A simple truth

Tonight I stopped by my aunt's house for a little bit, and after a bit of chatting I told her my brother Erik's big news. She looked at me in amazement and said, incredulously, "af hverju var mamma þín ekki buin að láta mig vita!"

I guess it is a constant in the world, no matter what, that one really can judge just how close the bond is between two people by how quickly they find out about the other having a new baby on the way. When I was in California, I heard about a Danish friend of mine being pregnant, and then was able to send her a note of congratulations the very day the baby came home from the hospital. It made me feel much closer to her, that I was in some way able to share a little bit in the joy of that day with her. And just the opposite happens when we are not the first to know, or we know long after the fact, then we see just how loose the connection is, just how estranged we in fact are.

My aunt definitely did not want to feel that way about my brother, whom she used to babysit when he was newborn, and is still one of her favorite people. She was really relieved when I told her it was only 2 months along.

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