16 tender months

My baby is 16 months old. One of her favorite things to name is 🫧 bubbles! Real bubbles are bubbles. Circles? Also bubbles. Mouthwash bottles and cleaning solutions? Bubbles! My favorite though, is our cat, Pablo. My baby calls him Bubble, or maybe, Pubble.

Kids learning the words for the world is very endearing. This stage or moment that we’re in- in the development of the family- is full of such gems. Honestly, these moments make my heart ache. Here’s a story.

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When it’s time for bed, I carry my baby and we stop and say goodbye to my spouse, who’s half a foot shorter than me. The baby’s legs are wrapped around my waist, and I see nothing but curly hair and a white molar and the warm underside of my baby’s chin as her hands unclamp from the sleeves of my T-shirt and swing towards my spouse.

The baby is ecstatic, laughing, the cradle of her head landing on my spouse’s chest or shoulders. We smother the baby in kisses- the most wholesome kind of sandwich. When I remember to, I make sure to land a few sweet ones on the cheek or head of my beloved.

When finally we separate, the space between us is bridged by the most sacred form of human- a child. Baby’s legs remain firmly wrapped around me while she does her best to keep her head in contact with my wife.

Her eyes shine, two crescent moons. we’ve barely pulled apart before she says aloud, clearly, “again”. She points to the palm of her own hand- baby sign language meaning exactly what she said; she wants to experience this two-mom-hug again. And again. Each time we pull apart, she’s ready for another one.

If it were up to baby, we’d be sandwiching in smooches and tickles for the rest of the night. A 3-body perpetual-joy-machine.

Until one of us grownups gets distracted. Shakes off the magic. Pivots towards the rest of the world and the list of things to do.

Whenever we separate like this- daycare drop offs, bedtime, running out the door for some errands, I ache for the chaos and violence in the world. The caregivers and children that won’t repeat their intimate version of this ritual again.

Tomorrow morning, when my spouse carries the baby down the stairs for breakfast, I will be ecstatic to see them. I’ll sing the same song my mom sang to me. My daughter will squeal and ball up her fists and bounce to the rhythm and try to bridge the space between her grownups again, before we strap her in to her highchair for some food.

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There’s a circadian certainty to these rituals for me, but it comes with the weight of knowing that no tomorrow is guaranteed. As my heart fills with the possibility of a never-ending smooch sandwich, it breaks painfully open for the millions of people whose smooch sandwiches have been cut short. By illness. By politics. By borders. By the belief that somehow children and parents are separable and murderable and dispensable.

I always knew the world was fucked, but it hits different when your heart beats for what you stand to lose. If it hurts to imagine a single moment without this sunshine, then the chasm of feeling that must come from preventable, human-orchestrated loss is … one I don’t have words to even imagine.

Caregivers. Caretakers. Those who feel and love such that all children could be just as much their children. The suffering of any child is equally painful. The people who attune to love and the sanctity of life, Those are the people with a connection to the planet. To the holiness of all families. To the human and more-than-human lives unfairly and unavoidably intertwined with ours own.

Take care of something, ok? Smooch someone or something in a radiant sandwich. Call someone a sweet version of a bubble.

Also, RIP Andrea Gibson, one of the most beautiful writers I ever got to meet.