I carry your heart with me ( I carry it in my heart).

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body...


There is one baby born each second so as I am writing this sentence now at least 5 babies have already been born, that's a lot of momentous decisions isn't it?! 


And I am certain that I heard somewhere that you have more chance of popping up in the middle of the ocean, in the middle of a life-ring than you do of conceiving a child, although I wouldn't want to test those odds. But if the previous statement is true than that would make each one of those second born babies something of a miracle. So having a child really could be the most momentous thing you will ever do. It certainly feels that way when you are having them and afterwards nothing is ever the same as it was before and it never will be. Although sometimes we may fool ourselves into thinking that it is or that it could be. Children change everything, because whereas before your choices were your own, now every action has a consequence not just to yourself but to another person too and children are always the innocent in any situation and ultimately are only here through our choices and our decisions.


So this leads me onto the second half of the opening statement. '....it is to decide forever to have your heart going walking around outside your body'. That statement could probably be interpreted in many different ways (as I have learnt from recent English classes on my Access course). However for me I think it speaks to the fact that we give our children our heart, our lives and more importantly our unconditional love. And for me unconditional love knows no bounds. It is the realisation that you would do anything for that other person and that ultimately you value their happiness above all other things. True love, love not restricted by conditions, reaches beyond selfishness, beyond what we may perceive is best for another person, beyond even what we want for ourselves. It is doing the right thing, at the right time, for all the right reasons. But most importantly it is remembering always that 'YOU' brought this little person into the world and that you are responsible in ensuring that when it really mattered, you did everything you could to make their world just a little warmer, a little brighter and a little more hopeful. 


There is a poem by a Edward Estlin Cummings called 'I carry your heart with me' and whenever I hear it I always think of Emily...


I carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
I am never without it (anywhere I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling).


I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) 
I want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
And it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
And whatever a sun will always sing is you

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
And this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)