A blessingway

Thought I would share this, I found it very touching.

Excerpt:

seeing and touching my friend’s belly brought me back to the body itself: stretched and marred and malleable, broken and spilled out for the sake of every new life. but for now, her belly is still strong, strung as tight as a timpani against which her daughters’ feet and fists strike. when she wheels into the hospital for her daughers’ birth, her stomach straining and sweaty, the red shadow of the henna will still be on her skin, a reminder of all the hands who touched her and celebrated her as she waited.