SOFT BLUE HAZE

Dear Spike:

As I write this, you’re sleeping in my arms — a very real and rare privilege for me over the past few days.

You spend a lot of time at rest, but per your doctor’s orders, it is mostly in a “home bili light” that has been set up on your mother’s dresser. It’s a funny contraption: a baby blue suitcase, about two feet long, that opens like a tanning bed — with two long blue florescent bulbs running down the center. At night, it sets our bedroom in a soft blue haze.

When you’re not sleeping in the box, which is supposed to help with your jaundice, you are usually at your mother’s breast. You’ve been so hungry in the past few days and that is a wonderful sign that you are growing increasingly healthy and strong.

Alas, that has left little time for me and you to simply be together, and so I’ve spent many hours at the side of your box, peeking in (sometimes with sunglasses) at your tiny bare body.

Even is such a surreal setting, you are so beautiful. I marvel at your tiny features, your soft hair and your every delicate breath.

And I pine for when holding you is no longer such a rare treat.

Love,
dad