Little
Back when I was teaching HKCE English Lit, we went through a piece called "A Letter to Our Son." While my revelation of the author's later divorcing of his wife and rejection of his family made it impossible for my students to be moved by the piece, to me it remains a beautiful letter.
He writes about how he and the mother met, the painful birthing process, their falling in love with the baby. At one point he calls him "little," and talks about how he used to disdain that word, but realizes that there is no other word to describe his baby.
I thought about that today when Zeke stood up at the coffee table, his shoulders just above the tabletop. Zeke has tripled in weight the last few months and grown much longer, yet because he is standing up and in that posture takes on the semblance of a grown person, he looks smaller than ever - a munchkin, a miniature, heartbreakingly short and adorable with his little arms and little legs.
Little fingers, little hands, little belly, little feet, little mouth, little chubby cheeks. Little Zeke.
I used to shun all things cutesy and feel embarrassed by sentimentality. But I embrace it now - because the saccharine is tender if true, and the sweetest love has become true over the last few months.
He writes about how he and the mother met, the painful birthing process, their falling in love with the baby. At one point he calls him "little," and talks about how he used to disdain that word, but realizes that there is no other word to describe his baby.
I thought about that today when Zeke stood up at the coffee table, his shoulders just above the tabletop. Zeke has tripled in weight the last few months and grown much longer, yet because he is standing up and in that posture takes on the semblance of a grown person, he looks smaller than ever - a munchkin, a miniature, heartbreakingly short and adorable with his little arms and little legs.
Little fingers, little hands, little belly, little feet, little mouth, little chubby cheeks. Little Zeke.
I used to shun all things cutesy and feel embarrassed by sentimentality. But I embrace it now - because the saccharine is tender if true, and the sweetest love has become true over the last few months.
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