This is a fictional piece that I wrote in August 2018, long before Byron was a thought in my mind. I have no fear of the water and my son is not named Noah, but this is how I imagined the life-changing experience of having a baby. I hope you enjoy it!
She decided to name him Noah because she had always been afraid of the water. She hoped that this naming would change his disposition to the water she had so fearfully avoided.
She didn’t remember when it began. Maybe that time at the beach when her brother held his head under the ocean waves while she counted second after second. When his head finally exploded to the surface, she pulled him close to her telling him never to do that again.
Maybe it was in Sunday school when she listened to her teacher read the story of Noah and the Great Flood. The heavens unleashed torrents of rain to the earth and the water steadily rising and rising. Only Noah, his family, and the coupled animals were safe from the unrestrained water surrounding the ark. She wondered what happened to all the other people and animals. Where would they go to escape the watery depths? Did they get to make an ark also? It frightened her.
Noah must have been afraid as he nailed board to board, following a blueprint by God himself, to make an ark that was larger than a football field. He, too, had never seen that much water in his life. He knew what was happening to the earth and living things below the great flood of water. Still, he built and boarded the ark. He listened to God’s wild instructions and willingly holed himself between boards of wood and pitch until the pitter-patter of rain ceased its incessant chatter on the roof and sides of the floating tree.
So, in spite of all her fear, she named him Noah.
Noah, her Noah, felt like water to her. Not only were his eyes the color of the deep ocean. But, he was wild and complicated. She didn’t know what he would do next. And, when she finally found a pattern to his crying and comfort, it soon pulled away in the tide.
Each day, he woke and needed something more, something different than what she had provided for him the day before.
Even her body felt like a wild, rushing river. What had been tight and symmetrical, was now loose and rippled. The tight waves of her torso turned into the long ripples of a creek.
Noah.
He was water and movement and he swallowed her whole.
Everything that was left of her was nothing she had known before. A momentous change occurred the moment he left the calm aquarium of her body and entered into the great ocean of her life. The glaciers that held her up, that kept her level and secure, were melting. The waters of her life were slow to shift and settle into this new place.
Noah. I do not know if you will ever find comfort in the water. I do not know if you will ever be on the swim team, or if you will love the beach. But, you have made me unafraid. You have given me a love for the water.
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