One of the Two Great Miracles

One of the two great miracles as well as one of the two great mysteries. I find these thoughts of mine personally significant as I approach the one year anniversary of Gregory's death.

Many trite, often stated wonderments come to mind while holding this beautiful little girl's hand and looking at her looking at me and her world.

What makes a baby? 

A sperm and a seed unite and create something that is so complex as to be deemed a mystery and a miracle! Each time that new embryo cell splits to create new cells, they know exactly what to do. 

They know what they will become: a fingernail, part of the heart, an eyelash, a brain, an eye. Amazing. (Sometimes those cells are confused and difficulties arise, but that is not part of this story, just the need to acknowledge it!)

Who is a baby? 

Where did that energy, that ability to become a thinking, feeling human being come from? What makes that energy separate from that of a plant, or a cat, or a rock. What makes that energy become what it will become?

With some predispositions and some loving care, that energy will flower into an amazing person. They grow up to become part of a family, a world in which they go about their business of being and contributing to the world of others,

What will that baby become?

Then at a certain point they begin to try to figure out what makes a person and what makes them who they are. They strike back, they fight back, they war their independence against their parents as they develop more and more into the person those cells are trying to help them to be.

What do they really believe when compared to what they were told when they didn't know better other than to believe what they heard? What is truth? What matters? What does not matter? 

Very complex self discussions must go on if you are to become an actualized person. Doesn't always happen as we know by looking around us at our world and the world of the others around us.

What can that baby give to others?

But for the most part, it all works. The cells develop into a fully healthy person with the potential to do anything they think they can. The person develops into a fully healthy person with the potential to add to the quality of life for others. 

And then it begins again for some who choose to bring another baby into the world. (This is how it works) 

Either way it continues for those with open eyes. They interact with the world who they are; the world they see through their eyes and mind; hopefully the true world around them ... and develop into fully beautiful miracles and mysteries. 

Over this process, many changes occur and a person lives their life. Many milestones and millstones are worn around the neck. Some weigh one down and others lift one up.

And eventually a life is lived, and celebrated, and then mourned. What makes that life? Which little part is the core of the miracle? Which little part is the core of that mystery? 

What lives on after the life and what really matters? More questions. Fewer answers?