Sunday, May 2, 2010

Bliss

There are times in your life when you get to see something you have always wanted to see. There are the vacation things. I remember when I was in the boy scouts and we drove or shall I say rode 2 old buses cross country to the Grand Canyon. We hiked down the canyon and spent the night on the canyon floor sleeping next to the Colorado River roaring next to the camp site, an awesome sight for this 13 or 14 year old young man. I looked forward to seeing that place for the entire five days it took to get there. Then there are the family things; I will never forget the feeling I had the day I watch my son march around the parade grounds of Lackland Air Force Base and graduate an Airman in the United States Air Force. I still get chill bumps and my eyes tear even thinking about the scene. I was blessed to be there the day my wife’s son had his first child. I have even written after that in this blog. I have had numerous places in my life when I was able to see things happen that moved me.

Well last night something happened inside the Memphis Family that many people have been praying for a long time. One of the members of my family is a very special person. She has a place in my heart where only few are allowed. She is more of a sister than a friend. I go to her for counsel on occasion. I go to her for support. I go to her for so much more than just friendship. She is my example in something’s like her strong love for family and the unyielding desire to hold them together at all costs. She always seems to have it together no matter how crazy things get. I, on the other hand, if you read this space at all know I allow my son to totally take over my mind and body to a point I almost lose it. Here is where she always brings me back to a point of sanity and tries to make me see that it will all be ok one day, but enough about me and my things.

As I have said here many times she is the matriarch of a strong family I am proud to be clandestinely a member of. There is the Father a calm and gentle spirit of a man; a man who has provided for his family a loving and safe home for all time. A place where all are welcome and you always leave happier than you came. The children, there are four, all solid citizens and moving forward in their lives and never losing site of the place from whence they came. Humble, and loving not only to their parents and their parent’s friends but to each other and that is huge in my book.

Well, on we go, my claimed sister has always dreamed of the day she has her first grandchild. Well last night she was informed it will be here in November. There we were all in the kitchen looking at pictures from a recent trip her son had taken to China when he turned the page and there were the ultrasound pictures of her grandchild. I will never forget the embrace and the tearful response of “we’re having a baby” coming from her quivering voice. A moving moment exactly like the embrace I witnessed in Tampa Florida after the birth of my wife’s first grandchild. Purer emotions I am not sure exist. To see the Grandmother to be, hugging the Mother to be, and watching the Father hugging his son you could literally feel the pride from their embrace. May all of us, at one time in our lives, be able to be moved to your very core. Where all that comes out of you is the purest form of love that god grants us to share. I have been blessed to experience those feeling 4 times in my life. What a blessing.

I do not know what the future holds for me, but I do know that there is a child to be born in November that has won the family lottery. She/he will be loved cared for and raised in an environment that is bountiful with all of the good things in life. It is being born to a young man and woman who will be parents of the highest order. They both come from families steeped in love and caring for one another. They band together in good times and bad and always, always love one another through whatever life hands them. It will be an honor and a privilege to watch this child be formed into a loving member of this special family.

I wish for you that once in your life you get to see this pure bliss I saw last night. And when you see it please take the time, like I did last night, to experience the wonder of the moment. I am truly a blessed man.

Well I think I will call my son and tell him the good news. I can’t imagine the roles being switched and the grandchild being mine. Wow, blessed again…..I’m sure when I am more prepared it will happen and if the lord is willing I can say I have felt that feeling 5 times in my life.

Peace,

The Blessed Man

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