Ten minutes after ten in the morning,
On the tenth day of the tenth month of 1999,
… into this world I pushed, with great excitement and hesitancy, our final child, a son.
I couldn’t wait to hold him in my arms, smother him in kisses, and drink in his baby scent.
But, I dreaded his leaving my body, along with his kicks, his heartbeat …
I dreaded … the loss of his constant presence within me.
Fourteen years ago … and I still feel I am giving birth … with excitement and hesitancy.
The other night, my son came home with his new football pictures, and so I rushed to put it in ‘the frame’ holding the one from last year. I studied the two visions of the same son …
– his teeth have grown into his mouth, providing a grown-up smile
– his face is not so round, more angular, more grown-up
– his shoulders more broad, more like those of a man
Sigh …
The pains of giving birth, of laboring, tore at my momma heart, once again. The visual reminders that my boy is becoming man, that the end of his time in the safety of the womb that is our home is just a handful of football pictures away.
Giving birth really is a tearing, a separating. Without it, there is not life. But, it is not an easy, or pain-free process … it is labor.
As we celebrate our son’s fourteenth birthday today, we celebrate his life, the fruit of our laboring.
He is now in the final trimester of his school years, having been birthed from elementary and middle school years, to this new phase called high school.
He is now a Bantam in football. His five foot nine, 180lb body often facing peers of six feet tall and 250lbs. … a reality that gives me labor pains for a solid two hours every Sunday.
Each and every stage of the life, of this son of mine, is a birthing, complete with labor pains … conceived within my dread of the loss of his constant presence with me. But, it is this giving birth, this giving of life, that allows him to take that first breath of each new day, and live his life.
“We’ve been waiting for you
We’re so glad you came
We’ve been looking forward
To showing you the place
There’s so much in store and
We’ve been waiting for you”
Carolyn Arends
We’ve Been Waiting for You Lyrics/MetroLyrics
itsawonderfilledlife 