MIRACLE

After some earlier problems a good friend and his wife were blessed today with the birth a healthy baby. It reminded me of that time in my life. Like anyone else I have memories of very profound moments. Things that I experienced that were so moving that their impact remains with me, in vivid detail, to this day. The arrival of your baby is most certainly one of those moments, but that is not what I am referring to here. It is what happens several days later.

Our kids are old enough that their mother was not subject to the in today, out tomorrow, delivery routine that is standard for today’s mothers. My wife stayed for several days, as was the custom at the time. So Dad, being me, was allowed to see Mom and the new addition to the family during brief visiting hours until they were released to go home.

I arrived at the hospital on the designated day at the designated time to bring them home. After going home to an empty house each night, I was more than ready. After making a trip to my car with a cart full of flowers from their room, I returned to find my wife waiting for me in a wheel chair with a tightly wrapped baby in her arms. One of the nurses went with us as we went down the elevator and out a long hall way to our parked car.

The nurse helped us into the car, we thanked her and as I turned to close the car door the enormity of everything flooded over me. My wife and I had created this living breathing soul, which had entered this world in this hospital. We were now leaving the safety and security of this place to venture forth. The journey of this soul would largely be determined by us. Certain things would be left to genes but most would be shaped by us as mother and father. What an enormous, enormous responsibility.

We have had this experience four times, each one no less profound than the other.