rash

I awoke early, at a time which I think would more be appropriately labeled as night than morning, to loud music and fireworks.  After a less than satisfactory night sleep, my brain in that foggy between-realities state, the thoughts came, the ones that still come after several years of living here…

Where AM I?  In what world, on which planet, would this noise, at this hour, possibly be considered okay?

I laid for a while, my body still while my mind traveled, looking for possible answers to my questions, trying to understand the words of the songs, mulling over thoughts of the day before.  I rose eventually, knowing returning to sleep was hopeless.

How rash this culture is, I think to myself later, sitting in a lit room now, trying to pray in the foreground of the cacophony.  Rash, impulsive…and as the words come into my grumpy conscience, I remember another time I used them recently.

I visited a friend a few weeks ago, an old neighbor I hadn't seen for a while.  She greeted me warmly, led me back to her bedroom, and pointed to a bassinet along the wall.  "Look who's come," she said.  I peeked into the cradle, and looked on a beautiful baby girl.

I was stunned - I had seen my friend 6 months before, how had I not known she was expecting?  After a few minutes of my gushing over her new daughter, she looked into my eyes and asked, "Can I tell you a story?"

Five years ago, my friend had almost died giving birth to her firstborn.  She had told me about this before…about how she woke up after nine days living in a dreamworld and had a son in her lap.  Now just 4 months ago, in the wake of a strange comment made by the fertility doctor she went to, the awful truth was finally revealed to her by her mother - due to a decision the family and doctor had made in the moment of crisis, she would never be able to carry a baby again.  My friend was devastated, having been hanging on the hope that had been given to her after her son's birth - that in 5 years, she'd be able to have another child.

Enter her post-adolescent, impetuous, unmarried brother.  About 3 months ago, he took a relative to the hospital for some testing, and upon arriving found an anxious crowd gathering around a tiny, freshly born baby girl.  The mother had just died in delivery, and the father, utterly stricken and already having several other children now motherless, was leaving her at the hospital.  My friend's brother thought quickly - or perhaps didn't think at all - and asked for the baby.  He signed a few papers, and took her home.

He called his big sister, who lives several hours away.  She rose from her just completed afternoon prayers to answer the phone.  On the other end of the line was her brother, asking if she wanted a daughter.  And she said yes. The next morning she and her husband and their son hopped on a train and went to welcome their new family member.

She finished telling the story, and we looked at each other with teary eyes, silent in response to the sacredness of it all.  Then she leaned over the cradle and I watched as her daughter looked up into her face, up to her life-source, her countenance all joyful cooing and light.  And one thought kept running through my mind…

How rash…how beautifully rash.