A Dream Within a Dream

I remember the times that my children and their spouses have surprised us with the most exciting news of all: that we were going to be grandparents. One was in Hudson's restaurant, where our youngest son presented us with a picture of baby booties. A big-sister T-shirt on another one. A picture of a roll in an oven (bun-in-the-oven)! Our second-born and his wife woke us up late at night with a knock at the front door and a pregnancy test. The aftershocks included months of waiting, praying, checking, ultrasounds, pondering....and then the final, near-heart-stopping kicker of pushing out those wrinkled, red, wailing lumps of pure love. 

All my life I've heard about how wonderful grandchildren are, how we should have had them first, how they're great because they are yours but you can send them home, and then the endless talk of how beautiful their grandkids are. But ours take the cake. They really are different than everybody else's. My husband says they are products of fine breeding, unlike the rest of the world's...they're smarter, funnier, and definitely cuter. No narcissism here. We now have five of them, aged three and under. All three sons had baby girls in the same year, and then our youngest son decided to up his A-game with two boys in rapid succession. On the rare occasion that all five are together, with our Aussie herding them in circles around the living room, the noise and drama are overwhelming. Number six is on the way, to our oldest son and his wife. Our hearts are constant in prayer, as they have suffered with infertility and the loss of other babies in utero. Every single morning, as I regain consciousness and I remember where I am, my heart lifts this child to God. And her/his Mama and Daddy. Life is a tenuous thread, where we indeed see through a glass darkly. We don't know what God is doing or why, most times. Our days are full of learning to trust Him. Or not. As I look in the sweet, bunny eyes of each of our grandchildren, I can't help but be amazed at the gift of life. These sugar dumplin' babies are full of themselves, helpless at first, then making up the hardest job you'll ever love. As I hold or play with them, I remember their Daddies and their Aunt as children, just yesterday. 

God gave me a precious dream recently. I was asleep in that dream, laying on a couch in a cream-colored version of our Victorian house, majestic tall windows and the screen door with lace blowing. As I "napped," each of my children climbed up, one at a time, and snuggled. They were small and I could smell their delicious baby hair, squeeze their chubby, smooth, firm skin. It was as real as life. When I woke up from my dream, I cried. Cried for the loss, and also cried for the blessings God mercifully sent me. It truly goes by in a flash and then you have to figure out the rest of your life, which is now convoluted by all the streams and rivulets pouring out from those beginnings. River of life, whose streams make glad the city of God...