Torn

There are moments of giving way. The inexorable crowning move-through, God’s knitting dropping stitches.

Tell yourself, this is the room your baby needs.

The sight is barbaric and obscene. My ears whirl and I have to escape.

I go to a picture in my mind of our baby as a girl-child, at the beach with us on family vacation. She is splashing in a tide pool, fed and famished by the waves. Back and forth goes the water. In and out goes the tide.

In and out goes our baby’s head.

In and out goes the tide.

Tell yourself, the whirling in your ears is a seashell pressed to your ear. Feel the sand-worn coolness, the salty swishing of the water. Taste the brine in the air.

See your daughter, next to you. Resplendent. Back and forth goes the water.

In and out goes the tide.

Once you heard from a new father how, waist-deep in labor land, his wife had screamed out, “Jesus, you said you’d never forsake me!”

Even Jesus knew he couldn’t prepare space for us until the veil tore.

Our daughter’s head is a bobber nibbled by minnows. Within, without.

My wife’s hand clenches mine, hard. I remember anew that there are moments of giving way.

Tell yourself, once the veil has torn our daughter will be on my wife’s chest, with her hands and my hands holding her.

And that will be the room our baby needed.