Life

I have no right to complain about life.  It is hard sometimes; I can’t deny that.  Yet I am still living, and I am blessed with a wife and three beautiful children.

Through my many failures I can at least look upon what I am blessed with and feel successful.

I picture at times what my life would be like if I had never married my first wife.  True, I would have saved myself the headaches that came from the divorce; saved myself the heartache of it.  Yet I would not have the two beautiful children who were born from that union.  I think about what my life would be like if I had stayed in the military to retire, or stayed on the road travelling from state to state.  Yet I would never have met my second wife who has given me a beautiful son.

I have held these children in my arms, and at those times, those moments, my life felt right.  I felt like I had done something right in this world.  I look upon my daughter who is 12 now and I still remember holding her for the first time in my arms.  I remember holding her close to me hours before I left for Iraq, burning the image and sensation in my mind of what that little baby felt like because when I would come home, that baby would be gone.

I remember the day my first son was born and it seemed as if all the stars aligned that day.  I have watched him grown, and I hope I have guided him well up to this point.  Where my daughter is the intellectual, my oldest son is the comedian.  He makes me laugh at the corniest of jokes, and his wit is sharper than mine ever was.  I missed a lot watching him grow because of my time in the military.

I missed my daughter’s first steps, her first words; and I would miss the same with my older son. 

Then my third child was born, and I have been here for his first words, his first steps.  I wrestle with him on the floor because he is a hulking wild child who likes to use his mother as a jungle gym.  He drives me crazy, my oldest daughter sets me on edge with how much she is growing into a beautiful woman, and my older son strengthens my resolve to ensure he becomes a better man than me.

My life is a crazy rollercoaster of children and yet I would not have it any other way.  Their lives are more precious to me than my own.  I would trade them for nothing.  It saddens me to hear how others would trade their unborn baby’s lives to erase a “mistake”.  Life is no mistake.

Some women will go through life wanting a baby only to find out they never will be able to.  My wife was told she never would bear children, and yet through our union a child was born.  My wife knows and understands the value and the gift of birthing a child.

Some women will bear their child inside their wombs only to wake up one day to find the child within no longer awake. 

As crazy as my life is with all the responsibilities children place upon me, I could never imagine my life without them.  I could never imagine them one day not waking up from their sleep.  Could anyone else do the same?

A friend of mine suffers right now.  I cannot imagine the pain and hurt she is going through.  What I can do is imagine how I would feel; and as I do tears stream down my face as I type this. 

My older children are at their mom’s, and my youngest is fast asleep in his crib.  Yet I want to drive down to where my older children are and hug them tight to me.  I want to pick up my hulking toddler from his crib and hold him in my arms.  Because somewhere, right now tonight a friend of mine holds her two older children while mourning the death of her third before he even had a chance to see the light of day.

Hold your children tight tonight if you have any.