The Image and Likeness of God

LUKY:
WHEN my eldest child was working during the holidays, I asked her to remember me to one of her colleagues whom I'd known for many years.
     "Let me see, now", the woman said. "I can't remember. . .yes, now I recall, that was the woman who had a baby not so long ago, and was so distressed about it she almost wept."
     "That's not my mother", my daughter said sturdily, but she was much shaken.
It took two months before she told me about it and I couldn't believe my ears.
     "Wept?" I said. "For joy, perhaps, but for no other reason.
I was so excited when I found out about your sister that the sun shone more brightly, the flowers had prettier colours, and the birds sang a completely new tune.
     "As for your father, he was so thrilled that despite my swearing him to secrecy, he was telling people about the baby from the word go."

Reassured
My daughter felt relieved.
"I knew you'd never have said anything against having any one of us", she assured me.
"It shook me rigid that anyone could even remotely think you had rejected one of us, even only verbally."
A few months before I knew we would ever have our last little daughter, someone asked if I'd be upset to be pregnant again.
Though I didn't think it a likely contigency, I'm eternally grateful that my answer was: "I wouldn't like to say; you never know what can happen."
     I'll always say that. I never cared how many children I would have; each one is as precious as the first, a completely unique human being, made in the Image and Likeness of God.

When I told my mother about the baby, she told me a story about a friend of hers whose husband was a qualified lawyer by the time his mother had her youngest child.
They were a very large family, fifteen, I think.
     When the baby was born, the parents sent cards out to their relatives and friends, a common custom in Holland. On the card the parents listed the names of all their children, in addition to that of the new baby.
     Then a single line was printed below: "Which of these children will offer the greatest homage to God?"

An honour
     I come from an environment where the large family was not derided as it so often is now.
In our family it was an honour to bear many children.
I have at least sixty-one first cousins alive in different parts of the globe, and those whom I've met again were people you'd be proud to know, for all that some of them had to wear their bigger brothers' and sister' hand-me-downs as they grew up.

My youngest, our laatlammetjie,* is the joy of all our lives.
We may get annoyed with one another and disagree about every topic under the sun, but one thing we all agreed about: "There's no baby more adorable than ours."
One day a girl and I were talking when an untidy-looking woman passed by.
"Look at her," the girl said.
"Slovely, untidy, stupid-looking; I bet she's the type that has at least six children."
I didn't like to remind her that I'm in the same boat myself, but I marvelled at the contempt for mothers of large families she so frankly expressed.
Knowing how much effort, money and sacrifice a large family entails, I always respect such mothers, even though they may be untidy at times.

Surprise, surprise
There comes a time in all parents' lives when they feel past the age of bringing up children.
"Nice", they decide, "all the children are at school. We only do the laundry once a week instead of every day. The house is tidy. We live like civilised human beings. It's good to know there'll never be another little hurricane to disrupt our well organised existence."

And yet it is at this stage, very often, that the mother becomes pregnant again, making a mockery of all her careful planning.
So many of my friends had babies in their late thirties and early forties.
     And what was their answer if you asked about the youngest?
It seldom varied, and ran along these lines: "Oh, I'm so grateful for that little after-thought of ours. 
She helps to keep us young."

*Laatlammetjie - Afrikaans for 'Ewe lamb'