Madeleine Campbell Chace~


Who I am to know such beauty, tranquility, or purpose?
"Love lifts you up where you belong. Love is all you need."

The room is dim, lit by a few cadles. Earlier, light shone in through the blinds, but as we near the eleventh hour, this room of hope and peace is nestled in a dark summer night.

Nine hours I watched my honey-skinned sister, focused in her love, becoming a mother. Giving birth is a rite of passage: mysterious, and incomparable.

We stroked, and encouraged, fetched ice, and water, but mostly sat in awe, wondering where it was Elizabeth had gone- somewhere deep and encompassing.
And I wonder, if the time will come when I will visit the world where my sister now waits.
"It was a phenomenal experience." She says to me later, at home, exhausted, and satisfied.
"Just phenomenal."
Throughout, Ryan and I are affirming one another.
Silent smiles, pats on the back, the occansional deeply felt comment.
Ryan: "You know, this is the apex of my life."
He's calm and proud, proud, proud.
~"Look at her. Isn't she so beautiful?" - He says this over and over.
He reads Proverbs.
"A capable wife who can find? She is...Strength and dignity are her clothing...Strength and dignity are her clothing."

Around Twenty-Two-Thirthy, her body begins, only slightly at first, the final ascent, the bearing down.
She is tired, but Ryan says, and it is true, "Nothing can distract you. Nothing."

Twenty-Three-Fifteen: We, united in anticipation, tremble with emotion.
One deep surge- baby's head is out. A second- baby's body wiggles in this world.

"What is it? What is it? Is it a boy or a girl?" For a moment, no body knows.
Then Elizabeth's tired voice, "She's a girl."
She is Madeleine. She is chubby and beautiful.
Life gives forth life.
Mamma is tired, but so happy.
She wrinkles up her nose, as she has since she was a babe, and calls her infant 'scrumptious'.
So she is.
Madeleine: our High Tower