You Don't Know What You've Got Til It's Gone

As I was rocking Kai back to sleep a few nights ago and I looked down at his serene face—head sinking back below the crook in my arm, his tiny puckered mouth slightly agape—that Joni Mitchell line from "Big Yellow Taxi" popped into my head: You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.  It’s not that that line describes how I was feeling in that moment—in fact, it was just the opposite, which is what made it so perfect.  As I was gazing down on this perfect little soul, present in all of the happiness I possess in my life right now, I suppose my subconscious could not conjure up any words to directly convey my sentiments at that moment and instead offered me the antithesis: You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.  After Kai was born my whole life changed in a way I never knew possible.  Really, I never knew what could be until it truly was!  As I continued to rock Kai with all of these thoughts swirling round in my head, I meditated on that phrase as an antonym of what I was feeling.  It reminded me of the popular use of aphorisms among mystic poets when trying to relate their experiences of the Divine, to illustrate through words the, ultimately, ineffable.  And, really, it is the Divine I am experiencing in those moments.  It is the Beloved as shown through the beautiful son I hold in my arms.  As parents always say, no words can describe it, and so to bring us closer we need words that seemingly lead us further away: You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.


...And for fun, Pinhead Gunpowder's version of "Big Yellow Taxi":