You Were Born

Stockholm was warm when I arrived, a gentle afternoon sun and I peeled the layers off my body, grateful for homecoming and summer and life. The subway was unusually quiet for rush hour, the city already sneaking into vacation mode and no one gets anything done at the office anyway. I hurried to the South Island, couldn't even stop to drop my bags, pick up presents. The elevator creaked quietly as it made its way down, lifted back up, I stood fidgeting at the door.

You were just waking up when I came in, scrunching your face and sneezing at the bright summer light. You have your father's face, but it's too soon to tell really; your tiny fingers crinkled around mine but you held fast. One could hold your body in the palm of one's hand, and somehow you still owned the entire room. The air lay warm, thick around us and we moved in quiet moves, slow, everything draped in velvet airs as stories unraveled. You took your time. It's so strange, and yet it's as if it were never any other way. I tried to leave your side, to lift my hand from the curve of your back as you snuggled against me on the couch but I couldn't. I tried to speak of trips and summers, tried to care about whatever I had seen and where I had been but your breaths lifted and sank and trembled in your tiny body and I forgot my train of thought. Your parents looked at you, their tired eyes filled with stars. You do not know it yet but you are a miracle.

You do not know it, yet. But from this day on, I will do anything it takes to make you.