Babies!

A new movie -- Babies -- is opening this Mothers' Day weekend. It seems like such a joy from the trailers I have been seeing for months at the Angelika Theater here in Dallas. I hope to get to see it; I hope it lives up to the trailer!
This is a pensive reflection on the movie trailer at this point, as I have been reflecting on life and death this week since I have been visiting my mother-in-law in the Intensive Care Unit at a Dallas Hospital after she suffered complications from abdominal surgery. So, even the Babies movie for all its joyousness reminded me of a life-and-death experience in Zimbabwe in Southern Africa 20+ years ago. Our family arrived and settled into a spacious house. My new son, Alex, looked much like the blue-eyed "Hattie" of the movie poster; our gardener, Bernard, had a new child as well, not quite as tribally-attired as Ponjiao, but just as cute. I was talking with Bernard about being a parent one day. He reflected on the joy they bring. He also shared that another child had been born previously but died days afterward. When I asked him about the cause of death. He said he did not know. The child just died.
In the joy of the Babies movie and its revelation of baby-raising similarities, I hope we can also realize the need to extend health care, clean water, adequate food, and health education across this globe -- on behalf of Babies, on behalf of the parents who love them.