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| Hudson Gareth Lochhead Born June 15, 2014 at 5:43 p.m./New Zealand Time |
My Wish For You, Hudson Gareth Lochhead
You have been placed in the arms of
two beautiful people. Your mum and dad
have been waiting for you to arrive. And
here you are! Their arms have been ready.
They admire your ten little toes. Ten long
fingers. Little tufts of hair on your perfectly
rounded skull. Their fingers trace your button-nose
and little lips. You smell delicious. Like a baby.
Arms have been waiting to hold you, little
one. The arms of your parents. The arms of
your grandparents. The arms of your uncles.
Even my arms, far, far from your home, can
feel the joyous weight of your being. The
weight of you. You can not imagine how
these arms, our arms, how many arms have
been ready to hold you. We are holding you.
And with your little spirit, your brightness,
your perfectly formed little self, you hold
something up to us. You hold up close the
miracle of God's grace. You invite us to see
our capacity to love and be loved. You hold
up to our imaginations the possibilities of
a future. A clean slate. A lifetime of stories.
You are blessed, little one. You are loved.
I wish for you the things I loved most about
your uncle, whose name you now share. I
wish for you a great love of nature and the
ability to stop what you're doing any time
you see the golden light just before sunset
or the moon so full in the sky it looks as
though the weight of its beauty will pull
it right to your feet. I wish for you a feeling
of joy when you see what you love. And I
wish for you a love of many things. Little
one, little sweet one, little Hudson Gareth
Lochhead, I wish for you years and years of
love. I wish for you to try to gather this love.
Store this love. Save it up and hide it away.
You'll see. It will come so frequently and
in such measures that you won't be able to
keep it all. I wish for you years of giving
your love away because you have too much
to store. I wish for you to love the sound of
your dad's voice and the touch of your mom's
fingertips. I wish for you to love visits to your
grandparents' home and calls from your uncles.
I wish for you to love a favorite toy or blanket.
A favorite night-time story. I wish for you to
love school. Your teachers. And every subject
but perhaps math. Or science. Ok. You pick.
But I wish for you to love going to school. I
wish for you to love learning and to know how
smart you are. Years later, and I mean years and
years (!) I wish for you to sit across from a
girl in school (like your uncle Gareth did with
Fiona Wilkinson) and I wish for you to feel
the love of a first crush. And later, I wish for
you to love again. And again. I want each crush
that comes into your life to remind you of how
loveable you are. And if they leave, when they
leave, I wish for you the assurance that you are
loved beyond measure. I wish for you to never
be too old to be wrapped in the love of your parents
when your heart is broken. I wish you always
speedy recoveries in the matter of broken hearts.
And I wish for you, Hudson Gareth Lochhead, in
your adulthood years from now, a love like I knew
with your uncle. I wish for you a deep connection
with someone who sees all of you and loves you
exactly as you are. I wish for you to see someone
and love them so entirely that you feel your heart
may burst with joy. And I wish for you to swim
in this kind of love, when it finally arrives, for
so many long years that your grandchildren ask
to hear about its origins when they, themselves
are the age you were when you stumbled into it.
Your story just began, dear one. Dear little one.
And our arms, the arms of your parents, your
grandparents, your uncles, and those who love
you from near and far are reaching out for you.
They are outstretched with joy to support you
as the tiny one you are now, and love you into
the toddler and young child and pre-teen, and
teenager, and university student, and young
man you will become. And we are reaching out
our arms towards your future. A future full of
wishes and blessings and guaranteed love. Welcome
to this joyous life. Welcome, Hudson Gareth Lochhead.
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