Dear littlest bee,
This hive never ceases, and you were born into the steady, hectic hum of our activities. Here someone is always dashing around with a Swiffer duster in hand as a sword, perched with a pile of books on the couch, reading Elephant & Piggie adventures aloud to themselves. Someone is always almost kicking someone else with the new bouncy ball, or wailing about whether they had a turn with play-doh or blocks or asking for another story another moment another question another hug.
My little bee, you are no less busy than the rest of us, but you are delighted to weave amongst us a tune of your own, finding our objects the moment we set them down: books and empty coffee cups, stuffed turtles and toy bones, a flashlight, a plate. You parade through the house with your finds, and it is enough for someone to pause, to name what you are holding, to tell you we see this, we see you before you are off again.
These are the heady days of summer, when your legs are covered in bug bits I can never sufficiently protect against, and the sun brushes your cheeks pink from within the mask of SPF 50. Here is where we begin to see how much of the world is just given to us with that lavishness that borders on recklessness: here, I imagine God saying, here, here, here, have more of this blue heron on the water and more of the Carolina wren beneath the tree, have untold amounts of sunlight or thunderstorm, have more of the flowers blazing with life.
Here you are, ablaze with that same life, little bee. We sing Baby Beluga to each other in diaper changes and sitting on my bed in a rare moment of solitude. You clap and laugh, a sound I cannot possibly deserve, the laughter bubbling like water from some hidden well. You smile at us with triumph at being, and I am triumphant on your behalf: you are.
Here in the hive I am tempted to think always about the lack of time or space. I tell myself we are so on top of each other, on top of each other’s time, and demands, and voices overlapping. Can I answer any of you adequately? Can I rise like bread in the windowsill to meet what you ask of me? I do not know. Maybe I cannot know. Maybe hidden in motherhood is the impossibility of knowing our next steps, hour to hour or year to year.
And still you all were given to me, lavishness that is God’s love made wild in flesh and bone: you, little bee, in this world with me, in this hive of noise and crying and laughing, of love and of fights over whose turn it is to kick the soccer ball.
You are here, ablaze in your being.
I love you.
Love,
mom