fourteen years ago today

Fourteen years ago today I had the pleasure of meeting the sweet wee one in this photo.  M’s birthday comes at a time when I’m reading the book, “The Latehomecomer—A Hmong Family Memoir”, by Kao Kalia Yang.  In this book Yang tells of her father describing where babies came from: ” Before babies are born they live in the sky where they race along with the clouds and can see everything—the beauty of the mountains, the courses of streams, and the dirt of the paths that people take down on earth.” Yang descibes her coming down to earth and the day of her birth. I love this imagery and magical way of thinking about babies and their lives before they were born. Even though I don’t share this belief system, a part of me loves to think about M making her way down to be with us and the warm September day she graced us with her spunky presence.