There are times, times when she is nursing and breaks away just to smile up at me, times when she begins to wake up in the night with a cry on her lips and all she needs is the touch of my hand to quiet her and send her back to sleep, times when she is sobbing inconsolably but breaks into a smile when she sees I'm there. Moments when I wonder, shaking my head, what I ever did to deserve such love, to be so much of anyone's everything. Surely I didn't do anything to earn this, did I?
Was it when my conscious mind relinquished control and my physical body took the helm, somehow, miraculously, growing a human being without a teacher, guidebook, or instructions? Every ultrasound that gave us promises of a healthy child; ten fingers, ten toes - how did my body do that? And it is not the same. No, it is forever marked and scarred with the memories of what it did for me, for us. Even as I wonder what I ever did to deserve to be this infant's entire world, in truth it is my body that deserves it. And so I hold my dearest child to my body as often as I can to thank it.
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