I spent all day looking at you.

Your mother’s eyes, I’m so happy you have her eyes. Her beautiful eyes, her impeccable skin. You are bright like a star, like a flame that jumps, you are brilliant, the life in you is relentlessly joyous. You reach up to my face, you glimmer at me with those eyes. You are pure life. In my world you are an element of the universe, like earth, air, fire and water. You are an essential component of creation. Like your mother.

Every turn of your iridescent glance is magical. Are you are looking at something? Are you are looking at me? You are nodding off. I hold you as close as I can and watch you sleep. It’s like any natural phenomena, like a lightening storm or a meteor shower, the life pounding in your cells, surging through your skin, you glow with it. You are bright and soft, you are vigorous and delicate. I am suddenly, and forever now, a slave.

Will I be strong enough for you, warm enough? Will I say the right things? One thing does not strike fear in me, I thought it would. I thought I would be afraid that I couldn’t hold enough love for you, human love that is so essential to a child. But I am like a dam straining under a flood, the love for you is building even stronger since I first looked at you, the love I have for you is the most powerful thing I’ve ever felt. When I first saw your mother I knew what love was, in an instant of agonizing beauty. It was like being slammed in the chest, and in a way, she did just that. A punch to the heart, a lifesaving punch.

But you. You are the very force of life itself, and you are proof to me that all the gifts of your mother aren’t, in fact, a dream I will wake from, a perfect dream that will evaporate and leave me crouched on the pavement with the stale taste of old blood in my mouth. You are proof that my existence now is real, and significant. Your mother gave me life, and love. You have given me the knowledge of meaning. From you, I have meaning, I have purpose.