Circle of Life

If the title of a post happens to be the title of an Elton John song, you know the contents ahead might be a little heavy so any of you who’d rather not read on, I totally understand. I just can’t help myself this time of year—these High Holidays get to me.

Anyway, this is the time of year when Jews around the world think about life and death. On Monday and Tuesday, we will gather together in synagogues and read the dramatic words we’ve read for centuries—“On Rosh Hashana it is inscribed and on Yom Kippur it is sealed who will live and who will die, how many will pass away and how many will be created.”

I remember reading that passage last year and wondering if I would be blessed with another child in the year ahead, if a new life would in fact be created inside me. I did not ever wonder how many would actually be created inside me--multiples weren’t on my radar screen back then.  I just thought about the possibility of a new baby.

And in my own family, thoughts and questions about life and death seem especially prevalent right now. The last time I had a new baby was over four years ago, my oldest was just 6. But now with a 10 year old around and very curious 7 and 8 year olds as well, the birth of my twins has seemed to spark a whole series of life and death questions.

It began during my pregnancy, when my 8-year-old Caroline turned to me one night and asked, “how are we related to daddy?”

“What do you mean? I asked her.

“I mean, how are we related to him if we only come out of you?” She was looking at my very large stomach.

I hadn’t read one of those parenting books, which tells you how to explain this stuff to a child and so I was left to wing it on my own.

“Well a baby is made from a part of a daddy and a part of a mommy,” I said, “and then God helps the mommy and daddy make it into a baby.” Luckily I had religion to throw in there.

“But how do you tell God if you don’t want a baby,” my seven-year-old Sophie asked. Remember, on the night we told her we were having twins she screamed she didn’t want any more kids in our family, so you can see where her head was.

“There are ways to let Him know,” I said vaguely.

I have children who’ve unfortunately been exposed to plenty of inappropriate TV and so as you might imagine the questions didn’t end there.

“Well how do the parts of the mom and dad come together? And what do a mommy and daddy do to show God they want a baby” and so forth.

“They love each other a lot,” I said.

“And do they kiss and stuff?” Sophie asked with a huge smile. That’s also where her head is.

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, you must have kissed daddy really hard to make two babies,” she said. And with that, the conversation erupted into laughter, and “ooh laa laaas” from my girls.

My twins are two months old now. The girls don’t really ask anymore how they were made, although my 4-year-old Lily recently suggested I take my twin daughter Eliana “back where she came from” and switch her for another boy so Barry has a brother.

But interestingly my oldest has been preoccupied the past few weeks with death. Where do we all go when we die? What happens to us when we die? How can we be gone forever? “How can I never see you again?” she asks me.  All those questions that I remember so clearly being frightened of myself as a child, and if I stop and think about them today leave me every bit as frightened--if not more. I don’t have any answers for her. (Especially at 12 am in between the 11pm and 3 am feeds of my babies.) I can tell her she is young and I am young, but I can’t tell her I will never die, or that she will never die, and so she is left to swallow the uncertainty.

For some reason, this pregnancy and the birth of a 5^th and 6^th child has made me more conscious of my mortality than ever before. Rob and I joke that with so many kids, we’ve each made each other completely un-remarriageable. It’s a bad joke, and a nervous joke, because on some level I do think about what would happen if something happens to one of us, and the number of children who are now dependent on us. I am more conscious about how many children’s lives I am now responsible for, connected to and sustained by. I’m a Jewish mother after all and six is a lot of children to worry about.

This is how life works. The miracle of life is also a reminder that our lives are finite. And as I watch how quickly these babies are growing, and how quickly my older girls are growing and maturing, I know that my life and theirs is moving way too fast.