer. I only looked at her wishing I knew the answer. I knew the unwritten rule. She knew the unspoken promise. But we both knew that life doesn't always follow the rules. A small part deep inside me felt compelled to change her words to, "God wouldn't take her away . . . unless he did." Finally, I spoke the response in my heart,
"He wouldn't take Faith away either."
She looked at me, and I looked at her. Each of us was wishing that the other could speak that promise with certainty. There is a proper order to things. There is a sequence of events - a way things should happen. But neither spoke that promise. Neither could. We had already seen it broken.
And day passed into night into day. Time progressed as it should. The baby grew and the big day grew closer. The baby got to the point that if something happened; she could live outside the womb - the age Brenna died.
Brenna was my brother's daughter. They had dreamed of this first child for some time. Her pregnancy was high risk, but we told ourselves that God wouldn't have let them get pregnant just to lose their baby. And then their baby crossed that line - the line where modern medical intervention could sustain it outside the womb. I breathed a sigh of relief. They were past the most dangerous place. Then Brenna died.
Now we were crossing that line. We felt safer - and more vulnerable. A new promise that might mean nothing. But Sophia didn't die then. She kept growing. All measurements - ultrasounds, heart rate, estimated size - showed that everything was going well. We had nothing to worry about.
At 37 weeks, Jeanna didn't feel the baby move almost at all for two days. What did this mean? Had something happened? Should we go to the hospital or would that be paranoid?
(Why do we have this sense that we must face our fears by not acting in a way to alleviate them?)
We did go to the hospital. The baby started to move about the time we arrived - like a car that won't make that strange noise when the mechanic is around. Her heart rate was also good. Everything was fine.
As we left the hospital room, I suddenly felt overwhelmed and relieved. My whole body felt exhausted. My legs felt weak. I had to fight back tears that rushed to my eyes. I had been postponing my dread, until I had a reason for it or an answer to it. Now, I had the answer. There was nothing to fear - yet.
And so the birth date approached. She remained healthy. Signs remained promising. The odds are that she would be born normal and healthy with no unusual issues or complications. The next day comes and the next. We face each day with hope and expectancy and uncertainty.
When she is born, what will happen? She will fall asleep. She will wake up. That is the natural pattern. Except the time that Aiden fell asleep and didn't wake up. Aiden was by sister-in-law's son. A perfect healthy boy who did all the things a baby should, until he didn't.
Brenna was gone before she was born. Faith lasted 25 days and Aiden two months. Esther is seven years old and Josiah is ten. John was near death at 2 and is healthy at 35. Tim almost died in his twenties. Now he is 54.
Which one does Sophia get? One month or two or a lifetime with grandchildren of her own? The unwritten rule says that she gets her grandchildren. The odds are in her favour. But we know all to well that odds only pay until they don't; the rule is absolute until it is broken; and the promise lasts until it fails.
Until then we will continue with the hope that the promise is not in vain. We will feed and change and bathe and burp Sophia. We will do all the things to raise a happy, healthy child. And we will let her rest on my chest and watch her stomach expand and contract as she takes quick, tiny, newborn breaths. We will act as though the promise is certain even as we face uncertainty.
