Dear Sparrow

Dear Sparrow,

I’m going to call you Sparrow, cool?  Cool.  You have the cutest little face with such dark black eyes.  And well, you sort of flew into our lives.

My mind was full of thoughts during my labor with you.  In fact, my mind was full even up until the end, when I birthed you. Frankly, it complicated things. Probably not the last time I’m stuck in my own head when I should just be taking your lead.

Mostly, I was full of questions about who you were going to be. How could I simultaneously feel such a deep sense of knowing you, without ever having laid eyes on your face? Even at three weeks old I don’t know much about you.  I don’t know if you’ll be reserved or boisterous, funny or serious. I don’t know what your struggles and triumphs will be.

What do I know? Well, you don’t like to sleep. You like milk. A lot. Sometimes, after a long crying jag, you let out the cutest, exasperated, defeated sigh. Like I’m just not getting the memo that you need to be bounced or fed at all times.

So clearly, I don’t know much.

Yet, I can’t help but feel like I do know you. I know you, like a tree knows when to put out new buds, birds know which way to fly, or a river knows which way to flow. I’m your mother and I know you, you know? This knowledge seems at once so simple, like a reflex, but also has a sense of eternity; even as your path twists and winds itself away from our joined beginning, I will always know some essential part of who you are.

Still. I am just your beginning, not your middle or end.

But goodness, what a beginning it is. During every moment of calm since you were born, I’ve been trying to soak you in, as if I could psychically reabsorb you just for a moment, and we would be one again. I know that every time I smell your soft, downy head that these moments are numbered.

You might wonder, if you are reading this as an adult, why I seem so bittersweet about our beginnings together, why I seem so keen on holding onto this feeling. It is because, this may be your beginning, but you are my middle. It feels as if my whole life has worked up to you and your brother and sisters. Your arrival has given me a sense of completeness that I haven’t been able to fully understand yet.

So. Welcome to the world, little Sparrow.

Love,
Your Mother