I stand all amazed at the LOVE Jesus offers me...
I am amazed. Absolutely amazed.
Tomorrow my son Ethan turns 10 and my heart is bursting with emotion. This is a big birthday for him...and me.
I was 20 years old when he was born. My routine pregnancy turned in an instant into something altogether different. After 28 hours of labor I found my room filled with strangers in scrubs. No one spoke to me. No one looked at me. I was in the room alone and I remember asking many times - each with more urgency and eventually with tears streaming down my face what was happening. I was handed a clipboard and told to sign a waiver - I would be having an emergency C-Section. I heard the doctor say "we have minutes not hours." I heard someone say they needed to get the neo-natal team into the operating room.
I remember laying behind a blue sheet in the operating room. No one spoke and as I listened to the beeping of monitors I prayed. I prayed for this baby that I had never met and yet I loved more than anyone on this Earth.
He was born and Because of the complications I didn't get to hold him first. Not even second or third. I remember being strapped to that bed - my surgery still talking place and craning my neck to see past the crowd of doctors surrounding him across the room. A nurse saw me - saw my tears and my outstretched neck - and held him up in the air for just a moment. "He's okay mom. He's going to be fine."
I can still remember when they first placed him in my arms. It was one of the most remarkable moments of my life..and as I write this tears are filling my eyes. I pulled him close and our faces were only inches apart and then our eyes met. I can still remember the warmth that filled my body, remember the way my heart expanded within my chest - feeling as if it would burst."
"I love you little baby. I love you and I will always take care of you." It felt like an oath.
One that in many ways saved me. Those words directed me many times when I was faced with vital decisions.
Knowing Ethan and the sweet brother that followed two years later has been the privilege of my life.
His purity, his courage, his persistence, his loyalty and love have all taught, humbled and transformed me. There I days that I literally find my mouth hanging open - in complete shock at who he is. All things denote there is a God - and Ethan is no exception.
Sometimes I wonder what kind of man he will be. What will he do with his life? Who will he become? I think about the pain that adolescence and adulthood hold and wish he could just skip that step. But one thing I know for sure - he will continue to amaze me. He will teach and challenge and inspire me.
Happy Birthday to my little bucca di beppo, "I love you little baby. I love you and I will always take care of you."
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