Prompt: If I had one day to relive....... in QUOTIDIEN

I have twenty-million of those! The one that immediately springs to mind would have to be September 12th, 1999. It was the fourth day after my daughter's birth, and I had yet to touch her. Oh, how my heart was broken! My arms craved her as if they had minds of their own. After all that bedrest...and the steady beeping of the monitor I wore for 5 weeks prior to her arrival, this physical disconnect ran like a current just beneath the surface of my skin. It burned!

Time had already folded over itself into eternity and filled those days. I slogged my way through routines, security check points, and greetings on that fourth day. I sat in the rocker by her incubator and longed for her but could do nothing more than bow my head and pray.

Though my eyes were closed, I began to sense a darkening around me and opened my eyes to find that a few nurses had quietly surrounded me with a privacy curtain. They then instructed me to remove my shirt, reached into the incubator carefully maneuvering tubes and wires.....and placed my precious daughter on my chest and wrapped us both with a warmed blanket. The sweetest tears I have ever shed began to pour down my face, bathing the head of our tiny miracle as I bent to smell her. My skin recognized her instantly as I embraced her. And my heart...my God...my heart soared. My God, yes, I heard Him say, "Just as you hold your daughter, so do I hold you."

Yeah....I could relive that day.