five

M turned five today, her most perfectly amazing self has turned another year. We've been excited about this for weeks, five is so much bigger than four and as such great merriment must be made. We also made a point of celebrating four, all the things that four brought that will never be again, things she's outgrown and also mastered and all the things yet to be.

We decided to have a small party at the house, she invited two or three friends and along with them comes a host of adults, village neighbors and surrogate aunties and the like. Every single person who has been invited has immediately asked me what they can bring and how they can help, something so common here and yet it still floors me every time, folks who have nothing still ready to give what they have. I also secretly think they think I am rather useless in the ways of jungle life, and as such if food is going to be prepared the way it should they'd better lend a hand.

We wanted to keep it simple, things here are done differently, there are no presents or goody bags, food is simple and there is no entertainment aside from each other. We talked about this a lot, how this party will be different than ones in the States, how we will have some presents for her but we won't open them at the party, having our own private breakfast celebration instead. M seems okay with all of it, she is nothing if not flexible, learning another way of life at an early age has had this very positive affect on her and I am so thankful, realizing how easily it could have gone the other way.

So today we celebrate our child, my child, my only-born, this great beaming bucket of sparkly rainbows who never stops laughing and is always ready for a hug. My big girl, my five year old magic maker, this little person I love more than I love anything else in this world, this sweet girl child who takes my heart outside of my chest with her everywhere she goes. I am so unfailingly in awe and delight and in love with her, I curve my hand around her still rounded belly and I hold her close and breathe her in and I know in this moment and in every moment that I am so richly blessed by her, that it is the supreme honor of my life to be the one she chose to guide her along her path and I do it with determination and with honor and sometimes with frustration and selfishness but no matter what I try and do my best because that's the least she deserves in this life and no matter where we raise her and no matter how we live she knows without a doubt how much she is loved and celebrated and on good days we even make it fun.

Happy Birthday, you magnificent, remarkable, bright and beaming girl. I love you always and in every way.

new

There's a crowd in the front, as I walk the long hall I can't quite tell what folks are looking at, the mood feels fine but the crowd is well, crowded. As I get closer I see little wheels in the center of the action and as I get even closer I realize it's a carriage. We've got a baby in the house.

He's adorable. Freshly born skin and curly hair, he's nestled into this somewhat second hand stroller sleeping away the morning while a motley assortment of folks ooh and ahh. Even the toughest dudes are checking him out, no one and I mean no one can resist a brand new baby.

I stop and lean down, I watch him move his tiny hands in his sleep and look at his mama. He's perfect, I say and she smiles. For one brief minute the surroundings fade away, the reasons she's here and the fact that this is where his life is beginning, it all slips into the background and we are just two mamas standing in a crowd looking at a miracle. The background comes forward again and in this minute I want to cry, because this is where his life is beginning and I know the reasons she is here must be terrible too. I suppose we all need to take things moment by moment in order to make sense of it all or otherwise it might simply be too much.

I'm bringing some sisters in over the next week to have their say because I am ass over teakettle consumed with work. I'll be around on and off but these women have kindly agreed to stack the house starting tomorrow and I couldn't be happier having them here.

little big girl

She pokes her head around the corner of my office. Jen? I look up. It's a girl I've known since she was 11 and I haven't seen her in a year or so and she's probably 16 by now. Her long hair falls around her face. Oh my god, honey. Hi! I jump up and walk over to the door and open my arms to embrace her.

She walks around the door and I can see her fully. Holy shit, she's enormously pregnant. I look at her belly and look in her eyes. She looks at me and then away and I give her an awkward strong hug.

So, babe, holy shit. You look absolutely beautiful but wow, this is a surprise. I know, she says. I had to come and see you. I'm so fat. Honey, you aren't fat, you're pregnant. And exhausted too, right? She nods her beautiful head.

She came to us five or so years ago, her mom had left a horrible abuser and was attempting to raise her and her little brothers on her own for the first time. Mom was terrific but overwhelmed, a lifetime of abuse and poverty had dictated her reality, she had babies too soon and struggled ever since. Ami was the oldest and adorable, a young girl who'd seen too much and wanted the love of her father above all else, something she'd never get to have.

She quickly took to some of us and over the course of a couple of years we became surrogate older sisters. I remember her coming to talk about sex when she was 13, a terrifying conversation of peer pressure and boys, of risks and loneliness and confusion. I tried then to dissuade her, to remind her of her beauty and strength and value. She listened and yet took some the condoms from the dish on my desk and I knew then and in the year to come, by the make up on her face and the clothes she wore, I knew we were going to lose her. I've seen it too many times, this desperate searching for love.

They moved out and on and at the time I told her what I tell all the kids, that they can always call and I am always here. I can imagine the courage it took to finally show up today as pregnant as she was.

She looks so small to me now, her gigantic belly covered by a t-shirt with bunnies on it, the irony is almost too much. Are you okay? How can I help?

I'm so scared to have this baby, I know it's going to hurt so much. Well, babe, it probably will. But you'll get through it because you are one of the strongest girls I know.

Are you mad at me? She looks down at her belly. Honey, of course not. But I'm sad for you because you are still so young to be going through this and to be honest, I am somewhat in a state of shock. What happened to the condoms? She smiles. I knew you'd say something like this. And yet she came anyway.

It's a boy, she says. I'm naming him Alex after his dad. I smile while simultaneously wanting to find this little fucker and strangle him. That's a good strong name, babe. A perfect name. She lifts her little Hello Kitty backpack onto her lap and starts looking for something. Stickers and a stuffed animal and gum and a bunch of papers are piled onto my desk. She finds what she's looking for and hands it to me. It's a sonogram picture. He's gorgeous, I say. I can't wait to meet him.

