Happy Birthday

1 Samuel 1:27, 28
27 I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. 28 So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD."

On my desk is a picture of me, about a year old. Fat and wearing a white bonnet. Sitting on a hay bale. My Grampa stands next to me smiling.
On my desk is a picture of my son, about a year old. Chubby and cherubic. Wearing an egg shell Halloween costume. My grampa stands next to him.
On my e mail is a picture of a beautiful newborn baby boy. The son of my cousin Amanda and her husband David. Born yesterday and already much adored. My grampa will never meet him, not this side of heaven.
My grampa loved babies and little kids. Actually the picture of myself with him has been propped up on my desk for several months since I ran across it in some old photographs. Happy days that I’m not sure if I really remember or I’ve assumed as my own from other people’s stories.
The one of my son and my grampa showed up on my desk a few days ago. Jay is graduating this year and he’s looking for some photos for his school to include in their commencement slide show. That one kind of caught me off guard the other day and I’ve sort of looked around and away from it since. I’m not one of those people who can’t look at pictures or speak about deceased loved ones. I loved my grampa very much and he loved me even more. I miss him. It’s ok. He wouldn’t leave Jesus to come back to me and I wouldn’t ask him to. But once in a while the pictures will get to me. Give me the weepies for a minute or two. Sometimes I let them come and sometimes it’s just not convenient; so I look around the pictures. I think the one with my little boy looks more the way he was at the end, more familiar. More poignant.
My grampa taught me to love the idea of babies. He couldn’t get enough of ‘em. Oh, he adored the grands and great grands above all mortal average children. But kids in general lit him up. He loved the very concept of little kids; thought it was God’s greatest achievement. They made him smile huge and laugh loud. He’d sit in church and watch the toddler two pews up like he was at a Sinatra concert. Actually that’s not true, he didn’t give two rips about Sinatra.
He loved those babies though. Baby hands wrapped around his big calloused fingers, better than diamonds. He showed me the hidden treasures of life...moments in the presence of little ones. Picking apples, making a pie, telling a tired old story “one more time”. Throwing a wiffle ball in the back yard with a two year old that rears back and drops it behind his own body; then can’t find it. Quietly coaxing a squirrel from a tree with bread crusts. Garage saling for old tricycles he could scrape and paint and restore for his babies to learn to ride up and down his long driveway. And him, sitting in his rocking recliner with any one of us as infants sleeping on his chest. Heaven. Or an earth-bound glimpse anyway.
My grampa was sure each of us was a genius at birth. I look at my babies and agree. Man, my grampa sure loved babies.
If he were alive today, I suspect he would’ve shown up at the hospital for Baby Z.’s birth (invited or not). He’d be instantly enraptured, cup that tiny head in his big rough hands and declare that this baby is surely a cut above average. He’d do a lot of “Look at this...” “Listen to that....” with a silly grin on his face. He’d only give him up to his parents if he had to; he’d try to snuggle this newest member of the family into a nap on his broad chest.
So welcome to the world little one. May you be blessed, as I was, with more than one grown up who thinks you hung the moon. May you snuggle into naps in the arms of adults who adore you. May you know you were prayed for before you breathed in your first breath and given to the Lord.
It’ll be a long, long time until we’re all together again with my grampa. In the meantime, I bet he’s looking down and pointing this newest miracle out to Jesus and telling him that this one is extra special. He’s right.
I love you Baby Z.
I love you Grampa.