OUR TINY BLESSING

A few short months I got a call from my son Mark and daughter-in-law Paige. It kind of startled me a little bit because they had been home to visit for the weekend and this was Monday. Paige told me they had something they needed to talk to me about. My mind kind of raced as to what it might be. They seemed to be perfectly happy when they left. Was one of them sick? Had Mark lost his job? Was Paige having trouble at school? "Mom we are going to have a baby". My heart kind of flipped flopped in my chest. This was a happy surprise for me. I ask them if they were OK and they told me they were not expecting to get pregnant this soon and the doctor had told Paige that she might never be able to get pregnant, so they were in kind of a state of shock. John and I told them that if you waited until you had everything in order they might not have a baby.





After a few weeks Paige got over her morning sickness and they became adjusted to the idea of having a baby and you could see the excitement in their eyes. They were in the process of fixing up the spare room for a nursery. An ultra sound at the end of the forth month was unable to tell them if it was a boy or a girl. Another one a couple of weeks later confirmed that they were going to have a little girl. They chose the name Caroline Grace and started buying tiny pink outfits and counting down the months until they could bring their baby home and start their life as a family of three.

We got another phone call last Friday and Mark told me he was on the way to the hospital. Paige had gone into preterm labor and hopefully the doctors could get the labor stopped and with bed rest she would be able to carry Caroline a few more weeks. As the night wore on, Mark called several more times and things were not looking good. We decided to go on to Memphis to be with them and give a little moral support. As the hours wore on it was apparent that Caroline was going to be born too soon. At 2:18 on 2/19 she entered into this world but was just too tiny to survive.

As we all took turns holding this tiny baby each of our hearts broke to think of all the wonderful things that we would never get to experience with Caroline Grace. It was so hard to see Mark and Paige grieving and not be able to take the pain away form them. We all know that somewhere alone the way there will be a blessing from this tiny little life that touched all ours lives.

Caroline Grace is our twelfth grandchild and she will be in our hearts forever.

We love you Maw Maw and Granddaddy.

ONE SECOND AT A TIME

Amazingly enough I turned 67 years old this week. Looking back I not only wonder where the year has gone, but where in the heck did 67 years go? I posted on FB the other day that I realized I was the same age as my grand mother when I thought she was on her last leg. Sadly enough she did die at the age of 68. She had some health problems diabetes, high blood pressure and heart trouble to name a few. But wait I have all those things myself. Hmmm.. now I'm starting to wonder why I haven't taken better care of myself?

Getting back to that time thing. Thinking about time and eternity and ever and ever just freaks John out. He can actually have a panic attack just thinking about the ever and ever part. My theory on time is that everything in our life is separated by one second at a time. We didn't just begin life one day have a break then wake up and it was time to go to school, then realize one day that you had finished school, married, had a family, your kids had grown up and had their own family and on and on........

Each minute, hour, day, week, month and year is separated by just a single tick of the clock. Something happened in each second of our lives. I think we look back and only remember the highlights, the big things that had an impact on us. I think back and try to remember the more forgettable stuff like staring into a baby crib and reaching out an touching the soft tiny foot of the neighbors new baby. Recalling how the air smelled when the rain fell on the hot dusty dirt road in the summer time. Taking a cottonwood leaf with the prickly stuff on the front side, then holding it against your skin and smacking it until it left a bright red irritated spot that we called a tattoo. So many things happened in those seconds that it would be totally impossible to remember everything, but every once in a while a fleeting memory of a long forgotten second drifts by and I think, that was an important part of my life.

To celebrate my birthday, John took me out to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant called "Franks".

The food was really good and the decor gave the place a feeling of warmth and stepping back in time. The day was fun, nothing earth shattering but one of those days that will come back to me in the future and I will think, life sure was good that day.