Is there anything quite so endearing as an hours old newborn? In the twenty years I kept my La Leche League Leader status current, I was near a lot of babies, always in the cradle of their mother's arms. But they were usually weeks or months old, and had let slip the creamy softness of a child who could still remember swimming in a watery world. That is if remembering is something they do. 

When an infant holds court they do so with an influence that cannot be measured by might. Usually newborns don't speak or even open their eyes. Yet I feel compelled to whisper, to take my shoes off, to touch their downy skin as if it has healing powers. Which perhaps it does. 

This week a group of friends stood at the bedside of a woman whose earthly life is coming to a close. We sang hymns for her, and held her hand. Her skin was like parchment, and some of the time she closed her eyes, tired from the exertion of  keeping them open. Her lips moved in time with ours, because I think music is exempt from that annoying tendency to forget in old age. 

She recognized me, which pleased me. I asked her to tell my father I love him, who is also her brother in law, when she sees him in a week or so. She said she surely would. 

As she is reborn in a heavenly body, I wager that her skin will again be creamy. Her eyes will be wide open, in her eagerness to find familiar faces.