The day my son was born was a magical day.
I describe it as a magical day for many reasons, but one very special thing in particular that stood out to me was: seeing the placenta and umbilical cord.
I had seen photos of these things before so I had an idea of what they looked like, but I had never seen one right in front of me. My son and I’s placenta was fairly large and round -- so perfectly and beautifully shaped. In a weird way, I kind of wanted to keep it to have it to display. Which, obviously, isn’t very realistic, so I opted for some art when I had it encapsulated instead.
But what I found even more fascinating was the umbilical cord. It was long and white, but not only white. It had an iridescence to it that reminded me of an opal or rainbow moonstone. It had a shimmery sparkle to it when the light hit it that you can't quite see in photos.
My immediate thought when I saw it was, This is what we all came from? This is what gave us the nourishment each of us needed to grow to become a living, breathing human being? Because this thing... this looks powerful. This looks remarkable. This is extraordinary.
So for the first few weeks following my son's birth, whenever I saw another human being I reminded myself of that umbilical cord and that placenta. I viewed every person that I saw as if they came from that same umbilical cord that was my son and I's.
And for the first time ever I felt like I was finally fully seeing just how valuable every single living human being really truly is.
I fully saw just how important it is to treat yourself as if you came from that magnificent and powerful looking umbilical cord, because, well, you did.
Ten years ago at about this time of year, I was in New Zealand. I was just finishing up my time teaching English in South Korea and I had a month off for winter vacation before my contract ended and I was moving back to the US.
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