Oceans Away

You are alive. Your little lungs expand with breath every few seconds. Eyes dart under thin lids when you sleep. When you wake thoughts fill your mind.

What about now? This very moment? It's 1:35 AM in Rwanda. You must be folded up in a corner of your crib, the breath of many children suspended in the air around you. What does it sound like? Is it ever silent? Is there a child crying? A nurse rocking the infant beside you? Or is it you, feathered into the nest of her arm? I think about her holding you. She is touching you and tending you. Does she love you? Do you bend the path of her heart or are you the next baby in line with a soiled diaper or aching ear? She must love you. She must feel the weight of your soul when you are pressed against her.

All the thoughts in my day are threaded through you somehow. When Gideon's eyes light up, I wonder what will make yours dance. When I change a diaper I wonder if yours is wet, if someone has had time to check you. I see anything pink or purple and my heart sort of skips, like a rock over water. When I walk by a pharmacy I wonder about your ears. Are they infected? Do you have lice biting your scalp? Scabies? Parasites? Do you need medicine, baby? Because I have it, right here. I can hold you and rock you and kiss you and love you. I can take care of you. Yet...

You are in Rwanda, oceans away. I don't even know your name. But you exist, sweet baby girl. And I love you.