As we wrapped up dinner, deciding who was going to help clear the table and who was going to jet out early and who needed to finish the seconds for which they had begged, Ames quietly slipped way from his spot. He stepped back a few steps and said, “Look, Momma. I can do crow pose.” And the boy popped right into it, like he’d been doing it his whole life.
At the moment, I didn’t realize what it meant to me. Later I asked him to do it again, with me, so Chris could snap a photo and I could keep it forever. Because it meant something.
This boy was the first child I ever carried in my womb. His was the first labor, and subsequently the first postpartum season of darkness I ever experienced. While it was the twin pregnancy that eventually damaged my stomach muscles, that boy gave me a hernia. It wasn’t his fault, of course. But that boy made me wonder if I’d ever have strength to do a sit-up again, let alone a strength exercise like a handstand.
And yet here we were, moving together, into a pose that speaks of strength and balance and commitment. It took me a year to get into crow pose. He must have watched me, all of those times, silently observing and learning as I huffed and puffed and trembled my way upside down into the wild world of yoga inversions.
The boy who wiggled around inside of me all of those months, had wiggled his way out over the course of an entire day, had now wiggled his way to six years old and right into his own crow pose alongside mine. I felt whole. And I heard God whisper, redemption is here.