Eight Years and Counting

I had to be at the hospital before dawn eight years ago to be prepped for a planned Cesarean. Our families gathered in the waiting room in the early morning hours, anxiously awaiting the birth of the first grandchild on both sides. Trevor held my hand and stroked my hair as they wheeled me into the OR, but was left behind until it was actually time.

Nurses bustled around me as the epidural was placed in my back, and I was laid down on the table in preparation for the doctor. He came barreling through the door and after a quick greeting, went to the task at hand. Trevor came in just as he began and we waited in eager anticipation to meet our son.

Then, like a wild bird whose call disturbs the quiet solitude of the early dawn, we heard the sound of his cry. Loud and lusty; the sound of life. I began to cry and Trevor hurried over to see what he looked like. "He has red hair!" he exclaimed as I strained to see him. The doctor held him up for a moment before they whisked him away to the warming table to clean and weigh him.

We knew that he was going to be a big baby, which is why I was having the section to begin with. Well, his size and the fact that I had not even begun to efface or dilate by my due date. So when they called out 9 lbs and 13 oz I shouldn't have been surprised but I was. I had given birth to a toddler!


Over the last eight years that baby has grown into an intelligent, imaginative sweet boy. He has blessed Trevor and me in ways that cannot be given words, and our lives will never be the same because of him. In eight more years he will be driving, and then eight beyond that a man with a family of his own. The years slip by like water through a sieve and I grasp at the drops trying fill my memory and my mind with their sweetness.

I can see glimpses of the man he will be...he so much like his father. But there is much of myself in him as well, and it pleases me to see him empathize with others and give of himself. His character is one of honesty and trustworthiness, and he stands by his friends. He has a mischievous smile that cracks me up when I see it, and a sweetness about his spirit that is beautiful to behold.


But no matter how old he gets or how far up I have to crane my neck to look at his face, there will always be a part of me that sees him as that perfect, soft baby who showed me for the first time how to love unconditionally.

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Psalm 127:3