To the girl who was deemed Liquid Joy {or Joy-bear} while she was growing up~

As the music at the banquet

As the wine before the meal

It was 5:55 a.m. The sun had just broken through bright and I felt the earth move.  Actually, probably less the earth moving than having that first, distinct contraction – that sign for which I had waited, wondering if I’d even know when you’d be coming.  But there it was – a new sensation, so marked and unambiguous, I knew everything was about to change forever.  I drank in the sun as it rose through my window.  I looked at the clock and my heart palpitated with wild excitement.

Today is the day.  This child for whom I have prepared and waited would arrive.  Today – this baby that had caused me to exercise daily and eat so many vegetables for its’ health – now we would see.

Boy or girl?  I didn’t know, but I was praying for a baby girl with blond hair and rosy cheeks (like the baby of one of my college Bible teachers).  I had a vision in mind…

No one but Grandma and I even knew.  It was our happy little secret all day as we went here or there.  I wrote down contraction times and when asked by friends and church family, “When are you going to have that baby?”  “Oh, maybe today, I’d tell them,” smiling so big inside about the best secret in the world.

5:55 a.m. and the clock spun wildly around until 5:55 p.m. when I told Grandma, “I need to go to the hospital now.”  I am not sure how I knew it except that I was packing my bag and when a contraction would come, I’d have to stop what I was doing to breath through it.  I was giddy with anticipation, feeling out of control.

But grandpa.  He wanted us to wait and drop him at the church.  So we left at 6:15 and drove {the almost opposite direction} to drop him at his office around 6:30 p.m. and then we were off to the hospital.  Okay-maybe I am being dramatic, as it was only about a 10 mile trip, but when you are in transition…

We pulled up to the doors at emergency so my mom could drop me off and I was met with a wheel chair at 6:48 p.m.  As we went over the bumpy grate going in, I said to my wheelchair-pusher, “Could you stop for a minute?  I am having a contraction and need to breathe.”

“Oh, honey,” she said with great disdain.  “You are never going to make it.  This is your first baby and you will be in labor for at least 20 hours and if you are acting like this now, you will never make it.”  I figured she was the expert and I thought if what she was telling me was true I would never be able to do this for 20 more hours. I was not going to make it.

But I also kind of wanted to hit her.

She delivered me to labor and delivery and you were born at 7:16 p.m. – just 28 minutes after my mom had delivered me to the door.  I have never gotten over the fact that I didn’t get to smack that wheelchair pusher.  I just never have.

As the firelight in the night

So are you to me

At two

And like so many other things in your life

You surprised me and showed right up and it was beautiful and mysterious and awe-inspiring and magical and spiritual and breath-taking and it was you and me, just us. And you looked at me, and I couldn’t quit looking at you and though we’d only just met, I felt so at home with your warm, fuzzy head. The smell of you, the contour of your face in the barely-lit room: proof of God’s love for me.  A gift straight from heaven!  I knew I was undeserving.  I knew no one, no one, but God could have, would have entrusted you to me.

At three

As the ruby in the setting

As the fruit upon the tree

Oh, love story of love stories – my baby, my own, a sweet tiny, pink-bundled girl.  Blonde-haired, blue-eyed, joy of joys.  I wondered if I was actually allowed to feel this happy –  because I was sure some one would take you away if they knew.

As the wind blows over the plains

So are you to me

 Read about Kai’s adoption story here

And now, joy-child, beautiful woman with two sons of your own {I learn so much from watching you mother them, love them} – it is a day to celebrate your birth, to remember and recall that day thirty-four years ago with gratefulness and thankfulness to a loving God who drew my heart to His with the most loving-kindess imaginable in the form of a girl, tender and sweet, now a woman – wise and lovely.  I do thank God for you.  I do.  So I wish for you (a prayer-wish, of course):

As the wind blows over the plains

So are you to me

So are you to me

Happy Birthday, firstborn and namesake.  Happy Birthday, daughter and friend.  I love you.