Butter colored beads.
But not just any bead. Not really. They are Baltic amber beads. High in succinct acid...or something like that. They apparently reduce inflammation for all kinds of things. Including teething.
I recently bought a strand.
It arrived in the mail yesterday. A tiny little necklace, for a tiny little girl. Each bead carefully knotted in between, to prevent the risk of choking on a stray bead should it break. Each bead, a beautiful butter yellow. High in succinct acid...rich in the color of a buttercup.
I felt my heart breaking as it lay in my hand.
The yearning to know. To really know...that we won't lose her too.
The crushing desire to be sure that I will get to screw the clasp around her beautiful little neck, complete with a small pulse to indicate life.
The debilitating fear that comes with knowing what it feels like to hold a child with no life in it, and to know we are never immune to that cold reality.
The panic that emerges when you realize, fully, just how much you love this little person you have never seen. To know how deeply you need the smell of your newborn, the sound of her breath, the feel of her skin, warm against your own.
Butter colored beads. They look like pretty yellow beads to anyone else.
They are draped over a picture of four of my sons in the yogic "tree pose" that sits on the upright piano in my living room. It's a pose that symbolizes ultimate balance and inner peace, which is something I'm yearning for. I draped "her" necklace over the picture in a prayerful gesture that begged the universe to allow her to join her living brothers in this world...to bring us all peace and balance once more. I whispered her name. The name we've chosen. The name the universe whispered into my husbands ear. The name that has meanings in several languages. Truth. Noble one. Protected by God. Her name. I whispered it to myself.
When my husband declared joyfully that he wanted to shout it out to the world. Her name. I irrationally felt my chest grip with fear as I glanced over at the butter colored amber.
And the tears erupted.
Crushing his joy.
Making him think I was still in doubt about her name.
Which I am not.
Butter colored beads. The healing force that Amber promises strung into a tiny necklace destined for a buttercup princess growing where twins died. Growing. Alive. Moving. Alive. Thriving. Alive.
I can only whisper her name. I can only imagine how lovely she will be.
I want to embrace that boundless joy my husband had..before I crushed it with fear. I want to give it back to him with the promise that I will deliver his lovely daughter alive into his arms.
But I can only whisper her name.
