A Gift from a two year old

 Johanna - This week you let me put you to bed. I wanted to and you did not object. What I really expected was for you to point to your Grandmother. Almost always this is what your brother and cousins would do. But you just went to my arms as if this was the most normal thing. We read both nights, The Lady with the Aligator Purse and Fox in Sox. Each three times. 

The most wonderful part was when it came time to rock you and sing to you. You nestled in my arms as I sang Jesus Loves Me, over and over. I thought of all the times I had held my own children in this wondrous routine. I felt your love and trust and comfort in my arms. I don't have good words for this. To be at your home, to be surrounded by one you trust and have the beginnings of this feeling we call love. To know the comfort that comes when fully cradled in the arms of a grandfather. 

Perhaps it will not happen in this life, but there will come a time when I will once again know this peace. I have long forgotten what this is like, but if there is any good in me, the seeds were planted at times like this. When my Dad, or my Grandad, or my mother held me. When my whole world loved me. It will come again. 

Visions and Dreams and Johanna

 A note to my grandaughter who came to the earth on 3 March 2022. 

I may name my banjo after you, we'll see. I have been trying to contrive a name for it. It has five strings and you are my fifth grandchild. That is a stupid connection but it's all I have. 

Before you were born I was at your house, seeing your brother and checking on your mom. She was a day or two away from going to the hospital for your birth. As I was leaving she pulled me close in a hug and said, "Dad, would you say a prayer for me?". I stood there in the entryway, among a stroller, winter boots, scarfs with the woman I first held as a tiny baby decades ago. 

I don't know exactly what I prayed for that day when I put my arms around your mom. It was a bit about her and a bit about you. But I do know this. All of the deep things I have ever wanted for my daughter were realized in that little hall. My little girl, when deep into womanhood, asked me to pray for her. To that same Lord that she worshipped as a toddler. That is what I wanted when I first held her, when I first whispered the name of our Lord in her tiny ear. That when I was old that she would hold as tightly to Christ at 40 as she did at 4. As I was driving home I had this sense that every dream I ever dreamed and every prayer I ever prayed for her had been answered in that moment.  

On the 5th day of March, when you were two days old I held you for the first time. Like your mother, the first word you heard from my lips was "Jesus". The first time you felt my hand, it was to trace the sign of the cross on your forehead. 

Johanna, your safe arrival on earth was an answer to many prayers. Many more prayers are being lifted up for you now. It is my deep desire that when your mother and father are my age, that they will thank God for the faith they see in you. That does not waver. That does not tremble.