To Love Brief

   Today there is new life.  Or rather, there is old as this is the vessel of a wise and noble soul.  He is too small, they say, and the boundless potential of new life seems to lose its sheen behind plastic.  But that is the burden of so many without purple hearts or battle scars. So are we to weep and moan?  She at the summit of her evolutionary use; I, the culpable bystander whose empathy falls well within normal limits. 
   Yes, our grief is as honest as it is expected, but we cannot help but find ourselves enamored of him.  Although he seems an intubated, incubated, and perfectly sterilized prop, I find his beauty enthralling.  We are not speaking in biological terms, but in the language of ignorant and dangerous love.  He is no swami or Buddha or guru.  Still, we are none of those either.  His charm lies in twenty digits, two ocular cavities, and a set of vocal chords to rival the Sirens. 
   And perhaps all the progenitors of generations past have come to the same conclusions, but only a handful have witnessed an entire lifespan in less than two days.You may think us crazy, now.  We say to you that we lived a lifetime with our offspring and you make reassuring gestures and whisper platitudes.  But you did not see him then.  He laughed - a great, full-bellied laugh.  He cried the purest tears for lost toys, friends, lovers, and parents.  We walked with him in the sunlight and grew as old as he did strong. And we loved him. 
   We are satisfied with his life - perhaps the fullest we have known.  A wonderful child may also be fleeting.  We are not promised a lifetime of parenthood or nurturing, and today parenthood has been as brief as the belabored and arbitrary inhalations and exhalations of a pair of mechanically-sustained lungs.  Yet, we are not deprived.  Our child has not been taken too soon.  His suffering has ended and we are left the poorer for it, but what these two great harbingers of love will miss the most is the sound of his laughter echoing in that warm home.