I HAVE 16 grandchildren and I have had 16 grandchildren ever since the moment when, under a south eastern sky, the egg embraced the sperm and little Molly was alive, miniscule life I grant you, embryonic life but vibrant and growing life, growing by the second, pulsating with the power of the universe of her being.
I rejoice in the life of Molly and I rejoice in the new life that occurs second by second, by the millions, all across the planet.
I see in my new Molly all that is good in God’s world and I marvel at her potential to be great. Molly, child of my child, is of a battling clan. We stand for good and for God. Just one “o” separates the two.
On Molly’s presence in the world, I hold dear other babies and children across the planet and I pledge my life to theirs.
In my immediate circle of living I have 16 grandchildren, five children and a former wife, all of whom are more important to me than I am to myself. I suppose we’re all that way with those we love.
Then, because of my children’s outreach to husbands and partners, I have another coterie of caring. The arithmetic tells me the extent of my vulnerability.
Molly came into the world in tune with the delicate and translucent shafts of the new day’s sunlight, reaching down to earth from the blue that filled the sky, horizon to horizon. There were drifting mists in the valley, gently swirling, billowing and ascending, and then, surrendering to the growing warmth of the morning, disappearing.
Water, crystal clear, bubbled and trickled down across the granite stones of the garden pond. Hard to be exact but who’s to say that when the sweet pea unfolded its pink flower that day, it did so at the same moment as Molly’s arrival.
In the days before, the blue tits fledged and tadpoles turned to tiny red-eyed frogs. Nature was in crescendo mood.
So, for Molly, born at the enchanted time, enchantment beckons. Shakespeare may have touched on the magic that’s held in the promise of a new life in a world that finds it hard to see enchantment in anything.
“Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In a cowslip’s bell I lie,
There I crouch , watch owls fly,
On the bat’s back, I fly
After summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.”
Molly gurgles and clear eyes find the targets of her love. There is, I’d swear, a seven-day smile on the velvet face.
www.newryafrica.com Rally for Life Belfast Saturday, July 3.