As of about 3:45 AM yesterday, August 25th, 2006, I have been alive out of my mother’s womb for twenty-five of the Earth-relative increments of time known to human beings as years. One quarter of a century since I started breathing oxygen through my lungs. Two and a half decades since I left the amniotic world of the womb and entered the airy sac of the planet Earth’s lower atmosphere. Both of my mothers (my human mom and my more Greek, terrestrial mother) have taught me a lot in that time. I’m happy to have known each as long as I have. Both have given me life in one form or another and both have instructed me how to exist inside a more loving, meaningful, and fruitful life. I thank them both from the bottom of my heart.
Besides the hatemongers, I’m generally happy with this existence and the life I have in it. I have seen such devotion and love to a human life several times, and it always makes me smile, no matter where I am.
Recently, I’ve become closer with an old friend than I ever thought I would be. That is not necessarily a sexual reference. I’ve just gotten to know this person more than I ever knew her before. A few weeks ago, I lay in bed with this person and listened for almost an hour while she described the love a mother has for her children. She lay next to me on her back while I was up on one elbow. I listened while she told me of the complications that arose during the birthing process and the first time she held her baby. She told me how, when told that both she and the child might not survive, she told the doctors to do whatever they could to save the boy, regardless of what happened to her. She told me of the moment when her water broke and how the father flipped out before getting her to the hospital. She told me how, when you see your child for the first time, your heart feels like it could burst. A heart should not be able to hold that much love. No man in the world has a chance at getting the love of this woman. No man has a chance against that kid. We were both nude, covered with a blanket, and the entire time, I had no sexual desire. I just let wave after wave of pure positive energy flow off of her and hit me like warm gusts of air.
I have, of course, heard my own mother speak of the happiness she felt when my sister and I were born. Every year, on August 24th, she says, “(insert how old I am every year here) years ago today, I was lying in the hospital, pregnant, and do you know what I was thinking?” I always say, “You tell me every year and I always forget. What were you thinking?” She always responds, “GET THIS KID OUT OF ME!! OH GOD, GET HIM OUT!!” Every year I laugh.
I’ve listened to how much love you can feel for your own child and how you know immediately that you will devote everything you have to that little being in your arms. Lindsey put it very eloquently by saying (and I’m paraphrasing here; this is not an exact quote, unless I get really lucky), “I knew right then that I was fucked.” For the rest of your life, you will love that child more than anyone else in the world. Thank you to my mother and to all mothers for their undying love and devotion to their children. To any mother who does not love her children, fuck you.
On the other end, this past week, I got to see my mother’s side of my family in an uncharacteristic light. The Fitzgerald side of the family has a wonderful sense of humor (see my birth anecdote above). Last weekend, my mother’s dad died of cancer. At the funeral, I got to see almost every member of the Fitzgerald family weeping as my uncle spoke at the church service. I saw my grandmother break down when a young, stoic Marine handed her a folded American flag at Jefferson Barracks and thanked her husband for his service to his country. With a practiced salute and a “Semper Fidelis, ma’am,” he clicked away and disappeared, leaving my grandmother sobbing on my mother’s shoulder, my sister sobbing on her boyfriend’s shoulder, my cousins wiping absently at their eyes, and myself with a big smile on my face, underneath my tears, of course. My grandfather may be gone from his physical form, but it is true how they say that those who die live on in the people who loved them. Josh told me, upon seeing my family gathered at the funeral home, how much we resemble each other. Dr. Thomas Fitzgerald truly does live on in his family. He had the Fitzgerald sense of humor, too. He gave it to his kids, and that’s where I got mine. Thank you to my grandparents for their genes.
Also (a few weeks ago as well), I went on a drive down highway 94 at about 2:00 AM. I almost made it to Alton, Illinois before I thought it was dark enough. There were almost no lights for miles around. No street lights, no house lights, nothing. I pulled over on the side of a corn field. I got out my Complete Idiot’s Guide to Astronomy that I had from the library. I was reading it at work so it was in the back of my car. I consulted a star chart for the summer months on Earth for a few seconds before putting the book aside and rolling a few cigarettes. I got out, sat on the trunk of my car, and lit a smoke. As I put my back against the rear window of my car, I closed my eyes. When I opened them to the sky, I hadn’t prepared myself adequately. The Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy was sprawling across the night. It did kind of look like someone had spilled milk on the sky. It was so huge that it actually took me a second to catch my breath. I recommend finding a place with no lights for miles and just looking at the sky. A thousand years ago, that was like going to the movies. The majesty of the firmament was the most beautiful thing you could see. And you could see it. Anywhere. There were not cities full of electric lights to dim the glow of the stars. Next time you drive out of town and you’re in the middle of nowhere on some highway, pull over and look up. If you live in even a small city, you’ve never seen the stars. Thank you to my other mother for holding me in one of your perfect arms that night.
Alright, I’m done for now.
Love.
Please, above everything else, truly love.
