a mighty force

Occasionally a slice of the ethereal slips through the cosmos and into our hands. As I picked up maia to place her in her highchair offerings of Unspoken Requests tinkled in my ears. This was a moment ripe with senzuqtian otherness… the music elevating the lifting of my daughter off the ground into an unending moment in time. Here she was. My daughter. The little life, the little person that I—along with my dear wife—am responsible for. As she started to cry, I corrected her, telling her not to fuss, that it was “time for dinner, maia, and we have to wash your hands”. But than I realized that her bottom was trembling and her cry was not one rank with protest so much as one implicit with need. She needed her diaper changed, but apparently she had needed it changed a while ago. The Rash had set in. So mommy and daddy went to work. Toiling over the needy little one year old, busying ourselves with paper towels, diapers and desitin. All the while, Maia feigning bravery the best she could. This has become routine for her in the midst of a diaper rash cleansing. She grasps for the things around her petitioning, “dis? Dis?” trying not to pay attention to the painful process. As daddy puts on the desitin, mommy proclaims, “daddy’s doing a good job, isn’t he?” and little Maia claps. But suddenly there is a more urgent need. Laying on the changing table, she reaches up for mommy with a slight whine (“ehh?... ehh?”). Kelli bows down and Maia takes her head into her arms. She smiles. I tell her to give mommy a kiss. So she tilts her head back, ever so slightly, and presses her closed mouth against Kelli’s cheek, topping it off with a quick, “mmmmm-muh”. Then she starts the whole process over again, this time reaching up for her daddy, grabbing his face, kissing his cheek and topping it off with another great “mmmmm-muh”… Suddenly, and without warning, an invisible and silent “pop” resonates throughout the room. A mighty force not to be reckoned with, it slams into my heart, the slice of timelessness breaking it to pieces. My tiny tear-ducts spill over vainly—in a brash attempt to comprehend. No matter. It’s not about me, her or us anyway… we’re just the innocent bystanders.