Our Time in Eden

{Originally posted on Slouching Past 40}

How does it happen that a sixteen-month-old girl with eyes that managed to reflect all of the abundant colors of the ocean at once and with a smile containing such joy that strangers couldn’t help but smile with her, a girl with all of it before her (only 500 days under her belt, give or take), might be here one moment and gone the next?

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I do not know. I am one of the lucky ones. My son comes home with a sore throat and later spikes a fever. His temperature soars, and I fret. I take him to the doctor, who diagnoses strep throat and hands me a prescription for penicillin. Eighteen hours and three pills later, my child looks and feels remarkably better. He is no longer pale with a slightly greenish cast. He is not hot to the touch. Fatigue does not ring his eyes. I can’t believe how well this medicine works!, he grins. I could almost have gone to school today! And then he glances at me. Worry has crossed his face. He amends: Well, not almost… I’ll be ready tomorrow, though.

All of us wanted Maddie’s story to go like this, and most of us expected that it would.

But a few of you know better. Experience has taught you different and cruel lessons. You were cast out of Eden some time ago. The rest of us bite our lips and hold our children closer, huddling up against one another, afraid that we, too, might be called on, might have to forsake the complacence we clutch as tightly as we do those children of ours, might have to bump up against the fact that our children are mortal, no different from us, from our parents, from their parents and all the parents before them, too. What hubris we show when we congratulate ourselves on how well we’ve managed to protect our offspring when the reality is that we have so little to do with it. (Parents in L’Aquila, Italy were no doubt feeling ridiculously self-satisfied until the moment the earthquake took down their houses, and, in some cases, their children along with them.)

Let’s open our eyes, eyes that are not nearly as beautiful as Maddie’s, but eyes that have seen enough to understand. We are lucky to be here. We do not deserve our good fortune any more than those who’ve suffered misfortune deserve their lot.

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By all means, hug your children tighter (why not?), but don’t harbor the illusion that you are doing something especially right when they hug you back with the energy and vigor that signifies good health. Being smug, or righteous, will make your expulsion from Eden — should it come to that, and I hope against hope that it doesn’t — even harder to bear.

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Keep smiling, Maddie. Float on all the love that surrounded you, that surrounds you still. You can breathe freely now.

I’m so sorry, Heather and Mike. Just so sorry.

Readers, please consider making a donation to the March of Dimes in memory of Madeline Alice Spohr. Thank you.

Editor’s Pick by Catnip at Catnip and Coffee. So often the things I feel in my heart are what Slouching Mom puts into her writing. Her beautiful post about Maddie is no exception. I don’t know how to put in words the pain and sadness I feel as a mother for what Heather and her family are going through. I’m grateful for those writers who can express it so well. Heather, you are loved, and Maddie will never be forgotten by any of us.

Maddie Spohr passed away on April 7, 2009. Maddie’s mom’s blog, The Spohrs Are Multiplying, may be up and down this week due to high traffic demands. Fellow bloggers are helping to stabilize the site, but keep checking back. Regular updates are available via their friend Meghan, as well.

In the meantime, please show your support by donating to the March of Dimes (in lieu of flowers, at the family’s request)