Becoming a Godparent

The reason for our trip to Spain was so that I could become the godmother to the adopted Chinese daughter of my oldest childhood friend. I wasn’t quite sure what this would involve, but whatever it was, I was up for it. I enjoy my niece and nephew immensely-in fact I’m sure they’re both responsible in part for my decision to accept this honor-so we booked our tickets and showed up.

There she was, waiting for us at the airport. She’s the most beautiful baby. (Well, toddler, now; 18 months old.) Looking slightly dazed (we were the latest arrivals in a sea of new faces), Linda beheld these dishevelled Americans and beheld. She did a lot of that.

Her mother, Jennifer, showed the unmistakable sign of motherhood, that is, she produced a Kleenex from her pocket at the required moment.

The ceremony was three days later, in the church in which I was confirmed in 1971. The British Embassy Church of St. George in downtown Madrid, built in the late 1920s, surviving the Spanish Civil War, the decades of Franco’s isolationism, the turbulent 60s, and the tendency to apostasy. Many of the faces in the church were familiar to me; ALL the stained glass windows were.

The time came to go to the back of the church… Linda Katherine Yun was named and cried at all the water poured on her face and looked as adorable as the cherubs in the windows and then managed to get herself locked in with her new parents as the front patio was closed off.

I have a card that tells me of my duties with regard to this new person in my life. To be her spiritual guardian. I hope I am up to the task. It will involve lots of birds. Hope the Anglicans don’t have a problem with that.

Gurgle and babble like a brook, sweet Linda, while the snow of the Swedish forest swirls around your red house; listen for the holy in the wind; be surrounded in love.

(Spring migration starts in March.)