Like freshly fallen Solstice snow, you sifted down to us, on this day, when Sagittarius handed off to Capricorn. Full of hope and newness and potential, you left your heaven-home and joined ours. It is not accidental that you came just then, the magical moment when the sun stood still in the northern hemisphere, situated exactly opposite the North Pole. This is the day the Pilgrims had landed in America, the day the Curie’s had discovered radium, and the day the first man to walk on the face of the moon left the planet earth. The deep mid-winter, the shortest day of the year, the beginning of lengthening light. December 21st.
On the night you were born I laid in my hospital bed and cradled you, marveling at the little dusting of snow in your hair, that white streak that still remains in your ebony colored hair, right at the crown. Christmas carols played through the tinny little speaker on the side of my bed, the one used to call the nurse. If I hold very still on this day, and let carols play, I can hear tiny baby noises rise up in my memory; little gurgles and squeaks as you squirmed in your brand-new body. Your deep dark eyes looked straight through me, with a sort of questioning innocence that also remains with you still.
People, for years, have indicated that a Christmas-time baby is unfortunate. You do not get the attention you deserve, and parties are aplenty this time of year. But to me, this is the perfect time to celebrate you, and your brother-in-law also born on this day. You both remind us of the sacredness of our human existence. We pause from the bustle to focus on our kindred relationship.
We brought you home on Christmas Eve. A new snow had fallen, so deep that the streets were nearly empty. These were the days of blessed ignorance, when society paid less attention to the patterns of the people, and we were not encouraged or law-driven to put a baby in a five-point restraint car seat. Instead, your dad inched northward on the back roads through the snowy ribbons of streets while you slept cradled in my arms, wrapped snugly in layers of baby blankets. I gazed at you in awe, in the blessed silence of that journey, tired, and happy.
I still gaze in awe. You have retained the sweetness and the innocence, and have brought to it strength and passion and kindness and intelligence. You are the calm in my frenetic life. You remind me to be still and listen. You show me how to do hard things. You refresh the giggles that get lost in the guffaws. You prove that life is, by divine design, a repeating series of starting-again’s, and that the longest, darkest nights always give way, in the end, to new light.
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| The Treasures love their Auntie Kate! |
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| That's Kate's angel-voice you hear singing harmony with me on my last three albums ... and in concert when I'm lucky enough to have her in town! |
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| My 3 girls - Annie, Sarah & Kate. |
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| She likes goofs! |
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| She IS a goof! (It's genetic) |
