Size Twelve Shoes

When Frances was born I didn't feel the need right away to take stock of my life. I thought I would feel this way. But I found a reprieve in her smallness and her great focus on learning life's basics, to sit and stand and eat and walk.

With each skill she mastered though her small gaze extended further. Now those big brown eyes watch with so much intensity the comings and goings of every day; with much seriousness they take in our good moods and our bad, our moments of frustration and celebration, our triumphs and our failures. Hers are big brown eyes that keep busy now teaching one small heart what it means to love and be loved, what it means to live life, to strive, to succeed, to learn, to hope, to reflect and to regroup. And so I ask myself so much more than ever before how it is that I do these things: love and live and fail and learn and hope. It feels like the world is riding on my answer.

Babies, I think, are the natural antithesis to the notion of original sin. Theirs is not a journey from marked souls to redemption. For many rather, life can be a journey from the perfect love and open hearts to selective love, selfish love, fearful love and hearts that are closed to so much and so many. We teach them to judge, to see difference, to shun, to push away, to look down on, to accept injustice, to overlook dishonesty in ourselves and others, to warm to the great distance between what we say and what we do. We teach them this. Every bit of it.  

I look at her now and wonder what she knows already about love and life and joy. Is it what I want her to know? That she is so loved. That this love will never waiver. That she is a perfect heart, a perfect soul, a perfect beauty. That the world is breathtaking and vast and humbling, as it should be. That joy is everywhere all the time. My heart gets heavy and thick thinking about how often and how hugely it is possible to fail this little girl. Because there is no line between being the parent you want to be and the person you know you should be. The one who leads every day and every step with kindness and openness. The one who knows how fleeting childhood is. How fleeting life is. The one who knows that bad days teach as much as good days, that what others think is not really that important, and that in the end we are all only the sum of all the small things.