Lost and Found By Maren Peterson-DeGroff
She gazes down through the plastic box, unable to comprehend his tiny body. The monitor wires, IV lines and feeding tubes tangled over the gently rising chest expanding and contracting in mechanical rhythm, his mouth taped open a gaping, silent cry that freezes cold her heart. She is lost. Sinking into the madness of her grief, her guilt, an apology forever on her lips. She lifts, so slowly, the door to his high-tech womb, her own aching, for its emptiness. His hands flutter and feet twitch, she cannot interpret his fetal dance, a foreign language spoken too soon. She longs to touch him, to erase this space between them, her hand trembling, settling down on this other worldly angelchild, her palm enveloping his entire torso. She feels fragile skin like soft tissue paper, his back arches up, he squirms at her touch, and at the sound of her whispered voice his eyelids slowly draw up, dark eyes drawing her into this mystery. She is lost now in love, and is forever found. Too much ecstacy, too much desire to sweep him up into her arms and she chokes on the grief and the love, surrendering to the joy that he lives, he lives, her sunflower, her son!
© Maren Peterson DeGroff 1999 Maren lives in Albuquerque NM with her husband Dave and son Gabriel (who is now a healthy and happy two year old!)