THE BABY’S COMING

Twenty years ago, basking in a hot tub with friends, someone asked, “Is there anything you regret?”

I thought for a second and said, “I wish I’d had children.” Early in our marriage, Ed and I learned there was only a very slim chance I could get pregnant, and decided to relax and enjoy both our delicious couplehood and his darling daughter, who was eleven at the time.

Ed’s daughter, who feels like my daughter now, grew up and married and birthed a little girl. “Smitten” is too mild a term for what happened to me. I stared, dewey-eyed, into that baby girl’s big blue ones, made faces at her, sang her silly, made-up songs. I wanted to never let her go. “Anything she wants,” I told Ed, “for the rest of her life. I mean it.”

The following Christmas, Mama and Daddy and Baby came to our house. Ed and I hummed with excitement. “The baby’s coming,” we’d say while we cooked or cleaned or wrapped presents or hung tinsel on the tree. “The baby’s coming. Aren’t we blessed.”

Three years later, a baby brother arrived. Turns out I have enough love to embrace a little boy with the same grandmotherly passion I felt for the little girl. They are both precious. They are innocent. They are deep and pure and their eyes glow when they say, “Granola, I love you with all my heart.” (Yes, they call me “Granola”.)  “I love you with all my heart too,” I tell them. And I do.

They’ll be here this Christmas. They’re twelve and nine now. Yesterday, as Ed and I checked the batteries for the lanterns we’re giving them to use in the tree house we built, Ed said, “The baby’s coming, Granola.” I hugged him and said, “The baby’s coming, Grandpa Ed. Aren’t we blessed.”

I grew up with the Biblical Christmas story, and though I don’t care about its historical accuracy nor believe in its exclusivity, my grandchildren have enhanced my belief in the story’s power. What better agency to usher in light into the darkness than a little child who knows love is everything and acts accordingly. “You cannot enter the kingdom of heaven,” Jesus said, “unless you become as little children.” Little children don’t care where we live nor where we were born. They don’t care about the color of our skin. Nor whether we belong to some exclusive club. Nor whether we Granolas share their DNA. They care that we hurt when they hurt. They care that we want the best for them. They care that we love them, with all our hearts.

What I want for Christmas is to give and let myself receive love more openly, like a child. To keep believing in hope for our broken world. To keep being grateful that the baby’s coming.

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