Bombings and babies
While I spent today playing around with a new web page and my children, and then visiting my new baby nephew, people in London were dealing with bombings.
Unfortunately, I tend to associate terrorist attacks with children, particularly my own. Laura was three months old when the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed in Oklahoma City. Still seriously postpartum messed up, I sat on the couch watching the news, nursing her, and just crying and crying—those children in the daycare, my God. I was about three months pregnant with William on September 11. Five weeks later, I flew to Mexico for a conference, equally fearful of planes and terrorists and the military police walking around the airports with their very large guns—not to mention the more mundane matters of what might happen to the baby if I ate something in Mexico that made me sick, or drank the water, or needed a doctor. Combining hormonal surges with terrorism alerts will certainly get you going.
London notwithstanding, after Chris got out of class this afternoon, we drove to Columbia to visit our three-week old nephew. He is tiny and beautiful—about eight pounds of scrunchy boy, a sprinkle of baby acne and a little dry skin still flaking off to remind you just how recent his arrival into the world. Because my babies weighed quite a bit more at birth, Adrian looked so small, but he worked hard to hold his head up, butting his peach fuzz head against my shoulder when I held him. I could close my eyes and remember that slightly sour, slightly sweet, breastmilk smell from my own babies; pregnancy intensified my sense of smell, and even today I can open a tube of A&D and almost touch baby skin.
A rather conflicting set of associations: the touch of a baby’s cheek, the image of flames and bodies. My own experiences with terrorism have been mercifully distant—my small Southern town is not exactly the type of metropolis that would attract such attention—and I’m thankful. When I turn my head to my shoulder now and catch that faint whiff of baby, I can’t imagine combining that smell with smoke and blood and bomb residue. But today some mother in London had to.
At least once every day I have some thought, a prayer maybe, keep my children safe. I don’t imagine that some God somewhere would watch over my children but give over some other child’s life to suicide bombers, nor would I want such a God. But still every day, I offer up this prayer in hope and fear for my children, especially tonight, and for my new nephew, and in sorrow and too late for someone else’s child, with a terrible selfishness that every parent knows, and I think, might someday be able to forgive. Please keep my children safe.
Unfortunately, I tend to associate terrorist attacks with children, particularly my own. Laura was three months old when the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed in Oklahoma City. Still seriously postpartum messed up, I sat on the couch watching the news, nursing her, and just crying and crying—those children in the daycare, my God. I was about three months pregnant with William on September 11. Five weeks later, I flew to Mexico for a conference, equally fearful of planes and terrorists and the military police walking around the airports with their very large guns—not to mention the more mundane matters of what might happen to the baby if I ate something in Mexico that made me sick, or drank the water, or needed a doctor. Combining hormonal surges with terrorism alerts will certainly get you going.
London notwithstanding, after Chris got out of class this afternoon, we drove to Columbia to visit our three-week old nephew. He is tiny and beautiful—about eight pounds of scrunchy boy, a sprinkle of baby acne and a little dry skin still flaking off to remind you just how recent his arrival into the world. Because my babies weighed quite a bit more at birth, Adrian looked so small, but he worked hard to hold his head up, butting his peach fuzz head against my shoulder when I held him. I could close my eyes and remember that slightly sour, slightly sweet, breastmilk smell from my own babies; pregnancy intensified my sense of smell, and even today I can open a tube of A&D and almost touch baby skin.
A rather conflicting set of associations: the touch of a baby’s cheek, the image of flames and bodies. My own experiences with terrorism have been mercifully distant—my small Southern town is not exactly the type of metropolis that would attract such attention—and I’m thankful. When I turn my head to my shoulder now and catch that faint whiff of baby, I can’t imagine combining that smell with smoke and blood and bomb residue. But today some mother in London had to.
At least once every day I have some thought, a prayer maybe, keep my children safe. I don’t imagine that some God somewhere would watch over my children but give over some other child’s life to suicide bombers, nor would I want such a God. But still every day, I offer up this prayer in hope and fear for my children, especially tonight, and for my new nephew, and in sorrow and too late for someone else’s child, with a terrible selfishness that every parent knows, and I think, might someday be able to forgive. Please keep my children safe.
posted by Lisa at 7/08/2005 12:16:00 AM
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