to love children

i get a little ridiculous around babies. i've always been drawn to them. but anything older than 6 months or so? didn't really faze me much until i was in my 20s.

these days people wonder sometimes at how much i "love children". some think it's "sweet", some are convinced it's because i "have a heart for them", and some have made it clear that they "don't get it".

gwennie june!

i guess it's because i've seen what happens when they're taken away. 
i've seen what happens when every day for months or years, they're *almost* taken away. 
not just in my own family, though that's what has contributed to my spirit the most, of course. 

i know i wasn't the same after gwennie was born and she stole my heart, and i haven't been the same since. who knows what's going to happen when i have my own someday...sheesh.

i'm not baby crazy. it's not because i "just looove kids and think they're soooo cute."

it's because i see a fleeting preciousness there i hadn't before, a need to take it in, to be near it.

call it morbid, or pessimistic, call it strange but i always look at a small child through the eyes of loss. always.

ian in the hospital last year

maybe that will change someday, i don't know. it's hard to know how and why we react the way we do to sickness and death in babies.


it's not because i don't trust God, or because i'm pessimistic. i think it's really the opposite. i just don't ever want to miss what these children are, and what they have to show me. i feel like so many people do. and i never, ever want to.


tonight, i read Lilli's Story, and once again, it reminded me of these things. it's a beautiful, bittersweet little read. 

Lilli