For the first time, Forever

For the first time, she opened her tiny mouth and breathed in the timeless air of our world. And it was no less miraculous than the first breath taken by the first human at the beginning of eternity. With that infinitesimal, yawning gasp she let the world into herself, absorbed every laugh, every love, and every pain. It filled her untouched body until near bursting point, until we cried together, she and I. Her pink torso expanded in my arms, filled with the history of her mother, her family, her country; in her was the history of the world.

And then, I knew the universe had changed. We grew by one, expanded by one into an existence which had not yet existed. In that breath there were entire lives to be lived: men loved, dreams realized, children born. She exhaled into our future, her body contracting, and we were forever altered; her breath forever touching us, the path of time rebuilt anew.

For the first and eternal time she was with us: in us as we were in her.