birthday transformation

I hinted at this the other night, but I wanted to come back to it. Our lives were transformed by Katie's birth in all of the ways I reckon most people's lives are changed by becoming parents. One way was maybe a little different than perhaps most mothers' experience, and that was in the relationship Becky had with her own body.

From the time I met Becky, she was absolutely beautiful. In most ways, she was not "my type," to the extent my type existed or exists. I tend to be drawn to tall women with slender or athletic builds, and Becky was short (5'3", which maybe isn't particularly short for a woman, but I am close to 6'5", so 5'3" is certainly short to me) and voluptuous. That is one of the reasons I am so hesitant about "types" because Becky simply transcended type.

But she always had an uncomfortable relationship with her body. She didn't particularly like being attractive to boys and hated when we stared at her breasts, for example, and so she always dressed in a way that understated how attractive she was. She just never went out of her way to attract attention from boys. And she was very modest even with me in the years before Katie was born.

And that changed fairly dramatically when she became pregnant. It was if all of a sudden she understood why she was enfleshed as opposed to just a mind or spirit. This body was capable of creating, protecting, and nourishing life. And her relationship to her body changed because of that appreciation. Which is not to say that she wasn't modest anymore, but at the same time, I was amazed that she would breastfeed in public - with a blanket tucked over her shirt or just her shirt pulled down lower. And she did become more comfortable with being looked at by guys, too. We would go to the gym, and those T-shirts that she picked to be loose and hide her figure got sticky in all the right places when she was sweaty, and she was much more comfortable with herself than before.

I am grateful for those three years or so. Once cancer came into the picture, Becky's body became her enemy. After being so long indifferent to her body, she was able to love it for a time. And then she despaired of it.

It was the one thing she said that hurt me while she had cancer. I would ask her if she needed anything as she settled into bed, and she would answer, "a new body." Even with the tumor inside of her, I loved that body. I loved that body from the first time she kissed me on that chilly November night. I loved far more than her body, but I never stopped loving it the way she came to, I think. I keep her ashes on my bookshelf; it has never occurred to me to even consider moving them from my living room. I wouldn't say I love the ashes themselves, but I am not ready to be apart from them either.