I don’t know why I’ve been feeling the passage of time so acutely lately. Maybe because of this baby, probably my last, growing by such leaps and bounds. We watched some old episodes of Homicide this week, and I was stunned by how dated and old they felt, not like when I’d watched them with my parents so many years ago.
In one episode, they find a baby in the basement, and though everyone is hot and miserable in a heat wave with no A/C, they rejoice over this little baby, smile in awe at him, and I think of what it was like to bring my children, each of my babies, into my grandmother’s assisted living home. The way the lonely old people with watery eyes stretched out their arms towards my baby with such longing that I held him closer for fear I’d give him to them out of an impulsive gesture of sorrow over how we treat our elderly, of how separate they are from us, from life, from babies. Or maybe, if I am honest, I held him tighter, too, a little out of fear over the power of their longing.
I saw an older woman in the post office last week. Her eyes were clear, her back straight, an air of dignity and elegance about her. But she cast sidelong glances at my baby girl, and her smile was faint and a little sad, and I saw myself, much too soon that will be me, casting sidelong glances at someone else’s baby, missing this era of my life as it tumbles past me now, and I scramble to grasp it and hold on, as it slips through my fingers, and right now I am holding my baby, right now. But right now is all too short.
I have felt this longing lately…. As my babies have grown into little girls I am struck by how my arms long to hold the babies…. Part of me wishes that baby-hood lasted so much longer than the rest…. I miss the simplicity of the holding, carrying, and the breast.