:-)

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the first day of autumn.  The last week has had the feel of the season, with cooler temperatures, and now it's getting chilly at night.  Some of the trees have started to turn the color of sage.  The persimmon trees are full to almost bowing the limbs - will be a good year for the deer and possums, plenty to eat.  I love autumn, but it feels different this year.  Normally, there's a feel to it I've never been able to aptly describe...a beckoning, or perhaps a feeling of expectancy, like something is about to happen or change.  I don't get that this time.

We went to see the baby this weekend.  He has a head full of dark hair and little chubby cheeks.  And he did something I've never seen a week-old baby do.  He turned over on his side!  My daughter-in-law, Jess, tells me that larger babies seem to have more muscle, and that's the reason he could turn that way.  He's doing well now, after an admission to the hospital for tests. Because of Beth's gestational diabetes and due to being a c-section baby, the walls of his heart are a little thicker and he had some fluid in his lungs.  He had a two-day stay, and came home in time for the weekend with a clean bill of health.

Lately, when things like the baby getting sick happen and all turns out well, I know a depth of gratitude I've never felt before.

Small Candle

Yesterday was the anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers. On our Nation.  Traditionally, I have spent that anniversary reflecting on the great losses our country sustained and the ramifications of that day...the losses keep piling up. And traditionally, I have posted a small poem written on the first commemoration, but this year, I didn't have time.

What an unbelievable and complicated six months it has been.  Steve, Daddy, Mom...my daughter's high risk pregnancy.

She called me last Friday and said, "Mom, I need you to come up here."  And my typical response, as of late, was a series of palpitations and a quick - "What's wrong?"  She responded, "Well, I want you here when the baby comes."

And so, I asked for the day off, and my boss graciously and understandingly granted the request.  Off to Durham I flew to spend Wednesday night.  We were up at 5 a.m. on 09/11/08 and off to the hospital for the scheduled C-section.

"Oh please" I prayed, "Let everything go okay."  And it was a little bumpy - a team of Doctors assembled to stand by because of Beth's POTS syndrome.  They couldn't get a vein for the IV's, and finally found access in her feet.  BUT - Steven McArthur Thompson was born at 09:55 a.m., weighing into the world at 9 pounds 11 ounces on 09/11/08.  He looks like his Mom.

What a strange life this is, finding unfathomable joy and gratitude spiking amidst a chain of loss and solemnity by way of a small bundle of hope, pink and new, and screaming his little lungs out to make himself heard.  I may have to write a new tiny poem to replace

Behind the light of my small candle
many shadows flicker.