When I thought of this post two nights ago, it was about the sadness of weaning a baby. Losing the intimacy of lips to breast, and the c-curl of a child in your arms.
But then yesterday happened. And "weaning" seemed like a much darker word, describing a void that opens up when children and parents lose each other. Because although I have no literal understanding of it, that is what this kind of death seems like to me: a thinning and reaching of the cord that binds parent to child; a never-breaking but increasingly fragile thread that passes into the distance, or dips into memory.
I don't think that's a very clear description, but I can't explain it any better. Or do this: imagine outer space. It's dark and big. It's very far away. Now tie whomever you love the most to a never-ending string and toss them into the abyss.
That is weaning.
When I was pregnant with Halle I had a bad day. I worried about the ethics of bringing yet another baby into an overpopulated world. Into a country with increasingly hapless politicians. Into a dying environment with dwindling natural resources. But when I spoke these fears out loud to my mother (who thinks babies are the solution to every problem), she said this:
"Having a baby is an act of hope."
I don't always agree with my mom's baby fixation, but I understand what she meant. When you have a baby, you are saying to the world, Yes, you're broken, but I still believe in your beauty.
And then you become a parent and without thinking about it you start working to remake the world into your vision of beautiful.
Today, I'm angry that Halle will grow up in a country where mass shootings are so prevalent that the local paper had an article yesterday on what to do if you find yourself in the middle of one. I'm angry that despite endless gun violence we still don't have a good regulatory system in place for gun control. And I'm angry because children are so good and our society seems to think that goodness is reserved for children, and must be replaced with irony and cynicism and wariness as we grow up.
How many popular fictional heroes in comics, movies and video games function from a goodness unadulterated by violence? Or put another way, when did we decide that good actions, the best, the bravest come from deep reservoirs of hurt? Our culture's favorite heroes blaze a bloody path to redemption, and we cheer them on like none of our children are watching this and taking note.
Don't get me wrong. I don't believe that popular culture is solely, or even primarily responsible for mass shootings. But these young men are dressing up like Rambo. They buy army fatigues and body armor and assault weapons. They're unaccountably angry and in tremendous pain and they decide, monstrously, that what they want most in the world before they go is something they've seen idolized for their entire lives, and that is the power of the man behind the gun.
Somehow I've veered off-track.
This morning, as I watch Halle zoom around the living room, making little "hmm-ing" noises, reading books, eating the cheerios that get everywhere, I'm painfully grateful that she is here.
I don't have to tell you to hug your kids, or to whisper I love you as you nuzzle their hair, their sleepy forms heavy on your shoulders. I don't have to tell you anything. But I'd like to make a request.
We do need to work on gun control. And we desperately need a better functioning mental health system in the U.S. But those are political issues and I'll write about them another time, when my heart feels less hollow and afraid. Today, all I ask is for us adults to try very hard to be as good as our children.
Let's smile at strangers in the checkout line.
Let's open each day with a joyful smile.
Let's stretch out our arms to each other when we need comfort.
We owe it to those children and their families to bring more love into the world today than left it on Friday.
