I have a million things I could say about this song. I have a million reasons I'm listening to this song. The imagery and emotion in it is beautiful and absolutely captivating.
I feel the lover's and the fighter's plight--maybe we were meant to be lonely? But maybe we don't have to be all alone?
Especially when the fighter says "I know, I know, I know." That is my universal answer to everything--I'm always wrong, and I always know it. Even when I know the things I'm grasping at are right.
But what I feel is the most important line, the one I hope inspires self-reflection, will remain on its own:
I don't know what the deal is. But today...I'm in love with this music. It's so...profound, in a very real, very real person kind of way.
Here's the song that killed me: Small Bump (Full Screen the music vid--it's better that way)
The reason that I listened to this song was for the beat and the guitar. I liked it a lot. But then I kept listening.
"You're just a small bump unborn,
in four months you're brought to life.
You might be left with my hair,
but you'll have your mother's eyes.
I'll hold your body in my hands,
as gentle as I can,
but for now you're a scan of my unmade plans.
A small bump,
in four months you're brought to life.
I'll whisper quietly, I'll give you nothing but truth,
If you're not inside me, I'll put my future in you.
You are my one and only,
you can wrap your fingers round my thumb
and hold me tight.
and you'll be alright.
You're just a small bump unknown,
you'll grow into your skin.
With a smile like hers,
and a dimple beneath your chin.
Fingernails the size of a half grain of rice,
And eyelids closed to be soon opened wide.
A small bump,
in four months you'll open your eyes
You can lie with me,
with your tiny feet.
When you're half asleep
I'll leave you be.
Right in front of me
For a couple weeks
So I can keep you safe."
And of course, silly, heart-melts for anything about babies, me...melted. It's not just the baby thing. It's the fact that he's heartfelt, he's a soon-to-be father (not really, this was written for a friend, but I didn't know that) and he's so tender about it, about all the tiny things about this new baby.
But then I started wondering why he was alone in the hospital--why he was in the hospital at all if the baby was still waiting for four months....and I heard this:
"You were just a small bump unborn
for four months then ripped from life.
Maybe you were needed up there
but we're still unaware as to why."
My heart broke. Really. There's nothing...I mean, I cannot even fathom what it means to be a mother. But I felt so connected with his anticipation of this child--talking about the little fingernails and little eyes and hair and.....I get so full of love for these children that I will have someday, even though I don't know them, I don't know what they'll look like, and I don't even know if they will come or when.
And then because I was so invested in this dream of his--in my dream as well, I was devastated when I discovered that it was not to be. Really. This is my biggest fear--first that I will not even be able to have my own children, and second that they won't make it all the way to me. It really tears me up to even imagine the kind of heartbreak that would cause--to be so anticipating such a beautiful thing....such a good thing to anticipate.
Most of the the things I anticipate are dates on Friday nights and lenient teachers when I'm cutting a deadline close, or maybe the newest Maroon 5 CD, and I know how terribly strung out my heart is when I'm so desiring such things--and even when I know that these things won't matter in a year or a month or even a week. There were a lot of times when I knelt before my parents, begging to go to this or that, feeling so desperate in my heart. It seems so silly.
But I know that when I applied for my job as an RA, I wished so hard--my heart so ached for it, because I knew it was good, and I wanted that good in my life. I know in other instances, like watching the someone I love while they love someone else--my heart yearns for things to be different, because love is a good, right thing, and I know I am not wrong for wishing it. Kneeling before God, feeling so desperate in my heart for those things--for this opportunity to good for others, to make my life not about me. For the chance to love someone who really needed me, and who I so badly needed as well. And feeling all the more hopeless because I knew it was worth it.
And I know that losing one of those things would have been too much for my heart to handle. And I know that losing a child is too much for me to even pretend to understand how it would be. But I understand a portion of it, and am consequently all the more sympathetic.
My eyes have really been opened up, and my heart, to those people who have dealt with this pain.
And I'm sorry.
This is life, right? Every day learning about someone else's challenges and struggles. Learning about a new way to open my heart and a new way to tear it in two sometimes as well.
Becoming a new person--the person that God needs me to be.
