Thursday, June 28, 2012

As I live and breathe ...

My mother used to use that entry line as she was about to speak about something unique and special to her. It is a term used frequently by people from the South. It is a term that, as I sit here in the still darkness of a still quiet house, has come to me as I awoke thinking about this amazing thing called family. 

As you might recall, our son and his wife are in the Dominican Republic leading a team on a mission venture and my wife and I are keeping their three children with our other two grandkids thrown into the mix on certain days.  Five grandkids ages nine down to almost three; as I live and breathe I have never been more astonished, amazed and thrilled to be able to watch what children are capable of, how their minds interact with each other and how each of them are so uniquely wired and yet so wonderfully entwined with each other. I am equally breath-deprived in watching the patience, the organization and the love my wife, their Grammy, has shown through this whole multiple day adventure for it surely is an adventure.

As I live and breathe, I  have never been more amazed at how children find ways to play together, in how their personalities are so uniquely woven from their individual  lives but find that common place they can go to be so engaged with each other. Yes, there are times of tears of frustration but in the main, from our eldest, Logan, down to the little pepper pod, Ms, Hope, they make it work.  They are at times loud and at times gently quiet.  They are at times yearning for a hug and at times do not want to be touched in any way by any one.  They are at times wanting to be the center of attention and at times to be a part of the whole.  They are always hungry. They are always energized. They are always simply amazing to watch and always so easy for me to just watch and begin to tear up at this amazing sight before me in the craziness of the moment. They are truly the joy of my life but it has taken a week with them to realize the gravity of that statement.

I must add that many times this week I have quietly held Ms Hope or watched her unbounded energy and glowing personality and found myself wanting to just hold her to my heart or just begin to cry thinking about how blessed she is to be living in America and not Ethiopia in a family that fully and completely loves her and her phenomenal, engaging manner.  She is healthy, safe, protected and loved beyond measure by our entire family. She can work a ropeline like no child I have every seen. She is  happy and can always make those around her happy. She  is  strong, agile, always smiling, has a vocabulary for a nearly three year old that astounds us all.  Her skin is like soft velvet and she never just stops until that magical nap time when all our world is quieted for that precious hour or so. I have come to realize in my own heart with this time what the beauty of a blessing really is and so happy my son and his bride had the foresight and courage to fight the process and the adoption system to finally bring her into our world. She has changed our world in ways none of us could have imagined. She makes me a better man, father, grand father; yes, she has that gift and we all get to unwrap that gift of unbounded energy each moment she is with us.

So as I live and breathe in the dawning outside our window of a day that will again be filled with next experiences with these precious children. I can but bask in the reality that they will be loved, respected, appreciated, fed, cared for and feel that love in a most unique way. Yes, as I live and breathe this breath of family, it thrills me that God has given me this joy on a scale I still marvel at and wonder just what the next minute will bring. We have them through the weekend and I am already dreading giving them up; yes, that is true!

If you have small children or grandchildren, this day, find ways to love them and show them that love in a very special way.

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