into dust

I’m sitting at the botanical gardens on the day one of my best friends gives birth to her baby. She is tucked away in a hospital about six miles from here, holding her baby girl. Meanwhile, I sit in this garden, surrounded by every shade of green imaginable.

Nature is quite loud, don’t you think?

I can hear the breathing of the flowers, the buzz of the bees, the trickle of water. I feel the crickets, already restless, waiting to sing their nightly tune. The clouds hang low above me, and I think maybe one day I’ll reach my hand out and run my fingers through them until they dissolve into nothing.

I have witnessed both birth and death this year. At their core, the similarities bleed through. We come from dust and to dust we shall return.

Motherhood is a beautiful thing, one that I have been lucky enough to experience from the passenger seat. One day, God willing, I’ll be in the driver’s seat. But for now, I watch in awe of the beauty, resilience, and strength it takes to be a mother. To laugh after something as immense as childbirth is something I genuinely believe only a woman could do.

As I sit here, surrounded by life in all its forms, I can feel the earth pulsing around me. Nothing in this garden exists in isolation. Every flower leans toward the sun. Every bee depends on another bloom. Every tree was once held together by a seed no bigger than a fingertip.

I sit alone as I write this, but not really. Even my future children exist within me now, carried only as possibility, known only to God and to time. I find comfort in this.

Somewhere, six miles from here, a little girl is taking her first breaths.

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