Everybody Is Somebody's Baby

Some religions call us all Children of God. Some greet each other with, “Thou art God/dess.” Some recognize the light of divinity within all. One of my favorite books, Gervaise, used the phrase, “Hither world, thither world, all worlds are One.” My friend Laura says that for her there came a revelation that everyone is warm.

Personally I don’t always have a way to see it so clearly. Sometimes it is easier for me to see my spiritual relationship with a carrot than with other people. But sometimes, when I drive around I am overwhelmed with the feeling that, all these people out here actually have a life. Not unlike I have a life. Wow.

But the thing that sometimes gets me more than anything else is thinking about how everybody was somebody’s baby.

A little baby. So cute. So helpless. Smelling so wonderful. Coming into this world through some union of man and woman. Gazed at in wonder, the same wonder with which we gazed at our newborns.

It doesn’t diminish, the wonder, as they get older. For me, I just don’t know how it happened, how that baby turned into that almost man. But I can still see the baby in him. And I can look at the youngest and see the eldest; the eldest and see the youngest.

So once upon a time, husband was somebody’s baby. Adored no doubt. Only son of an only son of an only son for I don’t know how many generations. His grandfather, I believe, could see the man in the boy. He was born in a snowstorm, his mom walked to the hospital just a couple blocks away.

And even that dirty-faced husband of mine was somebody’s baby. Fifty-two years ago today. He planted carrot seedlings out in the circle garden in celebration. And got a new muck tub too. Like the horse, he's a pretty easy keeper.