Thursday, November 19, 2009

New Life


Yesterday we celebrated the long awaited arrival of my newest grandson, Simon Robert Pickens. To quote Harry Chapin, "he came to the world in the usual way." But for that day, there were no "planes to catch and bills to pay." Last night there was a time when 17 people were in the room, ranging in age from their first day in the outside world to well in their 70's. There were children zooming around, playing with toy cars and playing hide and seek. There were parents talking about parent things, and occasionally making futile attempts to rein in the energy levels of their kids. There were grandparents snapping pictures of everything. There was a great-grandma who was taking it all in and loving it all. It was chaotic; it was loud. It was awesome, because it was life. New life; new creation. A new beginning. New responsibilities for all of us. Promises of new levels of messiness and uncertainty. Promises of new opportunities and joys. Promises of new heartbreaks. Promises of sucesses and failures. And that is what life is about. It is an adventure. It's messy. It's unbelievably exciting and incredibly impossible. We take a great day like yesterday and hold it in reserve against the inevitability of a day that seems to suck the air from our lungs. Both days are life. But days that involve new life are the best.

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