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Reflections on a Premature Birth

Sometimes, I whispered to you
so you would know
that I wasn’t as helpless as you.
So you would know
that the doll’s clothes covering you
would transform into bluejeans and dresses.
So you would know that the incubator lights
would become beach-sun,
and the machines would be rolled away
and you would breathe on your own.

Someday, that soft whimper
from your tiny mouth
would transform into a shout.
So I would know you are HERE.
So I would know you are not me.
So I would take notice of what I didn’t see.
Because I couldn’t recognize you
until I recognized me,
and I couldn’t recognize me
until I almost lost track of you.

Somehow, we were fertilized by the courage of our frailties.

Sometimes, I whispered to you
so I could whisper to myself,
that you weren’t as helpless as me.
So I would know
that my hands holding you
were once held by my father
more firmly than I had realized.
So I would know that
I, too, was held by the arms of uncertainty.
And that was good enough.

Someday, we will see
not a reflection of what we imagined,
not an apparition of what we feared,
not a refraction of what we needed,
but what remains when the psyche’s debris
is rolled up and deposited
into the banks of memory
to be cherished as artifact, as history, as necessity.
That is my hope.
That is our fruition.

—
E.H. Jacobs is a New England-based psychologist and writer. His novel, Splintered River, was published this fall. His work has appeared in several literary journals. He has published two books in psychology, book reviews for the American Journal of Psychotherapy, and served on the clinical faculty of Harvard Medical School.

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