The Biker and the Baby

I had not seen him for years. At least a decade. He was caught up in his life, hunting down his passion for freedom, speed and community. I knew him as Praveen, younger cousin. Shy, giving and slyly funny.

He died in a motorcycle crash at the age of 41. He told friends if he should ever get into another crash (yes, there had already been one) then he wanted the plug pulled. Not to live an undignified life in a decaying body without the hope of ever straddling a bike or feeling the power of a couple hundred horses at your fingertips. Luckily no one had to make the decision. While his brain was already 90% dead his body followed 2 days later.

His friends knew him as Bean. Friends I never met nor ever knew in association with him. But these friends, a biker association known as the Tradesmen gave him an honor he would have appreciated. Some 50 motorcycles escorting his body as it was given to the earth on a cold Maryland November.

Odd how life finds a way to balance itself in every act. While i was still assimilating my cousin's loss Thanksgiving rolled around. Food, movies, food and more food. Cousins, my most memorable childhood playmates and now, most precious companions fill every hour of the holiday. Then in perfect sychronicity, I see my new neice and Goddaughter, Sophia. A mere 5 months old and impossibly beautiful. She gladly climbs into my arms, unknown to her except for a few hours after birth while her mother regained strength enough to carry her tiny body.

She is sassy and charmingly grumpy. The things a baby can get away with! She has gray eyes. GRAY EYES! And she is fresh and decidedly unconcerned about the economy, or the state of the Yen or Ruble or Rupee.

As one of us passes to his next life another steps into our world, taking her place in the family strata. It is heart breaking, yet fitting. The family moves on.

When a Woman Wants a Baby

This is not a gentle, warm hearted story of a miracle baby birth. It’s a tale about the power of desire. This is a story of femininity unleashed in all its aspects: ability to create, to destroy, to heal, to love.

My cousin Radha is the focal point of this entry, and a more befitting name could not exist. In Hindu divinity, the relationship of Radha and Krishna is the embodiment of love, passion and devotion. Radha's passion for Krishna symbolizes the soul's intense longing and willingness for the ultimate unification with God. Fitting I say for my cousin is a woman of unnerving beauty and a hunger that won't be denied. Sometimes that passion finds its focal point in the love for family, for a man. At other times it seeks all things dark and forbidden. And no, she’s not a Scorpio, that’s for another entry.

At the time of her 40th birthday last year she had embarked on a divorce. Wornout after 5 years with a man who gave up pretence of a normal life and descended into his own dark journey, she devolved into the phrase I most loathe: the woman she thought she should be. So she treated herself to a getaway weekend with big cousin Rake on the outskirts of NY. We smoked a lot and drank even more. We ate dim sum, fabulous Mexican finger foods and talked our tongues raw. Came 3:00 am Saturday night - the witching hour. Fatted and still not purged of our thoughts we sat in my garden sanctuary, burned an outdoor fire and sipped far too young Chardonnay.

"Read cards for me," she asked. When the birthday girl asks I comply. So I read, quite a lovely spread for it promised love, wealth and progeny. "You know" she said, "all I want right now is a child. I don’t want a husband, I don’t even want a boyfriend. All I want is to be a mother."

Now this is where the cautionary part comes to play. I don’t care if you’re not burning an outdoor fire in a charming garden. I don’t care if you’re not sipping wine or reading a deck of Tarot. What I will say is this: when you proclaim to the stars, to the universe, to your God a statement of such longing and unadulterated desire, the forces that be listen.

They listened to Radha which is why Monday, June 30 at 5:23 pm I was holding her hand while her baby girl Sophia was born. The child is so perfectly beautiful it’s almost a shame. I almost feel bad for spotty, pointy headed babies who squall and flail their bald heads uselessly. Sophia has a rosebud mouth - dark pink, pouty already accustomed to the perfect moue. Her bottom lip quivers when she cries, which she does often to showcase her robust lungs. In direct contrast to her tiny, barely 6 pound body. But a perfect 6 pounds. I remember a friend who upon birthing a premature baby told me how tiny her wee one was. “I feel like I had a cat,” she confessed. Sophia in no way resembles a cat, except for the fact that she adores sleeping. The warm crook of an arm, a snuggly bosom and she’s snoozing with her impossibly teeny fingers curled about her binkie. Territorial, that one.

One thing I will always remember about her birth. When the doctors slashed open her mother, jostled and dragged her out. And forced her to breathe her first breath of cold, human air. When she was only minutes old after being wiped clean of chalky, sticky, bloody amniotic fluid by a kind but rough nurse. Careful I wanted to scream, that's an INFANT as the nurse balanced her in one open palm while typing data into the computer with another. When she was placed in my terrified arms (Don’t trip Rekha, don’t trip was my mantra) and I held her close to her mother, she opened her gray-green eyes and looked directly at her mom. As the Bard would have said: "tis a consumation devoutly to be wished for."

You know the old dictum - be careful what you wish for? Rubbish I say. Rejoice, cajol, demand your desires. For this life is for no one else but yourself. Discover your deepest wish and tell the stars, the mailman, your husband from dawn til midnight. I don’t care if you’re 4 or 40, unearth that which is your ultimate love and seek it.

You might not birth a perfect child but I’m guessing it will be perfect - for you.