As you could tell, the end of last week had me feeling completely beaten down. While that mood is not completely gone, it has improved, even if only a bit. I had some readers give words of encouragement, which I thank them for, it means a lot.
I am generally the strong one in our house. I try to keep the brave face, to give everyone the impression that everything will be OK. That gets to be hard to do, and last week was a build up of that measure, finally collapsing all of that strength like a crumbling wall.
Yesterday I got a bit of a recharge from an unlikely source. Our six week old son. He helped me by doing something we all need. Showing me unconditional love and trust.
We all slept in yesterday. When we finally woke up we knew that we had missed our target time for making it to church. To be honest I was not overly disappointed, I did not really want to go myself. I wanted the day off. After he awoke, and got his mommy and me time, my wife handed him over so that she could run downstairs and get herself some water, and eat some cereal. I sat quietly and talked to him, and got my grins and attempts at a laugh as I made odd sounds, and faces at him. After a few minutes I changed his diaper and put him belly down on my chest where he could see his mommy eating her cereal, and gaze at her lovingly.
After a few minutes the sound of the pacifier slurping seemed to quiet and he squirmed he way up my chest so that his head was resting squarely over my heart. Slowly the arms made their way out from under him, one hanging down my side and the other gripping the neck of my shirt tightly. And then with a pop, his pacifier shot out of his mouth and I hear him sigh a deep sigh of contentment, a sigh of love and happiness.
I was for him at that moment a place of safety. A place of comfort. All he wanted was may hand slowly rubbing his back, and speaking quietly to him. He didn’t’ need to hear that it was all ok, or worry abut money or anything that we as “grown-up” people think of. In that moment he had everything he needed. So did I.
I closed my eyes, and listened to him breathe, smelled the now familiar baby smell, and felt him quietly rustle, as he dreamt about whatever it is that a six week old dreams about, and felt content. I drifted off myself. My wife covered him with a blanket, and went on to do some cleaning. We napped together for what seemed like hours, me feeling the love from him, for being nothing other than “daddy”.
When he began to stir and finally awoke, I picked him up and told him how special he was, he looked at me and smiled. At that moment, the only thing that existed in my world was that unconditional love. It was the best.
~Another Day
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed! Or Have my feed delivered To your Email
on Apr 28th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Just a little touch of paradise on Sunday morning.