Navel Gaze

I went to my carving class again tonight & during the course of the evening we all rambled about various topics. One interesting tangent was the discussion of a fellow carver having a busy weekend ahead of her, as she had to photograph a wedding & complete a portrait. The portrait is for a funeral a few days from now for a 17 year old boy who died in a collision.

I remember 17 fairly clearly & if I had died at that age, I never would have graduated high school, let alone university. I wouldn’t have met my husband or had my children. I could list innumerable events, both trivial and earth shattering that I’ve witnessed in the intervening years (all 11 of ‘em) that would have been missed. The boy’s death illustrates the power of choice, because apparently there was a car load of teenagers who were drag racing each other. High speeds + bad timing + male bravado = a corpse.

Even though I ponder the lost opportunities & experiences, I feel the worst for his mother. I remember the first night in the hospital after my son was born. I had carried him in my belly for 42 weeks (seriously), including 8 weeks of bed rest (I was only allowed to go to the loo). I had endured 24 hours of labor, 2 hours of pushing & finally a caesarean with a spinal anesthetic. I wasn’t allowed to have him in the room with me because of the spinal, what with having to be flat on my back for 12 hours & such, so I was alone in the room with an utterly empty belly. I remember missing his movements, the comfort of activity that meant he was alive inside me. Every day for most of my third trimester I had to carry out a daily kick count, literally counting the number of kicks in a set period of time (if there were too few movements I was supposed to go straight to the hospital).

Now imagine 7 years of figurative connection--suddenly, inexplicably severed. The ache in that mother’s heart must be suffocating. Look at your belly button right now—it is proof of the fact that you were once small enough to fit in your mother’s belly, nourished, protected, literally ‘housed’ by her. We all begin and end somewhere don’t we? We may not choose the beginning, but our actions can invariably lead to our end. Isn’t it strange to think how quickly our path can change just by making a single choice?