These words pierce my soul the other day.
I came in from moving the white stuff around to hear that our little one year old had shared the blessed experience of having another fit.
Fun.
Not sure what it is about a crying baby sucking all the life out of frustrated parents that don’t know “What is up?” or “What they want” or “What set them off”. For those of you that have had 1 year olds, you know, they want to tell you what they want, but they don’t know how – so they point and grunt and throw their head back and, … CRY!!!
But these words have another meaning for us.
“Cry baby cry!”
After our daughter Keziah was born still. We started the slow painful process of rebuilding our lives. On one level (marriage and relationship) we had tough slugging to do (more about that in a future post), on another level we had decisions to make.
The biggest question we would tackle together as husband and wife was if we wanted to have one more child. The answer was simply yes, but there was a waiting time for healing – and then…
9 months of pure agony mixed with joy, anticipation, and ultra sounds. Lots of ultrasounds. Weekly appointments, plans, everything about us was focused on this new little bundle of joy. Every movement evoked a memory of Keziah’s movements, every late night in utero baby sleep jolted us awake with cups of ice water, and thankful baby (Sorry can’t use the term fetal – kinda hate that term) movements. Plans were drawn up around how we would move forward with actual delivery – C section? Induction? When? What was best for baby? What was best for us? For the first time Lynn found out the sex of the baby, we were having – you guessed it, another girl.
More tears, More Joy. More wonderment.
And then came that night at the hospital. That familiar wing – unit 25. Seems like everyone knew the story. And we had eager heart wrenching anticipation of the moments before us.
Been here before. But not like this.
And we would leave this place again – down that same hallway – would we leave empty handed, or….
In all my life I don’t think I had felt such nervous anticipation.
My Bride Lynn was amazing – she was every time.
And then that moment, She was born, and a split second of awkward silence was pierced by my wife’s words. Were they a prayer? Or just desperate visceral desire. I can hear them like she spoke them yesterday…
“Cry Baby CRY!”
…
And she did...
I’ve got a picture of that moment.
That moment.
When nearly 2 years of tears had been whipped away by the hand of The almighty himself.
Joy returned to my Bride.
And peace to my soul.
And so we lost ourselves in the bliss, mixed with heartache, and Joy of that moment. A moment that never should have been, but was. We had a mixed uncomfortable troubled thankfulness. And then we put our little bundle into her car seat. And walked down the righthand hallway of Unit 25 holding hands. Joy again meshed with sorrow, we cried more tears for the familiarity of the last time we walked that hallway. The last time we didn’t want to leave empty, this time we left with a discomforting satisfaction.
And today, as three older siblings and 2 adults try to pick up the toys chasing after our 1 year old girl, when she cries (and she sure has a set of lungs now) I am reminded both of the cry that was…
And, the cry that wasn’t
slv2all
