#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Raindrops on the Charles, Sunday Morning

Charleston on the Charles

The rain is heavy, splashing the river, splashing us. We cut the walk a little short today; it’s my son’s birthday. I want to bake him a birthday treat, drive it to his home nearby, surprise him, and I do and he is hungry for this sweet, and happy we’ve come. My husband and I sit and visit with our first born, the one who arrived late, the one who needed so much extra time to be ready, born more than two weeks past his due date; the one who needed forceps to finally be delivered, kicking and screaming into this world, his father’s arm’s, his mother’s. Man now, bright and strong and energetic and kind, compassionate and thoughtful, warm and affectionate, muscular and tough, gentle and sweet. Needing, always, time to be ready; needing extra time, wanting to be wholehearted in his commitments. He is like me, after all, in this. His need for privacy and time to warm up to change mirroring mine. He eats his treats with gusto and I am grateful for these moments, this bounty, this rainy December day thirty one years after the morning I realized I would never be the same. I had brought a life and a love into the world and I was ecstatic and terrified and brave.