Elijah Daniel Switzer

He is tiny and sweet and has a head full of dark brown hair, though his mother swears that it is not as thick as it was when he was born four weeks ago. I sit on the couch with him lying on my knees. I study his eyes, eyebrows, nose, mouth, chin, ears, trying to memorize every feature and remember Susan at this age.

I do not yield to the tempting flood of memory, that overwhelming washing of a thousand moments, images of past eras. I yield to only an image or two and feel in me the cleansing of miracles, the grasp of frail fingers, bones barely formed. I rub the back of my fingers across Daniel’s hair and feel the soft spot between the plates of his skull. I press one eye lightly against his cheek, close my eye a few times to feel my lashes against his face. Lightly, I touch my nose against his forehead and draw deeply the smell of infant skin, the scent of life and love.

Such things as this can blur one’s perceptions, dull the harsh edge of the world beyond, fade memories of un-righted wrongs. Particularly those that are our own.

I hold Daniel a while longer, caressing him and these few moments, looking at him and cradling him in ways that my father never held my children. I mourn that loss without cost to this moment.

Susan gets up from her chair and crosses the living room, leans over to take him from me. I smile at her and kiss her arm as she reaches down for Daniel.

H. Arnett
12/09/10