I don't have big events happening right now as I wait for our child to be born, maybe this week, maybe today. But I'm dying to write something down, anything, because I go back through my blog every now and then and wonder at the long silences: wasn't anything happening? The truth is, a sea change is taking place, but it's so quiet, there's no event to narrate, no pithy interactions with strangers to laugh at later.
So I went back through my Google Photos and chose a month and year at random to think and write about. From this exercise, February 1, 2015, I found pictures of a baby dedication! It seems fitting.
Maya, Josh, Nora, Andre, and Henry were being dedicated that day. They are all chubby-cheeked and beyond cute. Maya has these perfectly-shaped eyes and she stares off into the congregation from her father's arms, seeing her larger family from a new vantage. Josh, only a few months old, has his thick hair parted in the middle and is dressed in a dapper baby suit, complete with tie and pocket square. Nora looks at the Pastor with some curiosity at his touching her head, but is maybe ready to believe it is a blessing. Andre's mom, Janelle, holds him close and he looks positively angelic, even if half his face is covered by his pacifier. Henry might be the most baby-looking of them all, for some reason. His duck-fluff hair is barely settled on his sweet, round head. He is wide-eyed and alert, but quietly sitting in his father's arms, facing outward.
These little babies are a bunch of five-year-olds now! I see them on their parents' Instagram and on Zoom and through the occasional email; they're doing wonderful things like holding snakes, going to school, making friends in new places, learning to feed their baby brother. I hope I never underestimate seeing kids growing up close ever again. It broke my heart when I returned from Morocco, the growing I had missed seeing weekly and monthly at church. And now! The pandemic separates us, and our recent move, and several months, and in one case, an ocean, and I tell you, digital messages are something, but they're nothing compared to looking around the room at West End Church, and seeing each little kid troop in from Sunday School with their sticker sheets to sit with their families not quietly. I miss you and your kids, West End. So much.
