Above All, Baby's a Blessing

The Boston Herald

If my family were in the middle of nowhere, we would think we were happy. Plunk us on an island with no one else around and we would think it was Eden recreated. That's how charmed we'd feel. That's how blessed.

Take away the doctors and diagnoses, the charts, the predictors, the lab work, the blood tests, the serious faces, the machines that see inside people and the people who see only the outside and we wouldn't know we had a care in the world. We would be picking coconuts and thanking God for Lucy Rose.

That's what we did for 12 hours. Sort of. We thanked God and said how lucky we are and how grateful. And happy? No parents and grandparents were happier.

And then came the doctor's words. And it was Paradise lost. 

But the words didn't change what was. Lucy was still Lucy, blond and blue-eyed and ``wee.'' And we were still in love with her. And the world was still spinning on its axis.  And yet after the words, and since the words, and because of the words, we now see things differently.

Fear has done this. Fear and its long, dark shadows.

If there were a soundtrack accompanying my granddaughter's birth, it would have been full of high notes. Mozart on a tear. Mozart, whose music has spread light into all the dark corners of the world for centuries.

Then came the words ``Down syndrome'' - and because of them more words: electrocardiogram and VSD and PDA and blood flow and hypertension and heart surgery and ``How much is she eating'' and ``How much does she weigh?'' and ``Is she laboring?'' and ``Is she tracking?'' And every day is a test and a measurement, the soundtrack now bad organ music with too many chords off key.

Nothing has changed. Lucy is still Lucy, only in a little bigger size. Words are just words. And the operation has been performed thousands of times.

But fear has a louder voice than reason.

Maybe this is what happened to Adam and Eve. Maybe it was fear that got the best of them, that made them look around and suddenly see Eden as a dangerous place. Animals that had been their friends they now saw as predators. The sun didn't just warm them, it burned them. Even the way they looked at one another was different. And worse was the way they looked at God. They were afraid. And so they hid.

What if they hadn't? What if mankind's big sin isn't disobeying God but is not trusting God? What if it was fear that separated Adam and Eve from Paradise and that now separates us all from God?

It is hard to trust when you're afraid of what's around the corner or who's on the phone and what the next person is going to say. It's hard to see Paradise when there's an operating room in the way. But it's easy when you're holding Lucy. That's when it's bliss. In the day-to-day things. In the now.

Nothing has changed. Lucy is still Lucy. Lucy has blond hair like her mother's and blue eyes and soft skin and rosebud lips that any day are going to turn up into a smile. She's teasing us. She's making us wait.

Throw away the words and she's just a baby.

Throw away the charts and the fear goes away.

Then there would be just Lucy and Paradise regained.