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A True Miracle

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Clarissa

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Klara caught a stomach bug at school and has been unwell. Finally, she fell asleep and had a dream about a sick little chicken called Esmeralda. I’ll never find it anything less than amazing that she’s a whole separate human being with her own inner world that is completely different from mine.

First, she’s a little pulse on a screen at 5 weeks of pregnancy, and then she’s a person with a subjectivity populated by little chickens called Esmeralda.

I can’t get over the sheer miraculousness of this.

10 responses to “A True Miracle”

  1. Demotrash Avatar
    Demotrash

    It’s heartening to see people who can continue growing and changing well into middle age. Though in many ways she has not changed so much.

    https://unherd.com/2023/11/why-i-am-now-a-christian/

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    1. Demotrash Avatar
      Demotrash

      (realized it does not say in preview: this is Ayaan Hirsi Ali)

      Like

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    2. Ileana Avatar
      Ileana

      Exactly, you can’t push back in a void, you need a medium, just like pumps can’t push back unless there’s gas or liquid. That’s why Los Reyes Catolicos were able to defeat the Muslims, they had strong faith.

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    3. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      She’s a really amazing person. A true thinker who never stops growing.

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  2. xykademiqz Avatar
    xykademiqz

    That’s truly the best thing about being a parent. Seeing a person develop from literally nothing, and suddenly they have thoughts and opinions and dreams and it’s the most awesome thing. People also don’t appreciate how truly chill little kids are; they have very little context for a lot of what is happening to them, yet they go with the flow most of the time; if a grownup lived with so little autonomy or clue about how the world worked, they would be perpetually screaming.

    I also love the fact that kids truly love you (the parent) unconditionally. (Sadly, that’s also the source of much childhood abuse, but let’s not take this depressing road and focus on positive parent-child interactions.) They accept you exactly how you are, which is not something I’d ever experienced before having kids (everyone else always found me lacking one way or another and let me know in no uncertain terms that their affection was contingent on my continued performance and/or my ability to change this or that about myself). A couple of months ago, I got ahold of some pics from when I was in college (I have no pics here, but I reconnected with an old friend on Facebook who sent me a few). These were photos from when I was 20 or 21 and I looked young and fit and hot (alas, even then people were telling me I had to be thinner, and my then-boyfriend, now a longtime ex, was regularly hinting that if I ever gained any weight, he would leave because gaining weight was apparently the most unforgivable thing that a woman could do to her male partner). Anyway, my 12-yo kid looked at the pics briefly and said he liked better how I looked now (which objectively is not true, I am 50 now, have given birth three times, and have a sedentary job; I decidedly do NOT look better now), but the point is that the young woman in the pictures is a stranger to my son. He likes everything about me because I’m his mom and he loves me. It’s such a healing thing. (Not that people should have kids as a form of therapy; absolutely not; but it’s a nice perk of having them.) I try to give my kids the boundless and unconditional love that every kid should receive growing up. I didn’t have it growing up, so I do my best and hope it’s enough.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      That’s so true. My daughter finds me endlessly fascinating. It’s like all of a sudden being a movie star whose every gesture is important and meaningful. It’s really beautiful.

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      1. methylethyl Avatar
        methylethyl

        I find this terrifying. When I hear my eldest repeat one of my opinions without knowing how I came to that conclusion… I’m horrified. Like, no, come to your own conclusions kid.

        Liked by 1 person

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          Before that happens, they’ll need to go through the stage of thinking the exact opposite of what you do about everything. 🙂

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          1. methylethyl Avatar
            methylethyl

            Oi! May we all survive the experience.

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          2. methylethyl Avatar
            methylethyl

            …but yeah. How old do they have to be, before they can think it through for themselves and come up with their own ideas? Like, it makes me so uncomfortable when they parrot me. I would so much rather they disagree, based on their own thought processes, even if it’s wrong because they don’t have all the information, or maybe it means I’m wrong because I haven’t thought of the thing they came up with!

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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