Wild and Precious
'Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?' Mary Oliver
This week we celebrate our youngest child’s 9th birthday. The choosing of his name was a democratic process, and ‘Ajay’ was the first name all four members of our family agreed on. We paid little mind to the fact that the name translates to mean ‘Unconquerable’ in Sanskrit….. and as we ignored this fact, the Universe surely snickered.While I know that the symbolic meaning of names should not be a hard science, I have to admit that the now nine year old caboose of our family tree has certainly lived up to the hype. There is little in this world that can deter him, keep him down, or even inhibit him in any way- and I think anyone who knows him would agree that he has taken his one wild and precious life by the reins…Yep, he is one tough little man- which is both his saving grace and his nemesis. Parenting him has been a bold adventure- a lightning path of the unexpected- and there is not a day that goes by that he does not conquer something or someone. Sometimes the Universe corners him and he has no choice but to do battle, and sometimes it is he who kicks up dust and leads the charge… Either way- he has truly embodied the ‘unconquerable' energy of his namesake. He teaches me something new every day, but perhaps the most important thing he has taught me is that being unconquerable is sometimes nothing more than a state of mind.How lucky we are that the Universe sent this little blonde haired, blue eyed, perpetually mischievous little boy careening into our world. He has, without a doubt, conquered our hearts- and on some days a few other things as well.