And Life Continues

"...nothing was said of the second child, from the time he noticed it's growth swelling her body until the day came in Autumn when she laid down her hoe one morning and crept back to the house...

Later before the sun set, she was back beside him, her body flattened, spent, but her face silent and undaunted.

"Is it male, or female?"

She answered calmly, "It is another male."

*from The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck

For so long, it was THE day - the only day I thought of. It was my focus, my goal, my light at the end of a tunnel.

And then she was born.

She changed everything, and yet, nothing has really changed.

Older kids still need to go to the dentist and the doctor; to gymnastics class and cub scouts. Messes are made, meals are prepared. School projects still need focus and attention. New shoes and new summer clothes, and church pants that aren't too short all need to be purchased.

Family life, my life, keeps going on. It just goes on with an extra tiny person around. She is new, but already, she is essential; a vibrant color woven into the fabric of our family, so lovely, I wonder how we ever looked complete without her.

It was but a subtle shift... an accommodation willingly made to welcome and make room. And now, she fits. She is a vital. She is us.

That day, the day she was born, was big. But what matters now are the small moments - the day to day events that bind our family together, stitching our hearts one to another, connecting our eternities.

A prayer that mentions each child by name - Jordan, Lucy, Sam, Henry, Ivy.

An after bedtime appearance on the stairs because a goodnight kiss for the baby was forgotten.

A quiet moment when baby's eyes reveal a soul fresh from heaven, ready to learn, to grow, to contribute.

Yes, birth is big. It is, after all, a necessary step in this thing we call life. But it's the progression of life, the patterns, the habits, the teaching, the onward and upward efforts that we make every single day that make up our eternity.

So onward and upward I go... all five in tow.

"It is not so much the major events as the small day-to-day decisions that map the course of our living. . . . Our lives are, in reality, the sum total of our seemingly unimportant decisions and of our capacity to live by those decisions."

- President Gordon B. Hinckley