The Eowiggle

Julien and Christina with Jonathan Dear Baby Jonathan,   The nurses and doctors jeered and mocked. I could see them at the nurses' station. They couldn't understand why your birth was so momentous and why the whole family was there to meet you. These sorts of professionals see the miracle of life every day. Why was it different this time? They cannot look a deformed baby in the face. They would have preferred your parents get rid of it (you) in secret and put an end to this suffering months ago. But your parents were much braver and stronger than that. Instead of skulking away into darkness and taking your life into their own hands, they placed you into the hands of God, your Maker. They let Him make the decision of when to take your life because He gave you to them in the first place. It was not easy. They cried a lot. They had to say good-bye to you before they ever met you because they didn't know that you would be born alive. But you surprise

This post is a follow-up to the story of the accident in which God spared my life ( When in doubt , posted on May 29th). It is also not really my post because my mother wrote it! She should be the one blogging, she's a much better writer than I. Notice the references to the accident and allusions to gymnastics. I would love to be able to write a poem like this for each one of my kids when they leave the house...still a few years away, though. A Mother's Song To Her First-born On Her Twenty-first Birthday You burst, bloody, on my weary soul. Bathed in my tears, your downy cheek Surprises, Comforts a breast as yet unused, Offered, bruised. You look to me and drink. Mother passion rises, Born in after-pains. My womb, your rock, Would follow you. With blood and milk I bought you. You are mine Plaintive wail to happy babble, Hands, once flailing, stroke my face. From quiet eyes you, still, watch and drink. Your wise smile seals our lov

  When the kindergarten beach trip pictures were finally posted, I became hysterical...with laughter.   All the important body parts were, of course, covered and protected from the sun: every child was sporting a hat and sunglasses. The bathing suits I had packed for my children came back clean and neatly folded. A discussion with the teachers would not have helped. "What for?" would have been the response. Birthday suits are better than bathing suits! Still, I was left with the question of how to instill in my children a sense of modesty and propriety in a culture that clearly had very different values surrounding this topic. The FKK (Freikörperkultur, or free body culture, i.e. nudist movement) has become a hallmark of East German culture. Nudism has always existed in Germany, both in the East and the West, and was appropriated by radical representatives of various movements to signalize a return back to nature. The far right made use of it as an expression of G