Twenty-Thousand Roads I Went Down, Down, Down, and They All Led Me Straight Back Home to You

Friends,

We are home. And we want to say thank you. Thank you, all you people who wrote to us and called us, to offer your friendship and support and love: for three days Alli and I saw only one another, and nurses, and doctors, and thermometers, and machines that go Ping!, but, for all that isolation, still we felt surrounded, and we felt your care, and your concern, and your happiness; that is to say, you have been with us nonetheless, and we are grateful. Every five or ten minutes, it seemed, there was a new little note to read, or another voicemail to hear, and man, I can’t tell you how good it felt to know you were thinking of us.

Thank you, all you who came to our house, while we were still in the hospital, to give us meals—we found them in our fridge when we got home (which means now we’re changing the location of our “secret” key), and we can’t wait to eat.

Thank you, all you who walked our dogs, those poor, pitiful creatures whom we used to call The Kids, and now whom we just call The Dogs.

Thank you to whoever washed our dishes. That was an enormous help.

Thank you, Lisa, for making the banner.

Thank you, Jillian and Hillary, for the card and the flowers.

I named this blog thing Peculiar Graces. That is not a secret. You see the title above. But let me tell you a little about it, so I can make my point. It’s a phrase from John Milton’s Paradise Lost, one which is very beautiful. Adam and Eve are in the Garden, still innocent. It’s the morning, and Adam has just woken up. He looks at Eve, who is still sleeping, and having bad dreams. Adam, whose sleep was “airy light,” has been taking in the glory of the morning, which brought him all kinds of wonder, but

…So much the more
His wonder was to find unawakened Eve
With tresses discomposed and glowing cheek
As through unquiet rest. He on his side
Leaning half-raised with looks of cordial love
Hung over her enamored and beheld
Beauty which whether waking or asleep
Shot forth peculiar graces.

And so I want to tell you: this, by those words, feels like my new life. I am surrounded by peculiar graces everywhere. By Alli’s face during labor, every time she pushed, every time she bore down—that sad and pretty pain, how awful, how gracious, how vulnerable—and her face seemed at once to rule the world and to beg me for help. By bringing her food and water and everything else she asks for. By lack of sleep. By watching Alli nurse our son. By hearing him moan when he’s cold. By letting him suck the tip of my nose because he’s rooting, and Alli is on her way. By watching him sleep.

In just three days, in only these past three days—I have been told one thousand secrets. They are secrets now that seem I have known forever, secrets I wish I could tell to everybody. They are peculiar graces shot forth: they began when I watched Alli’s face in delivery—when I understood all of existence, when I understood Adam watching Eve—and they move forward into all those years I cannot see now, but which I feel every time I hold my son.

Please, if you are in town, come visit us. If you aren’t in town, come anyway. I want to show him to you, and I want to tell you everything I have ever known: This is my son. This is my son. This is my son.

Love,
Carlos & Alli