Each Life is a Flower

This sweet baby girl of mine was born on Monday.  It's been a week of becoming acquainted again with the things that are truly precious in this life, and those that are treasure in the life to come.  It's been a week of poignant insights coming in the midst of the familiar, mundane rhythm of diapering, feeding, burping, laundering, and holding.  And it may seem odd during this week of new life, but I've been thinking often of a few of my favorite lines by Mary Oliver on the subject of dying:

"When death comes . . .

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore . . . I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possiblity,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular . . .

When it's over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real . . . 

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world."

I look at this daughter, this little daisy of mine--one of so many babies born Monday morning---and see a singular spirit, an individual with divine potential.

The work I spend my days doing may be routine, it may be mundane, it may be common: "change the diaper, feed the baby, oh wait, we need another diaper . . ."  But it is brim full with beauty and wonder and joy.  I am the bride married to amazement and the the bridegroom taking the world into my (very full) arms.  I am making of my life something particular and real.  And I'm helping my children along their way so that when death comes, we won't end up simply having visited this world, but making it kinder, and more meaningful.  We won't just have visited this world, we'll be ready for the next.