I stand in the dark corridor and look through the large hospital
window into the nursery. The babies are
all asleep in their tiny cots. I count the rows, 11 babies in all. 11 tiny,
round heads, eyes closed and crinkled at the edges. For a second I am hit by
the magnitude of the moment. Before me lay 11 brand new lives, untouched, unspoilt
and brand new, 11 fresh starts.
It’s 2am and I let my imagination run away with me. In this
small town there is every chance that these 11 lives will become more and more intertwined
in the crosswinds of life.
Baby 2 is going to be
a genius, numbers and letters and formulae are going to fall into place without
having to think about them. His parents with compare their other children to
him, lining up his achievement awards on the mantle.
Baby 7 will grow tall and blond and popular. She will be
cheer captain and homecoming queen. Then one day she will wake up only to find
that she has become the image of her mother, everything she promised herself she
would never be.
Baby 9 and Baby 3 will be high school sweethearts. he will ask her to marry him on a cloudless summer day when the sky is as blue as her eyes. They will
fight the odds, distance and fate so that 25 years from now they can look
through the very same window at their own little girl.
Baby 5 will find it harder to make friends than the others. He
will hover on the outskirts, never invited to parties, sitting alone at lunch
with only the whispers to keep him company. At 16 he will swallow two bottles of
painkillers. He won't make it to 17.
Baby 11 will start learning to play the guitar at six. During
the storm of teenage rebellion he will run away to find his own path. Instead of
finding solace in the music he would often get lost in, he will find it by
getting lost in the green eyes of a girl with a passion to rival his own.
Maybe. Or maybe not.
All I know is that every one of the tiny bodies before me will feel
happy, and sad, they will fall in love, they will disappoint their parents,
they will meet people that change them and they will make memories.
They will grow up. We all grow up
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