As I look at the face of our newest grandchild, five-day-old Julia Mae White, sleeping in her mother's arms, I am escorted softly back by the warm zephyrs of memory to three other moments when I looked at newborns in their mother's arms--our three children, Charlotte, Carter (father to Arlo), and Fletcher (now mother to Julia).
In particular, I remember with such clarity Charlotte's face moments after she was ushered into the delivery room, and I saw, in one fraction of time shorter than the Big Bang, the entirety of every life she represented--the lives before her, and the lives she would influence far beyond my own visit in this mortal coil.
Char and I stared at each other--sharing an unspoken greeting from one portal of life to another--and from that moment on, I became aware of the energy of atoms, the inner workings of the Earth, the breaths of the rain forests, the meanings of the songs of the great whales, the radiance of stars, and the slow dancing swirl of galaxies beyond human understanding.
These thoughts came back to me again with the births of Carter and Fletcher. I felt those feelings when we heard about little Arlo's birth under the Southern Cross...and those thoughts flowed deep into my being five days ago when I looked into Julia's face and beheld the starry wonder of life.
I believe babies are the universe in macro and micro. They are the alpha and omega of our hopes, dreams, aspirations, and better angels. They are innocence and kindness and tenderness and love in all the purest forms.
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