Sage and Mickey, February 2008, at the Chinese restaurant where we told Thalia that fried calamari were Chinese french fries and she ate a ton.

My step-grandmother, Mickey, died early this morning. She was 83. But she was a young 83, so vibrant and energetic that only Friday did my stepmother have to cancel Mickey’s regular tennis game.

It was sudden and it was swift, as we all hope these things should be. Still, it was too sudden. It always is.

I’ve noticed that every time a person leaves my world, a baby is born into it. Perhaps two. It seems to be the universe’s way of reminding me that this is how things go. If we’re lucky, there’s some overlap so that those of us who have learned from the generation who came before us can pass it onto the generation that comes next.

These babies are our hope, our future, our hearts.

When I clutched Thalia and Sage close in those early days I remember thinking that now, they are important to me. Eventually, they will be important to the world. They will grow to be sisters and friends, coworkers, girlfriends and maybe someone’s partner or spouse or mommy or grandma. They will matter to other people. They will matter, period.

I wish this were the wholly uplifting new mama post I had hoped it would be for the online shower (and it might have been had I gotten around to writing it earlier in the weekend). But Kristen and Rebecca, I can only remind you that when you’re done complaining about the swollen boobs and the stretch marks and the sleep deprivation; when you have a moment between the witch hazel pads and the cabbage leaves, the swadding and the shushing and the thank you note writing (or avoiding), and certainly the 5 dozen daily diaper changes—

make sure to save some time in there to love those babies and just sniff their sweet heads and appreciate the miracle that they are. Mickey was always so good at that.