The Never-Children Are His Always Children
The Never-Children Are His Always Children 07/02/24 One still-born baby is one baby too much for a mother. Their unrealized futures, like the Northern Lights, forever a wonder, forever beyond reach. The mother carries the child around in her mind, never abandoning the baby. Yet there is a blank space. Where is the child crying for her, looking up at her? There is only putu , as the Inuits say, a hole. There is weeping. The earned sorrow of it. Grief sifting through mother-life and father-life. Still-born babies are never-children. “And so, the Lord God formed man of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man was made into a living soul” (Gen. 2:7, trans. mine ). Our children come from the earth. From out of the earth. We don’t need to frack, God will dig them up. Every whittled cell, all the flaky platelets, and each carved limb is in his imagination before he speaks and his words dredge children into existence. But many childr...
