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Another holiday season, another family gathering -- this one to celebrate the christening of another nephew.
Since Jim and I live so far away from his family, it's always a big event when we come to town. All the relatives gather to see "Jimmy", the prodigal son who has yet to return to his homeland. I try to blend in with the woodwork while everyone catches up, telling stories new and old, and his family works to unpeel the layers of years and distance that have built up around them. Invariably, discussion will come around to our "situation".
Even though I thought that I was feeling stronger now, better about our recent resolution to try and conceive again, I have been fooling myself. Sure, things are fine at home in my new, relatively quiet life where the only kids I ever see are my sister's children whom I love dearly and enjoy being around. I'm never around babies. Things are very different here, surrounded by folks who seem to be bearing children left and right.
The christening itself is almost unbearable for me. After sitting through three separate ceremonies (there are so many kids being born in this parish, they have to pile up the christenings on top of each other), my husband's already-huge and growing family has to gather in various assemblages with the new baby in front of the altar for photos. You stand here, you stand there. I resent people handing me their cameras -- "oh, could you just get me and so-and-so?" -- like the unfamiliar observer that I feel like. I hope that no one notices that I am pushing tears back into my eyeballs.
Back at my in-law's tiny house crowded with way too many people, I find an opportunity to -- gasp -- hold the new baby. I feel for him, as he's been labeled "colicky" and I know that the chaos of this event is probably more than he wants to deal with now. Stealing away with him into an empty room, I sway with him rhythmically and breathe deeply until he falls asleep. When I asked his mother where I should lay him down, she asked "How did you do that?" with astonishment, referring to her heavily slumbering son. "Yoga," I replied. I get smug when I'm tired of being in emotional pain.
Thankfully, we returned home to my normal existence where we learn that the house we are renting will be sold, and we have until the end of December to move. As trying as finding a new home and moving can be, I am glad to have something else that takes up the bulk of my emotions for the holidays.
© Tracy Morris
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