It Doesn't Even Matter

Stupid, insignificant, beautiful things

I didn't let the feelings hit, not until now. I didn't soak them in or even let them wash over me before this. Afraid of my whole world changing again. Angry at the world for pushing us down in it some more. Angry at him. But how could you ever resent something like this? So pure and tiny, a little hand wrapped around my thumb. "He's so small." My eyes water as I look down at the tiny baby resting in my arms.

"Uh-huh, five pounds two ounces. What are you thinking we should name him?" Mom whispers to me keeping her voice low.

"You're asking me?" I look up from my tiny new brother to her resting in the hospital bed.

"Of course. I want you to be a part of this."

"I... I don't know, I wouldn't know what to name a baby. That feels like something you and Mark should have sorted out by now." I nod at the pair and Mark lets out a loud laugh quickly covering it with his hand so as not to wake the baby.

"We wanted you to do it. I want you to do it."

"Won't Drew and Sam be upset that I got to name him?"

"No, and we wanted you to do it." Mom still insists smiling at me and even though I can't resent my brother, part of me is still resenting her because our ending still feels so uncertain. My eyes move away from her and make contact with Mark's for a second before I look away. Old fears starting to resurface that he'll give up on this. Only then I watch him look down, moving over to the bed. I see the way he's looking at my mom, the way he's looking at the baby. He's here and he wants to be. So much love showing in his eyes for the two of them.

"What do you think Max? Any ideas, we don't need to know right away." He looks up at me and the look doesn't change. It's the same one he was just giving Mom and my brother. My skin feels warmer and my heart seems to be beating a little steadier than before.

"Yeah um... probably should have brought it up sooner so he doesn't have to go nameless."

"Well whenever you think of one is fine."

"Christopher, maybe Christopher. " I shrug.

"I like Christopher."

"Me too." Mom looks at me attentively her eyes soft.

"Christopher." I repeat looking at him once more nodding at Mom and Mark. Mom reaches out to me gently holding out her arms to take him back. I look down again at the little man sleeping peacefully against me and hold my breath. I sit looking at him silently, the room still, and for a moment it's just him and me before I have to hand him back to her. There is so much evil in this world and I would make sure none of it touched him, not like it did to me. As he moves from my arms to hers and they go cold again I know that he is my new reason. My reason to stay, my reason to keep clean, to keep sober. He was my why in the middle of the night when things tried to take me out again. I would do it for him when I couldn't think clearly about anything else. He needed me and I was going to be there for all of it. His first steps, to even just him sleeping. All of life's stupid, insignificant, beautiful things.

Because life has so many of those and we forget about them way too easily. We push them away because the memories hurt and the day we are in is too gray to remember. We float through life looking ahead at things, planning your next great something. We change our story when our narrative starts to feel uncomfortable or unnatural. Why do we convince ourselves so easily that things have to stop existing just because they are gone? Why does it so often feel like we should? Oh to get to experience all of your life's stupid, insignificant, beautiful things again.

Letting go should make you feel a little anxious and be a little painful I think. It shouldn't come easily. But it should not be possible to stand in one spot forever without change either. Restlessness should carry you. You drift, you grab onto things along the way by the fistful. You experience the bad endlessly until you experience the good again for longer. Until you're rooted deeper in it than before and then, you drift again.

And things stay in the dozens. In the silence in the room around you. In the laugh you hear in your head when you think of him. His stupid out-of-pitch laugh. You think of them, you linger, and so do they. Don't you want to stay to create more things you get to remember? Don't you want to stay to grab onto life by the fistful? To see how when you fall flat on your face you will stand up again laughing in the end?

He's a memory to me now. Beautiful and painful. And still, I lingered. I remember, and I look ahead. I look down at the small new life just beginning and I linger on that too. Then, more stupid, insignificant, beautiful crap gets to follow. Because I lingered, and remembered, and remained.