Infinite Distances

"There were times Ruma felt closer to her mother in death than she had in life, an intimacy born simply of thinking of her so often, of missing her. But she knew that this was an illusion, a mirage, and that the distance between them was now infinite, unyielding." -Jhumpa Lahiri, "Unaccustomed Earth"

This weekend my mom, grandma, and Hollie Rae organized a baby shower for Holly Lynn and me. We call it a casual gathering, since Holly and I don't party. After conference Saturday, our female family swarmed for pie, ice cream, and little gifts color-coordinated blue, yellow, and brown. It occurred to me in the middle of swallowing tears at peoples' generosity that the ultrasound could have been wrong and I could be carrying a girl. I have no labor expectations (other than lots and lots of pain) but part of me believes I'll laugh--can I participate in such a miracle? After this baby, boy or girl, is born will we ever be so close? Because of my limited experience, I wonder if I'll be able to think more about my children...but I know that once he's breathing air instead of swimming, everything will connect to him and his future siblings. It does already.

I don't understand my parents. I've been disturbed by this knowledge since about age 12, but becoming a parent now opens my perspective a tad wider. Although aware of some of their sacrifices and joys, I've misjudged the depth of their love and motivations for me, for our family. Will they always be closer to me than I am to them? I fear the infinite and unyielding distance. But has it always been there?

When my parents' first names settled into my brain as their first identity, I was shocked. Before me, they were. Before they thought of me, they were. Oh elementary school epiphanies. I stared at them for a month slightly flabbergasted. What should I call them? Who were they? Again the door opens. They learn about grandparenting, connecting more to their parents; we learn about parenting connecting us more to them. In my imagination, this web of family and growth looks like a series of linked umbilical cords (that sounds monstrous, but I mean it in a very nourishing, wholesome way).

Is intimacy derived from physical or spiritual space? Or does it require both? Both. I discovered this morning that everything I do is because of the shape of family, my desire for family, my perception through family--even shapes are determined by family. I look for family in what I read. I cannot desert the theme of family in what I write. Most of what I do is an attempt to allow intimacy, to overcome infinite distances, to prevent gaps from forming in my family, to invite more into my family. (Perhaps this is why I struggle making friends, I demand they become family...intimates. Perhaps this is why I overwhelm my family.) I want our souls and our lives to overlap before death, during life, and in those strange crevices that gather dust between.