Dear Alessia 080821

Today is Sunday
And you’ve made it through your first week
A week ago
Your mama was edging towards the end of seventy hours of labor
And I was soon to be catching your head
Popping into water
With blood
And possibilities filling up the tub
For us this seemed natural
Doing it together
Just me and her
Guided by our incredible Doula Gayle on the phone
But just me you and her in the flesh
The battle of your birth
Has brought us closer
The depth of your eyes
And your wild possibilities has brought us close as well
We’ve emptied the train
And we have nothing really but faith in God
And the love for each other to go on
It’s Sunday
So I’ll keep this short
We give this day to the lord
We shut our phones down
And kick out the rest of the world
Reboot the Matrix
Open up books instead of screens
Things are shifting dramatically beneath our feet
Watching you become more human
Day by day
Like you’re still being shipped in from the ethereal plane
I woke up feeling vulnerable
There are those days
Where I wish I kept my thoughts to myself
Because in the material
There is a sense I’ve stacked losses
But like an eagle flying into rough weather
We lean into faith
And we push into inspiration
We allow the uncertainty of the age
To give birth
To new levels and layers of our becoming
And like you
Waking up with your parents
Expecting them to take
Care of you
As we are dedicated to do
We too wake up with our Heavenly Father
Every bit as vulnerable
Every bit as expectant
With only each other to hold
We pray over you
And watch your face
Go through a thousand emotions

You’re like a mirror for my shapeshifting heart
This too shall pass
And no weapon formed against us shall prosper
Never has life been so rich
Like we’ve wandered into a mansion
With a different kind of fear knocking on every door
I tell your mama
I’m worried about the article
I’m worried about this or that
And she assures me
She has unshakable faith
She is ready for the mission
Whatever the mission becomes
And as we look at you waking up
She says
I can’t wait to have more kids with you
I say what?
And she repeats
That’s what I thought you said

I had a dream last night that you were a teenager
A warrior
And outspoken
Someone said
We should be proud of you
And someone said
You should all be proud of each other

Who knows how any of this will end up
But the world can leave you
Abandoned
Broken
Betrayed
And spinning out into insanity

If you hold onto your soul and your vision
If you’re inspired to wake up in the morning
And put a word down
If you still have fight
To make and bring a better life
And can manage gratitude towards each other and the most high
If there is indeed an each other to send gratitude too
Well then in this life you are winning.

You can survive a season of trouble
Isolation is more difficult
And I’ve been down roads like that before too
When life became so empty and painful
That to survive it was moment to moment.

I won’t lie
As we close your first week here
The world is a daunting place
But we are still waking up
In fields of love
Stations of mercy
And cauldrons of grace

Your grandparents loved meeting you
You were surrounded by family yesterday
And the fact that that was possible
Is it’s own kind of miracle
Remember to never lose faith
Remember that miracles are possible
And one breath of God’s favor
Can change the trajectory of your entire life
Never surrender your faith
To fear knocking
For often times God’s greatest gifts
Come wrapped in the losses you’ve endured.

Ps

We ended up watching the rest of Blade Runner
Your mama never saw it before
(My favorite thing is showing her the classics from my day. And watching them again through her eyes)
It shows a dystopian vision of the future
But in this case
That future it displays is two years ago
We don’t have hovering cars yet
But we do have men playing God
And making things that could and will unmake them
Man searches for power
When he’d be better off humbling himself
Before God
Just because we have the power to create new worlds
Doesn’t mean we should
At a certain point evolution devolves reaching upwardly
And the house of cards falls on itself
With a whisper of a kiss
We are given foresight for a reason
And yet often we ignore it
Lunging in a prideful season.
Putting ambition a bit too far ahead of reason.