Historical setting: 590 C.E. Cottage between Annegray and Luxeuil
When I mentioned our child yet unnamed Ana smiled with her beautiful whole face beaming far beyond that recent dinge of worry. Together we touched her round belly. We’ve been in the shadow of this thing Colleen calls “circumstance” for what seems a very long time. Alone with Ana, I ask if she’s afraid.
“Not really afraid, Laz, since I’ve never birthed a child I have no idea what to expect so I don’t really have fear, so much as anticipation and maybe a hope. I do worry for the child and if our child is two babies, I will worry twice as much forever and now. How can I be a mom for two at once?”
“Imagine, Ana, what it will be for us with new empathy, to see everything in our world through the brand new innocent eyes of an infant. How will our faces look starting from our chins then our noses as a baby sees us?”
Ana giggles. “Before we even have our new names, ’Momma and Papa’ you will be the soft beard, and I will be a breast. We already are the first people ever to be seen by her or him or them. What is there to worry? Whatever we say it is, so it is.”
“I was giving the little person a bit more leeway to think for herself. I’ve known babies before and, I have to say, try as we may to create their world for them, they always have their own minds. I don’t mean to worry you, Ana. It’s just an interesting thing to consider.”
I share my prayer aloud. “Dear God let us lay our fears out as opened strands that you may lay threads of love among them, so we place one piece of worry over a cord of holy love then allow a winding strand of simple trust, and in that way let us become the full braid of everything this child may need. Amen.”
We talk late into the night before we are both sleeping as though there were never any worries at all.
This new morning I wake to hear Colleen about the morning chores. She must know we needed this time together; she doesn’t just come in, she taps on the door. I answer.
She has a little thread of parchment from the leg of a bird.
It says, “Nuns of Laon here.” She asks what this means.
(Continues Tuesday, February 7)
Lazarus Ink 
Julie: What a beautiful prayer.
“Dear God let us lay our fears out as opened strands that you may lay threads of love among them, so we place one piece of worry over a cord of holy love then allow a winding strand of simple trust, and in that way let us become the full braid of everything this child may need. Amen.”
Definitely a keeper. Thank you for sharing that.
Kay
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Thanks so much Kay.
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