What a great privilege and inspiration it is to hold a newborn!

     When the lad was first placed in my arms I felt a bit clumsy and insecure – it’d been decades since Papa Best (now become Grandpa Best) had held a baby.

     𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘥𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴, I told myself. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳, 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦, 𝘪𝘴 𝘋𝘖 𝘕𝘖𝘛 𝘋𝘙𝘖𝘗 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘉𝘈𝘉𝘠!

     (Spoiler alert: I did not drop the baby.)

     In fact the lad and I became immediate friends. He had been freshly changed and freshly fed and freshly burped, so all I had to do was walk with him and talk with him and tell him about life on earth.

     “It can get rough down here,” I said. “So we gotta stick together, okay?”

     He smiled at me. (Or maybe it was 𝘨𝘢𝘴.) His eyes were like great dark moons, absorbing everything.

At two months old, he fit very nicely in the crook of my arm and scarcely weighed a thing. In him I found no malice or deceit, no pride or slander, no inclination to do me harm.

     “So what was it like?” I asked him. “On the other side?”

     I think he knew the answer, and would have told me if only he’d had the words.

     Time and space dissolved as we strolled through the house and onto the porch. We might have walked forever, learning from one another, had his mother not wanted him back.

     “Remember,” I told him. “You’ve got a friend in me.”

BY THE WAY: Wouldn’t it be great if everyone had the chance to hold a newborn? Maybe once a week, as a kind of therapy. It would help us remember where we came from and where we’re going. And how we ought to treat one another along the way …