{"id":1411,"date":"2020-04-25T07:30:52","date_gmt":"2020-04-25T14:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/?p=1411"},"modified":"2020-04-25T07:30:52","modified_gmt":"2020-04-25T14:30:52","slug":"reopening-to-new-life-a-birthday-letter-from-the-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/2020\/04\/25\/reopening-to-new-life-a-birthday-letter-from-the-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"Reopening to New Life: A Birthday Letter from the Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

April 25, 2020<\/p>\n

My Dear Danny,<\/p>\n

Two years ago, I was snuggled into your guest bed with Jerry and Omar, your furry brothers, about to turn off the light and go to sleep when I got word that your birth was nearing. I quickly got dressed and hurried to the dreary maternity waiting room, unrolled my mother\u2019s tea napkin that held my traveling altar: my tiny well-loved doll, the acorn baby Ann gave me and a rose crystal heart \u2026 and continued to wait.<\/p>\n

\"\"I\u2019d spent hours in that waiting room over the previous few days, but the first time I actually heard the soft bells was when they heralded your birth. Within a few minutes after the bells rang, the nurse came out to get me. When I walked into the room where your mother had worked so valiantly in your birthing, you were snugged on your daddy\u2019s bare chest\u2014my firstborn holding his firstborn. Soon it was my turn to cradle you, and my heart broke open as it had years before when I first held my newborn children.<\/p>\n

Today you turn two years old. After playing with you two days a week for most of your life, Howard and I haven\u2019t been physically with you for 6 weeks. The COVID-19 pandemic hit, and love asked us all to stay physically apart to keep its spread to a minimum. We\u2019ve had some lovely \u201cvisits\u201d electronically. Howard and I have made a few videos for you, read to you through the screen, dropped off little gifts for Easter. We\u2019ve watched you jump off your couch, play with your truck collection, run around the \u201ctrack\u201d in your home, dig in the sandbox and snuggle with your mom and dad. You\u2019ve grown and learned so many new things since we were last together.<\/p>\n

Funny how we can be so far apart physically and yet still feel the strength of our connection and presence with each other.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been doing a lot of reminiscing over these weeks, looking back at pictures, talking with Howard about some of the fun and cute things you\u2019ve done with us. Remembering the sweep of these last two years with you makes my heart dance.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also been thinking, yet again, about the world I want for you. In the span of these few weeks, our world has stopped in a way I never imagined was possible. This unasked for spread of one of nature\u2019s viruses has brought separation, illness, death and a massive loss of jobs. The extent of that is reported daily in the newspapers and is felt personally, acutely, by millions. It\u2019s heartbreaking.<\/p>\n

Yet, in the midst of that, something else is afoot. The air and water quality have improved worldwide. Nature is healing herself rather quickly. Our deeply unjust, inequitable and broken systems have been stopped in their tracks.<\/p>\n

Globally, we have been shaken to the core.<\/p>\n

There is speculation about when we can return to \u201cnormal.\u201d<\/p>\n

I hope the answer to that is never.<\/p>\n

Never for you. For your generation all around the world. For your parents\u2019 millennial generation. For us all. My prayer is that we have the courage and vision to push aside the rubble of top-heavy social and economic \u201cwelfare\u201d for \u201chuman\u201d corporations1 <\/sup>and the debris of greed of money and power by increasingly few individuals who own more than many nations. Once that wreckage has been cleared, together we can build a world where you, Danny, and all of us can thrive. A world that supports all of creation to blossom together.<\/p>\n

Danny, I know you LOVE scooping up rubble with your digger, \"\"dropping it into your dump truck as you focus on important construction work! You can lead the way.<\/p>\n

In this time of abrupt slow down, we have a chance to become what was penned so long ago:<\/p>\n

We hold these truths to be self-evident,<\/em><\/p>\n

that all men [and women, girls and boys] are created equal,<\/em><\/p>\n

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,<\/em><\/p>\n

that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.<\/em><\/p>\n

I know you are more interested in exploring and playing than in all of these words. Your focus is rightly on running, hiding, digging, hugging, reading, exploring\u2026 That is the work that you are to do\u2014your two-year-old unfettered expression of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.<\/p>\n

It is the responsibility of those of us who are adults now, especially those of us who are older and no longer raising little ones like you. I wrote Big Topics at Midnight<\/em><\/a> because I longed for a more just and awake world for my grown children. Now as you are marking your second birthday on a planet stopped in her tracks, I want to again begin to find words to articulate the world I so long for your generation to grow up in.<\/p>\n

Finding words to express that through my blog is my work of the next few months. But today I pause to CELEBRATE YOU<\/strong>, in all your wonderful uniqueness and in gratitude for all you\u2019ve brought my grandmother\u2019s heart. You are surrounded by a wide and powerful community of family and friends. My prayer for you is that you will continue to explore and express all the variety of feelings and senses and thoughts and longings that dance through that miraculous growing body of yours.<\/p>\n

It is a wonderful world to explore. Happy Birthday.<\/p>\n

May it also be a day of new birth for all of us who were born and live within \u201cthe vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home.\u201d2<\/sup><\/p>\n

I love you, Gammie<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Legally, corporations have many of the same rights as a flesh and blood human person<\/em><\/li>\n
  2. From the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    April 25, 2020 My Dear Danny, Two years ago, I was snuggled into your guest bed with Jerry and Omar, your furry brothers, about to turn off the light and go to sleep when I got word that your birth was nearing. I quickly got dressed and hurried to the dreary maternity waiting room, unrolled … <\/p>\n

    Continue reading “Reopening to New Life: A Birthday Letter from the Heart”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,7,8,11,12],"tags":[41,285],"class_list":["post-1411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-earth","category-gender","category-justice","category-partnership","category-race","tag-big-topics-at-midnight","tag-covid-19"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1411"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1422,"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411\/revisions\/1422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}