Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Experience Adds Appreciation

There are certain things in life that you must experience in order to fully appreciate. I suppose a variety of things could fall into this category, but (a) kids and (b) grandkids are certainly two of them.

On Monday night a second cousin of mine gave birth to a beautiful, healthy little girl (click here for their blog story). The feelings and involuntary responses that she and her husband have experienced since then could not have been “explained” to them, nor could they have felt them, ahead of time. But right now they are overwhelmed with love and feelings of bonding for their little sweetheart.

The same was true when Kay Lynne gave birth to our sons, first to Gregg and later to Doug. The intense feelings of love and total acceptance we felt and experienced following their arrivals came totally out-of-the-blue and ended up deep within our beings from where we could not extract them.

The same has been true at the birth of each of our grandchildren. And I’m very happy that things work that way.



For the past two days we were privileged to enjoy time with our sons, daughters-in-law and grandkids at a beautiful ocean beach front vacation home on the coast. Pictured above are all of us just before we left for home (except moi, of course, the “taker”.)

All I can say is that this pleasurable experience has already woven its way deep into my psyche and memory and will forever remain there to “call up” from time to time.

These times together are also occurrences you have to live through to fully grasp. Even so, much takes place at the feeling level, almost subconsciously, and the reality of it all often doesn’t totally sink in until you’ve had a chance to process it.

I think I’m continuing to do that right now, and I’m deeply thankful for each and every one of these incredible human beings whom God has brought into our lives.

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