A Month Old

Last night I had the opportunity to spend time with a one month old little girl. Wow – talk about a tiny little person, beautifully made. She opened her eyes and looked and me. She grinned … gas… Ah yes, infants.
Babies are so amazing, they come into this world so helpless. Over time, they learn to walk, talk, run, play, and many other things. As I held this little girl and listened to her make baby crying sounds and blow bubbles, I was thinking of the day my grandfather was in the hospital for heart surgery. It was a major surgery and serious. The heart had several major blockages, open heart surgery was going to be required.
The day of surgery, we went into the waiting room and there was quite a crowd gathered. Cousins, uncles, aunts, and friends – they were all there to lend support to each other. There were some cousins distant enough that I didn’t know who they were. An uncle sat down next to me and started explaining who everyone was. It was a comfort.
Another comfort came when a cousin handed me her baby. I believe he was a bit older than a month, but here he was sleeping in my arms. It was a comfort holding that baby, feeling the warmth and movement as he shifted in his sleep. It was a comfort because it reminded me of the cycle of life. We are born, helpless and requiring care. We grow and require instruction, nourishment, and various amounts of shoes as we outgrow them all. Then, suddenly, our shoe size evens out and we arrive at adulthood. We still grow, still need instruction and nourishment, but now we can go and seek it out for ourselves. We grow older and slowly we become less steady. We come into the world helpless, and we leave it the same way. So, I held that baby and it was a comfort, that life continues.
The little one I held last night, she is just a few days over a month old – she is beautiful. She is life going on.