And now, for something a little nicer

I wrote this several months ago. A publication picked it up, but then never ran it. It's something that makes me happy, and this Christmas week it feels like we could do with a little more happiness, so I thought I'd put it out there.

***

We baptized my infant son, Jude, last month. On that morning four legacies, bequeathed by strangers, came together.

It actually happened before the baptism. Jude was in his crib, squirming in his linen knickers and shirt. The poor little guy had no idea how much more uncomfortable he’d be when we put him in the baptismal gown. It hung on the side of the crib, freshly and lovingly pressed by my mother, who had baptized eight of her own children, including me, in it. Her Aunt Jenny made it more than half a century ago, imagining—I like to think—the generations of babies, as yet unknown, who would feel the touch of holy water and scented oil while squirming in it.

My husband, Steve, and I stood over the crib as I fumbled with the clasp of a necklace. It was a wisp-thin gold chain, bearing a medal of St. Jude, the Patron Saint of Lost Causes, and the saint whose name Steve chose for his confirmation 20 years ago. I bought the necklace for Steve in Italy, home of mine and Aunt Jenny’s ancestors, the year after we married. We dreamed then of having a son one day. A son we would name Jude.

The crib had its own legacy. I’d purchased it for $15 at a yard sale from three generations of the same family—mother, son and grandson—who all had used it. I carried it in pieces in the back of my Toyota for six weeks with no place to put it. We lived in 600 square feet, I was pregnant, and we needed a house. The crib was a symbol of defiance against mortgage and asking price—a sign of optimism that we would find a way to buy the 125 year-old farmhouse I’d fallen in love with—in which I wanted to raise my family, and in which it sits today.

Jude is indifferent to the arc of life experienced by each child who wore the gown before him, or slept in the crib, or gew up in that house. And it is Steve's and my responsibility not to saddle him with the hopes and dreams that brought us together and brought him into the world, but, instead, to let him have his own. He neither needs to, nor will he, set upon some path to finish the unfinished business of those who came before him. And yet, we help make his own journey possible.

My mother came into Jude’s room just as I closed the necklace around Steve’s neck. We lifted Jude from his crib and stood in front of it. With the gown hanging next to us, and Jude grasping at the chain resting on his father’s neck, she snapped a picture that tells the story:

A house, handed down in one family for 115 years. A crib, tearfully surrendered to an expectant mother by three generations standing together in a gravel driveway. A gown, turned cream-colored with fifty years of baptizing children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A necklace, brand new, but given in the hope of future generations.

And one infant boy, innocent and unaware that in that moment, the faith and endurance of four separate legacies baptized him with the promise of a life yet to come.