"Lillian"

I’ve never been a ‘baby’ person. Beyond family-lines, I find myself going to great lengths to avoid other people’s children. More to the point, babies frighten me. Babies certainly don’t frighten me in the way that some people have a paralyzing fear of something as innocuous as, say, a clown or a golden retriever. No, the fear has more to do with my own inadequacy as both a caretaker of—and, more to the point, my general lack of wanting—a child of my own. I feel, perhaps out of the Catholic guilt instilled deep within my psyche from my youth, that babies are the sole meaningful contribution one can make to this world. I also see the unabashed joy and sense of wonderment they bring to their doting parents, extended family and such. Thusly, as a gay man who harbors a distinct aversion to ever parenting a child myself, I feel as though I automatically fail on some basic human level.

Yesterday I was in Michigan before Billy, Renae and I took off on our road trip, and something, er… happened. My very dear (and very pregnant) friend of over thirteen years, Kristy, went into labor and birthed a beautiful baby girl, Lillian Beatrice. Upon receiving the news, my sister Anna and I rushed to Hutzel Women’s Hospital in downtown Detroit. There I was afforded the luxury of holding Kristy’s new baby girl in my arms. Gazing into little Lillian’s beautiful eyes, smitten with all her inconceivably cute involuntary noises, her precious fingers tightly curled into warm little fists,and her thick head of black hair, I was suddenly struck by both the fragility of life and the humbling, grounding effect this tiny little life was having on everyone in the room. Here before me was something so much bigger than any one of us standing in that room, something that needed to be taken care of in order to grow into something strong, adept, and self-preserving. Her life force demanded that we step outside ourselves and contribute to something so much bigger than ourselves: her future. I wasn’t expecting such a walloping life lesson so early on in my journey, but that’s the funny thing about said life lessons, they often come from the most unexpected sources.

-Bruce