Extravagant

April 22, 2009 in Uncategorized

My stepdad was in insurance. My father in law was in insurance. My friend’s dad’s in insurance. What is it about those baby boomers and the business of assessing risk?

For once, I’m happy with the simple answer. Growing up among the debris of a country shredded by two wars in as many generations it paid to be cautious. With so much lost by so many, risk was understandably a four-letter word. And when you grow up with your food being rationed by the State, extravagance is similarly vulgar; even the sheer number of letters in the word seems over the top.

So many of my friends have tales of parents hell-bent on reducing expenditure. One used to serve orange juice in eggcups. Another limited the amount of toilet paper each member of the family was allowed each day, while my own stepfather was fond of keeping anyone but close family out of the house at all times, for fear of too much ‘chaos’ being brought in.

If only this generation had known about climate change, they would have known how to cut back on consumption all right.

But that’s not what’s on my mind.

I’ve been back in hospital. Not as a patient but accompanying my wife. It’s a long story, and one she won’t thank me for retelling to graphically, but the short version is that this final instalment of the Borlase clan that she’s brewing right there in her belly is throwing up a few more curveballs than the other three. She’s fine, the baby’s fine, but both are spending an alarming amount of time being checked, monitored, observed and told not to leave the building just yet.

I’ve been Daddy Daycare. I’ve coped. At times. And then there have been times when I’ve not done quite so well. In all of it I’m being reminded of quite how much fun and pressure and responsibility and ease and beauty and poo there is to be experienced in full time childcare.

But that’s not what’s on my mind either.

I’m thinking about extravagance. I’m not sure what this little baby has cost so far, but it must be nudging five figures by now. Scans and blood tests and injections and hospital stays and consults and ambulances and appointments and clinics don’t come cheap; and we’re not even half way through the pregnancy yet. By the time the little one comes out it will already have cost the UK taxpayer a small fortune. Thank the Lord for the NHS.

All along, there’s never a question about whether this is worthwhile; this baby is worth all the money, and then some.

Those around us have been great. More than great. Food parcels and meals and visits and help with childcare and no question of whether it’s too much to ask. People have given and given and given.

Do we deserve it? Not at all. But still the generosity and kindness flows.

And then there’s the toll on Emma. She’s having to rest, and I mean really rest. She’s been cancelling things from her diary like a paranoid Rapturist in a tropical thunderstorm. She losing money, she’s losing her fitness, she’s lost her dream of another great and natural birth, she’s losing her freedom and she’s losing the way she used to be able to interact with the other three Borlii.

But her instincts are strong; she nurtures this baby that she’s never met with all the force of nature. She can’t do anything else.

Is it worth it? Is this child worth it? Are we worth it?

I’ve been asking myself this a lot. All I can come up with are thoughts about extravagance and risk and expansive gestures and how even now, this baby is so blatantly not a dribble of orange juice in an eggcup. This baby is not a risk averted. This baby is chaos embraced and accepted.

I’ve got nothing against those baby boomers – I know I would have taken a different path had I not grown up feeling weary and frustrated by their own caution. But it seems clear to me now that this whole episode it teaching me something about the extravagant nature of God.

It’s quite nice, really.