Yet Another Ally

Morning, July 23rd. Our daughter went into labor several hours ago, labor being a process initiated not by the mother but rather by the unborn child in her belly. In utero, the last organ to develop in human beings is the lungs, which, in the medicine I practice, are an aspect of our “E” (pronounced like the "a" in “say”) dimension—our capacity for discernment, for making choices. 

By initiating labor, baby has made a choice, stating it is ready to emerge into the world as a human being. 

My attention is called to a sound outside the house. Mary has been out on a walk, so perhaps she’s back? No, it’s an old friend, a handsome red-and-white-haired giant of a dog named Kuma, Japanese for “bear.” Kuma is the camp dog on the land adjacent to us. By night, he fends off bears and moose, especially around the camp dumpsters. By day, he sleeps a good deal, somewhere out of direct sunlight. 

Here’s Mary now, following him. Since no adoring children are at the camp in this year of the pandemic, Kuma found Mary on the trail and joined her for her walk back, showing her the best route to our home. He’s always welcome here. Today, after happy, excited greetings, he settles into our living room.               

After a while, Kuma walks into the kitchen, then stands and waits. We find some canned chicken, which he quickly consumes, and, rather than heading for the front door and his own home, as he normally would, Kuma returns to the living room. Mary and I take turns rubbing his belly and between his ears, our spirit occupied with our daughter’s labor. Due to the pandemic , we’re not allowed into the hospital to support her. 

Then it strikes me: Kuma and our daughter have been special friends for years now. He’s here this morning to sit vigil for her, with us. 

Later this day, he rises and walks to the door, and waits there.

After I let him out, Kuma does not head for home, but prowls around, discovers the antler that squirrel has become so fond of for its minerals. He sniffs it, licks it, then checks to see if we’re watching—we act as if we’re not—and picks up the antler with his mouth, ambles down the driveway, and deposits it in a compost bin a good distance from the house. He then returns to the house and the vigil, and remains until his owners, our closest neighbors, come to take him home.

Morning, July 24th. Our daughter calls, now a happy, sore, exhausted mother of a baby girl. She is considered, in these times, to be a young mother. It took her relatively little life experience to grasp that “there is nothing out there for me” in this civilization, only more to feed her anxiety along with that of her generation, regarding what their future holds.

But if the future is so tenuous, why did she have this baby? Why now?

She filled me in a few weeks ago. “My peers would always tell me to wait until my mid-30’s to have a child, so I could live it up first and have a good time. They told me to get a job where I could make a good living. But it was when I finally stopped listening to them telling me what I should do with my life, that I realized I know what I’m here for, and I began living my life.”

July 26th. Mary and I visit the new family, helping out whenever we can. I hold baby. She falls asleep in my arms. Soon, I am feeling the depth and nature of her sleep—pure, no defiant mind chatter to interfere. Try as I might to act a responsible grandfather and keep my eyes open, I fall into wondrous sleep, feeling confidently connected with her in my arms, remembering to leave my cares at the door. I awaken feeling rested.

August 4th. I saw baby again yesterday and again descended into wondrous sleep with her in my arms. I recall lying down most nights with my daughter at bedtime before she’d turned seven. I would tell her a story as she drifted toward sleep, and as she did, a feeling of wonder would descend upon her bed, as if fairy dust was being sprinkled over her. By my being in that space, I, too, was a beneficiary and would drift into a sleep usually reserved for a child.

August 6th. Yesterday, while feeding the vegetables in our secret garden, I came upon a good-sized snake struggling to escape the garden fence by climbing up it, then losing its hold and falling back down. It felt agonizing, that snake’s struggle, yet, somehow familiar. Painful though it was, it did not feel appropriate to try and help the snake escape. I felt that touching the snake would compromise its life forevermore, and even trying to scoot it toward the open garden gate would have been an indignity.

Now, where was it I heard or read something about a snake in some garden? Could it be its occupants weren’t exercising their “E” dimensions?

And, the yearling moose continues to reside just outside the garden each night.

Moose, squirrels, dogs—do their babies give the signal for labor to begin? I learned that human beings hold the exclusive rights and responsibilities for the “E” dimension. For this dimension to work as it is designed to and at optimal capacity, we must be adhering to our life wills—our reasons for being human—in exercising our choices moment by precious moment. 

From the inception of labor to the end of our manifestations.