Comes A Small Child

BALTIMORE, Maryland April 8, 2016 - When he was born Tuesday evening, he weighed all of 6 pounds, 14 ounces.  Surprisingly, he arrived with a head full of dark hair.  He also arrived screaming, as they say, 'blue murder'.  It is the one time in a person's life when those around him or her want to hear such a cacophony.  The next evening, he was presented to me.  I am his grandfather.  

I remember, vividly, when his mother was put in my arms less than a minute after she was born.  She was also screaming.  She was my first born and was the most incredible and beautiful person anywhere, ever, at least to me.  She was and is, also, precious beyond compare.  Such are the feelings of a father.  Through the years I tried extremely hard to be the best father that ever lived.  If love and effort guaranteed success, I would have succeeded.  But love and effort do not guarantee success, and now, these many years later, I know that I failed early and often.  But I did not and have not given up.  If you are a father, you know all of this.  You never give up.  In most cases, thank the Good Lord, it is not in our make up to give up.  We continue to try.

Now, as I hold my grandson, it occurs to me that his birth is, no doubt, a not-so-subtle flyer from the Good Lord that keeping up the effort, keeping up the fight, is all he expects from us.  It is in our nature to fail, being human guarantees it.  But the love and the effort to hang in there, to fight the good fight, to love constantly and unceasingly, is noble.  This small child, precious beyond measure, is the Almighty's way of telling us we are doing his work.  

I am holding him gently against my chest, against my heart.  I am talking foolishly and then I am humming "O Holy Night."  I know it is not Christmastime.  But "O Holy Night" is a song that celebrates the birth of Christ as a small human child.  We are told that the Good Lord created humans in his divine image.  I see that, now, in my arms.  I saw it those many years ago when his mother lay in my arms.  

He is still now.  As I hum, his eyes miraculously open.  They are a dark blue with a touch of green.  A look of unmitigated wonder covers his small face.  It is the look of someone taking in the world for the first time.  He is trying to see where those sounds are coming from.  In a short time my wife takes him into her arms; like me and everyone else, she has not seen him with his eyes open.  But as he lands in her arms, his gaze is still on me.  Right now, he doesn't know who I am or what I am.  He doesn't know about the music I am trying to hum.  He doesn't know about the Almighty I am praising.  I promise him he will have many chances to find out.