We talk a bit more and she asks some birthing related questions and all of a sudden her mom walks into the room. She looks at me and comes over and hugs me and I look at her too and I want to cry. So what do you think? She says. I think you're going to have your hands full grandma. She smiles. I know. She's so young and I wanted her life to be different than mine.

And I don't have the words because I believe her and yet it's so obvious this was where Ami was headed, it was all the life she knew. It's the intergenerational poverty and a broken family and the repeating the past that slays me the most, this beautiful girl never really had a chance.

It's time for them to go and we all hug again. I hold Ami tight and remind me that I am here to help. I just wanted to see you, she says. I'll call you after the baby comes so you can come see him.

And I will. And we'll help her if she needs us, the mother passes to the daughter and the daughter becomes a mother, babies having babies and the drum beats on.

eight years old

Eight years ago this month I helped deliver a baby, the first birthing I'd ever been a part of. The mom was living where I was working with her two children and one on the way. She was an amazing woman, she'd left a very difficult situation and was navigating life on her own with her kids, in poverty and alone and yet with extraordinary grace. She'd asked me to be present at the birth because there was no one else and I said yes because she asked and because there was no one else.

We never spent any time preparing for the birth, and in my ignorance I hadn't thought to ask what sort of help she wanted because to be honest she'd asked for nothing other than my presence. Now that I know what I know I'd have handled it differently but that was then and this is now and if I could go back in time I certainly would. She went into labor in the middle of the night and I went to be with her and 10 or so hours later she gave birth and I was there for all of it and I swore off ever having a baby and was completely humbled all at the same time. I remember going home from the hospital and sobbing for hours, great buckets of tears from exhaustion and marvel and admiration and fear. She soon moved out with her beautiful children into her own home and a new life. She stayed in touch for awhile, a bond had formed between us during the birth, something sacred and quiet that we never much discussed.

She called me on Xmas Eve, a few years have passed since we'd spoke and no news is good news, being forgotten is a good thing in the work I'm in. But she was in trouble for the first time in a long time, her housing had fallen apart and she was in a bad spot, she and her kids were in a motel. Time was of the essence because nothing sucks up your money faster than a nightly motel and I could hear it in her voice I know it's been awhile but I hope you remember me, you helped deliver my baby eight years ago and I need your help one more time. On Xmas I connected her with a colleague who I knew could help and that good soul came through yesterday and my old friend can move her children into her new home today. So I sat up late last night remembering for the first time in a long time the gift she gave me way back when as she showed me a new kind of courage, bravely birthing her child with love and with grace, alone with no visitors or flowers in a cold hospital room and not much more than a stranger beside her holding her hand as she pushed.

the boy in the box

She gave birth to him without insurance, without prenatal care, without knowing much about anything. She labored alone, birthed alone, and held her baby alone.

The next day she was asked to leave. The birth was normal, they told her. It's time to go. You do have somewhere to go, right? (the answer to this question needs to be yes) and so she left. Alone, she left the hospital and waited at the bus station. Her clothes and the blankets from the hospital wrapped around the baby.

The bus came and she got on. There is a bus that rides all night long, it's infamous; a mobile shelter of sorts. She rode, and as she rode she got to know her son. She gave him a very big name, four different names with many syllables, so many perhaps, to cloak himself with. His name is very exotic, it's fit for a king. Her son and his very big name.

After two days of riding the bus she got off. Hungry and tired, unsure. A mother. Somehow she was directed to us, somehow she wandered in. Head down, voice low, she mumbled. A mumbler, I thought. Mumbling isn't good.

At her feet was a box, a box one might think is full of clothes, of a few belongings. As she waited at the counter the box made a noise. A noise making box, I thought. This also isn't good.

She reached down and lifted up the boy with many names. A baby is in that box, I thought. This is really, really not so good.

I am so tired of riding the bus, she said. I can't do it anymore. And nor should you. You must be hungry, let's get you something to eat.

She pushes up her sleeve when she sits down, medical bracelet still on her wrist. I notice then there is one on her son, it's still there too. May I hold your baby so you can eat? Only if I sit right there, and sitting right there is fine with me.

He is beautiful. A head full of hair, snuggled in sleep. He sighs and jerks. You must be exhausted, I say. She's yet to look me in the eye.

As luck would have it, we have room for them. After dinner she settles in, other moms swarm around her, advice brimming, useful and not. She sits quietly, head lowered. I imagine her wishing she could disappear. She holds her son to her chest.

In the morning she takes her baby to the makeshift clinic onsite. The nurse says he's fine, and makes sure she knows how to feed him. It's not often she gets to show someone how to do that, and she's kind with the woman, so kind. She finds a can of formula, just in case you need a break or he's still hungry after you feed him, she says. She also arranges to see them again tomorrow, and somehow that made things feel a bit better, at least for me. Please, I say. I know, the nurse says. I'll do all I can to help.

I met her three years ago this month, this woman and the boy in the box with four very big names. After six months we lost track of them, but I hope those six months mattered. She lived in the shelter, and she learned how to be a mom, perhaps not in that order, but together all the same. This boy and his mom, in a different sort of box, a kind not so easily disposed of. I remember this night like it was yesterday.

I can't help but think about how M was born six months after he was, and how they are so close in age and yet so far apart. I wonder how we can make that gap smaller, and not just for this boy in a box with four very big names.