Am I Glad I Was Born? What Kind Of Question Is That?

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The other day I asked my son whether I could have just as easily been a rock instead of me. He looked at me, knowing I was up to my usual mental shenanigans.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Both of my sons are my math-physics-tech encyclopedias in the flesh. Since they were young, I’d ask them to teach me something they knew. While I knew this was helping them learn to speak cogently, I also knew nothing of what they knew. It was a win-win. I’ve gotten many lessons over the years, and lately, I ask about physics because I know zilch about this subject and I’m half intrigued — but only half.

“I thought there was some law of relativity or thermodynamics — you know, that all energy is neither created nor destroyed type of thing going on out there. So, technically, couldn’t I have been a rock? Or is it that one day I’ll be a rock?”

“Mom, seriously, what are you talking about?”

“Let’s say the egg that was going to be me never got in touch with the sperm that was going to be me, so I flushed out of the system and went into the trash pile or the septic system and then became the ground and then later a rock.”

“Well,” my son said, so wisely, “that egg was never you.”

[blank stare]

That one, he gets his smarts from me.

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Every few years I think about the magnitude of the mathematical near impossibility that describes my existence. It’s a fleeting thought that passes through sporadically in my life, here in the simple 1 +1 = 2 daily world. One of the few gems from my father-in-law I still carry with me is the awe he felt for this truth. The chances that I was born to the parents I was born to, in the country I was born in, at the time of history in which I came to be is a stunning, heart-stopping unlikelihood.

It’s rare for me to pause and truly imagine this. I’m too caught up in the world, my life, the moment, the imagining of things. I have a love-hate relationship with my interest in the cosmos. It’s both fascinating and devastating. I can see why people shun it in favor of the concept of fate. But to my mind, the inconceivability of the cosmos is the twin of fate — both are unknowable siblings from the mother, What Is All This? One is awe personified; the other is awe quantified. For either one, you must quiet your mind and accept the magnitude.

Perhaps astrophysicists and the enlightened have a better understanding, but I’m just little old me. Instead of trying to know what this all is, I try to notice it more and appreciate it. Why suffer over something you’ll never know? Why not revel, enjoy, and feel the gratitude for life that acceptance provides?

Which leads me to — am I glad I was born?

You blink, dumbfounded. “Well, obviously!” you say.

And you’re right.

I am glad. More than I can say. My life is built on a mountain of gratitude ever since I can remember. I didn’t know it was gratitude when I was a girl, but I would often observe nature and think to myself, that is the most amazing thing. Or, in kidspeak, Wow.

ALL THE BEAUTY

My childhood was spent in rural Pennsylvania, and our backyard abutted a cornfield. The rows of corn, much taller than me, were the coolest thing you can imagine. If you stood in the middle of a row, it felt like an open-air tunnel, a clandestine maze. My siblings and I — my only friends back then — would run through, playing hide-and-seek. But don’t worry. We were good to the corn. What I liked most about those corn playdates was the intersection of competition, mysterious surroundings, and feeling lost in a field of plants. It was a comprehensive challenge to the heart and mind.

I’m glad I was born for that.

Then there is the night sky. My reverence for it is part of my identity. Years ago, I didn’t understand how you could love something that unsettles you. But I’ve learned it’s possible to love such a thing from the confines of a tiny life. It makes that love a fact of beauty — forever.

The other night my son and I were taking a stroll and out popped the moon as we rounded a patch of trees. It was enormous and glowing. The sky wasn’t black yet, but a sweet dark blue showcasing this massive lunar statement in the sky. Usually, the buzz of the summer cicadas is the statement of the night, but when the moon grows plump, nothing else can be heard, seen, or considered. It takes center stage as if Shakespeare himself was back from the dead. “Tomorrow and tomorrow!” the giant orbital rock says. Everyone is rapt. Everyone is in that theater.

Thank goodness I was born for that.

SPEAKING OF ROCKS

I’m a rock nerd. Aren’t they the coolest things you’ve ever laid eyes on? No? Well, open your eyes, especially on a beach or a mountain trail or even in parking lots. I do own some notable specimens and have a growing collection of fossils. But museum value aside, with no shame or self-questioning, I own a handful of rocks that came from the parking lot of my youngest son’s college apartment building. The day I moved him out of his apartment after graduation, I bent down and rummaged through a mixed bed of landscaping stones. Today they sit outside my home in my yard as relics of the time when my kids were in college, a memento of those years. To see them makes me weepy-eyed. Rocks, weeping — they go hand in hand for me.

And things can do that for us. Not necessarily that fancy new couch, but the relics of memories that are the support beams for the house of our lives. How else do you prove you were alive except for memory? I’ll tell you. Rocks.

I’d never have known rocks if I hadn't been born.

MY PEOPLE

I’m glad I was born because I cherish people, and above all, my sons. Those two men are the anchor for me in this life. The bond that was made is my forever gratitude.

Yes, the moon and the stars. Yes, the rocks and the corn. But more so, my sons. To be a parent and to love the way I’ve been able to — this was a big why for me. I have other whys and reasons to be glad. I have tomorrow  and there I plan to do most things outside the realm of my sons, for they’re grown now, and my mothering days are slimmed down to more friends than parent-child.

But today and tomorrow, there’s still much for me to do, see, revel in, and play with. I’m so glad I was born for that. Now let’s just hope I don’t die. But that’s for another story.

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Have a good week, my friends.