Loving…

My first niece was born yesterday, to my little sister.  I had no personal experience to draw on to prepare me for what to expect.  Looking down at that little face I saw… my eyes.  My sister’s eyes, really, but they are mine, too.  Puffy little circles and dark lines underneath them, like she’d just had a good cry.  Both my sister and I had those eyes as infants and as children.  I remember myself growing up – crying much too often.  It is, perhaps, narcissistic to talk about oneself in one’s niece – she’s not mine – but seeing a small piece of myself in this baby took my breath away.

I wonder: we read that some people have children out of a need for companionship – for someone who will love them unconditionally.  And I’m sure that’s too often true.

But maybe sometimes the vehemence with which we love our children has to do with compensating for the care know we deserved — we want to comfort and wipe away all the tears in this child — to compensate for all the loneliness in this child –because she doesn’t deserve the pain we recognize from firsthand memory.  I ache over the puffy tears in her tiny eyes, because hers are mine.  I remember.

How much more intense to actually be the parent…