Mary's Musings

He's beautiful.  Perfectly knit, top to little round bottom to tiny pink toes -- all ten of them. I unwrap him too often just to look at him, to check once more and see if he's all boy.  But each time he's the same, as fleshy as I, as male as Joseph, as predictable as any baby born to any woman on any night.  Crying in wails.  Leaking water.  Sucking my breast.  Burping his gas.  He sleeps and sleeps and who knows what he dreams?

In my dream last night I heard the song the angels sang to the shepherds.  I woke feeling as if the dream had been a gift, a reward for my labors, as if this squirming bundle weren't enough.

This morning down on the lower level, on his way toward the door and the shop, Joseph stopped to peer over Jesus, set in the day's fresh manger straw.  Not very aware of my presence -- or anybody's -- Joseph talked to the baby as if he were an adult:  "Hello there, and welcome to this fine house, a little crowded right now but we'll find a place of our own soon enough, don't you worry.  My name is Joseph ben Jacob but you can call me Dad..."

From Mary's Journal, a Mother's Story by Evelyn Bence