Last week Lula wanted to discuss the word RICH. When I said that the “cake was rich” while doling out a tiny sliver of my dark chocolate and espresso birthday cake, Lula said, “I thought that rich meant a lot of money.”
I said, ” It’s more like a lot of good, like lots of yummy deliciousness in food, like sugar and butter, and sometimes too much can make you feel sick, so that’s why rich cake in moderation is in order, so you can really enjoy it.”
Then we rambled on about how rich in reference to people, can mean rich in spirit or life or joy or blessings… sometimes it just means a lot of goodness in their lives, often including money, but not always meaning money .
Lula, always willing to go the mile with me, started to broach the next leg of the marathon; how some people are rich with luck, like kids who are lucky to have lots of toys… seriously. And then I decided not to go down the path that she was attempting to lead me astray on. We’ll save the luck discussion for later. I muttering some lame excuse while wondering to myself, How to explain how being lucky isn’t just luck? And how to explain that some kids can become greedy entitled little bastards? Who says parenting young children turns your brain to mush from lack of intellectual stimulus? Har Har!
THANK YOU NOTE:
A THANK YOU has been welling up in my heart of late, which I need to express. Thank you to all those fabulous people who were there coaching me directly and indirectly with their energy as I howled and growled and moaned and screamed my son out of me more than a year ago. Thank you for supporting me in supporting myself. I cannot express the depth of gratitude I feel to you all. My midwives Candace and Sarah, my doula Kathy, my rock of a man Grant, my beloved friends Renuka, Carol and Tasha and last but not least, MAX, who definitely did his fair share by wiggling into the exact correct position to get through my pelvis. Thank you for being there to witness a birth, not only of Max, but a birth of myself. This was the blessing that came out of my willingness to trust and experience my body fully at that time. Don’t get me wrong, there were moments when I would have taken any kind of relief if it were offered, but I deliberately set up my home birth in such a way so that I wouldn’t have that option unless it was absolutely necessary. There were moments when I didn’t think it was possible that my ginormous baby could come out of my teeny tiny vagina, that he was completely and forever STUCK, and my mind was fahrreaking, and then there was a moment in the tub in the tiny dark bathroom when I had to choose. I had a moment when I had to choose what I was going to tell myself and the only choice that I could lean on was: I can do this. I began to chant it, over and over, over and over and people were all around me were affirming, Yes you can! You can do it, Natalie. You are doing it. But it was MY voice that I was listening to, it was MY voice telling me I CAN DO THIS that held me up. And I did, I experienced what I wanted to experience, the primal humanity of birth, how a bajillion women before me have birthed before modern obstetrics was invented in the last century. And I tapped into a power I’d never experienced before. I knew it was there, but now I KNOW it is there, and I feel like the whole world has opened up to me in a new and wondrous way born out of respect for my body, my womanhood and my humanity.
So thank you again to all the lovers and supporters that were in this house with me last November 10th and 11th 2008. I couldn’t have done it without you.
Love,
Natalie
you made me cry.
aww shucks