Sicily

Eight years ago today, I was sitting in a sterile white  hospital room in Lexington, Virginia.  Having recently moved to this small, middle of nowhere town, I barely knew anyone and all family was far away.  I was one of two women on the maternity floor waiting to give birth that day.  I remember that fact for two reasons.  One, the nurses were especially attentive that day, something I couldn't say of my first two births. And two, it was quiet.  Too quiet.  The kind of quiet that makes you want to turn on the television just so you don't feel alone in the room.   Though soon enough the room was a bustle of activity.  It wasn't a long birth like my previous two.  This baby was ready to come out and meet the world.  Those attentive nurses wrapped the screaming, pink bundle in a warm receiving blanket and handed her back to me.  As I held my daughter for the first time, I remember that the room grew quiet again.  I'm sure that this time  it wasn't.  I'm sure that there were all of the sounds of a birth room buzzing around me, but all I remember is the quiet.  This was a different kind of quiet. This was the kind of quiet that is filled with peace.  The kind of quiet where the world melts away and all you know is that moment.   As I held this tiny creature in my arms, all I knew was her.  In those two seconds of pure quiet a bond was formed between mother and child.  One that can never be broken.  She is born straight from my heart.

As the years have passed, that tiny bundle of pink has grown up into a beautiful girl.  She is full of energy and spunk.  She possess a wild freedom and self assurance that is tempered only by her genuine compassion.  We were recently walking around our small downtown hoping to see the ice sculptures that had been installed earlier in the day.  When we got there we discovered a group of teenagers destroying the sculptures for their own twisted fun.  Both of my daughters were upset, but this youngest one cried big tears and became filled with a fierce anger at the injustice.  She wasn't angry that she couldn't see the sculptures.  She was angry that one person would destroy another person's hard work.  She cried for the artist.  This is who she is.  She cries in righteous anger one day and laughs with mischief the next.   She is a true sprite.  A force of magic in this world.  Her eyes twinkle with it.  From day one, she has had the ability to make my world stop in an instant.  Those magic eyes can look straight through me and warm my heart.  She takes her name from an island in the sun.  She is an island of sun.  Bright star.  Sicily.