It's been a year to the day since Lilah's birth. The details of that day are etched into my memory like an intricate design on glass. I remember my labor with her, but it always feels like I was hovering above my own body, watching someone else hurt and labor and fear. Jewish mystics hold that while in utero, the soul of the infant is watched over by the angel Layla - the midwife of souls. Upon the entwining of the egg and sperm, Layla is charged with retrieving the soul God chose for that body from the Vault of Souls and sending it into the fertilized seed. While the body is growing in the womb of the mother, the soul is elsewhere learning the wonders, secrets, and languages of all the world. Upon birth, Layla puts her finger to the lip of the newborn, causing it to forget all the secrets it learned and also causing the indentation on the upper lip that is a universal characteristic of human babies. The soul is then charged with spending its lifetime re-learning the secrets it forgot. In a way, I feel like labor removed me from my pain and I hovered in that in-between, the place for souls who haven't quite forgotten the secrets of all the world. The pain melted away; my fear was gone. There was only me, and yet I wasn't.
The moment my child was delivered from my womb, my soul plummeted downward and collided with my body again. There was a cosmic "snap" and I was wholly myself again. I could hear the people around me. I could see out of my eyes. I could feel again, making the fuzzy numbness I had just experienced feel merciful in comparison. Most of all, I could gaze into the eyes of the alien little person resting on my chest. She was real, and she was beautiful. Our eyes locked in a look of understanding. "I know you," her mind said. "You're my mother." And she was my daughter. People like us get the angel Layla a divine slap on the wrist. We never completely forget what we learned before we were born. Some innermost part of us hides it away, calls on it later, seeks it out wherever we can find it.
Many times this year I have lamented that my tiny, helpless little one fades more with every milestone Lilah masters. She fades from being, but never from memory. Today, watching her playing at my feet, I realize I wouldn't trade her. Yes, 3-hours-old Lilah needed me for everything but breathing, slept in the crook of my arm every night and on my breast every day, couldn't even imagine drifting off to sleep in a midnight world where Mama's lips didn't press softly against her velvet fontanel with Mama's breath sifting through her satin hair. But 1-year-old Lilah can roar at the cat while holding fistfuls of her fur and exultantly chanting, "Cat!" Brand New Lilah couldn't sing "La-la-la-la-LA!" along with Australia by the Shins, or "Badapapapapa!" along with Army by Ben Folds. Helpless Lilah wanted to sleep on me more, it's true, but she couldn't crawl exuberantly to me, stand, hold up her pudgy arms and say, "Mama!". She didn't nuzzle close to me when I picked her up, sucking on her fingers and cooing contentedly and occasionally saying, "Mama," just in case I'd forgotten who I was. She couldn't crinkle her nose and hiss at complete strangers in the grocery store or mimic perfectly the "prawns" from District 9 after watching it. She couldn't belly laugh for no apparent reason or make an unholy mess out of a simple meal. She couldn't use my phone to call and text anyone she deemed necessary, leaving lengthy babbling voicemails. She couldn't fake cough and she certainly didn't think an "epic sneeze" (as we call them in this house) was the funniest thing ever. She didn't like to grab fistfuls of my hair and shove it in my mouth (I could live without this, but it's a strange quirk of hers. Perhaps she's trying to make me appear bearded like her Daddy). She couldn't have a pretend tea party or bake pretend cookies and take so much joy in her parents pretending to eat and drink with her.
All those things made me realize today that I wouldn't go back. It went too fast and I'd love to have an hour for each second that went by this year, knowing I can never replicate it or go back except in my mind. But I wouldn't trade it for anything, and I wouldn't change a thing.
Happy birthday Lilah. Your Mama loves you more than you will ever know.
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