Open Your Eyes

I watched my son enter the world, and I knew I was witnessing something magical, something far greater than a medical event. His body knew exactly what to do. For months unseen, unasked, and without instruction, it had been assembling itself. Bone and nerve. Heart and lungs. A nervous system learning its rhythms in the dark. An intelligence older than thought was at work, shaping, adjusting, correcting, preparing.

When the moment came, that same intelligence guided him through the narrow passage from the safety of the womb into the open air. No one had to tell his body how to do this. No one could have explained it to him even if they tried. He emerged, startled but alive. And then, without rehearsal, without memory, without prior experience, his lungs opened and drew in their first breath of fresh air.

Around us, nurses and doctors moved calmly, with precision and extraordinary kindness. They were protecting the miracle of life. Clearing space. Standing ready. They checked the cord, warmed his back, cleared the airway, watched the color come, and stayed out of the way of the reflexes that know their own order.