It's been a crazy week. Originally I was going to write this blog last week because of news that I got on Saturday (11/6), but as usual life happened (illness) and I didn't. But that's okay- because there were more things to happen over the past week that really tie into what I was going to write about. (of course, I then proceeded to wait an additional five days before finishing the blog. Man I am awesome).
While there are innumerable differences between all of us, we are also bound together by types of events that are not discriminant. Birth and death are chief among these- and the beauty of humanity is that we take these mundane commonalities and flavor them with our own perspectives.
This blog is about a day in my life when joy and sorrow intersected in my life on a normal Saturday. This is about the meaning that I have attached to it. Let's get this party started.
In the morning, I took the kids grocery shopping at Wal-Mart. I do this often, because apparently we do not live in a magical land where food automatically replenishes itself while it sits in your cupboards. Also, we do not live in a normal land in which food mates with other food and bears offspring. While shopping, we ran into some friends and found out that they were pregnant.
Congratulations! Apparently they've been trying for a couple years now, and now their "hard work" has paid off. They been very active in helping out with the baby explosion at our church, so it's nice to see them get their due (date). They are a great couple, and they're going to be excellent parents.
Interesting aside- when you're talking to people who have recently become pregnant...let's just say that they will tell you things about themselves that they probably wouldn't normally tell you- and unless you're a real sicko you probably wouldn't want to know. For instance-they might tell you "we've been trying for awhile to get pregnant"- well, I'm assuming that your preparations didn't involve brushing up on your ornithology. And I've seen your apartment- it definitely isn't big enough for a lab to fertilize eggs in vitro.
I wish that was where my story ended. Good news doesn't sell, though, and life is all about homeostasis- and when life is going good, unfortunately it is something bad that will bring things back into balance..
That evening, we were just chilling at the house (which is an amazing reality for me- having come from a job that sucked away my weekends like vampires suck away blood, I am just pleased as punch that I have weekends off), when we got a knock on the door. Well crap- if you know me at all, you know that I'm rocking the boxer-briefs when I'm in mi casa and there are no plans. I'm sorry if that's an over-share- I guess I figured after the whole pregnancy talk, we could all be adults and be open about things.
So I grab some pants real quick, run down to get it, and it's a friend of ours from the townhouses. A simple neighborly courtesy call about their noise level turned quickly south when she told me her son (who is only a year or so older than Delaney) has been diagnosed with cancer.
It came as quite a shock to me, to say the least- especially with the juxtaposition of the earlier pregnancy news. When you have kids, and you find out something like that- it tends to rock you. You realize that life is often a game of Russian Roulette, and sometimes it's your turn and you get the empty slot- and sometimes you get the bullet.
Being a stay-at-home dad has offered me a degree of safety. It's been fairly easy for me to build a bubble wall that I live my life in, and spin the wheels of my routine. Sometimes I go back and forth- is my life this way because I'm blessed? Or is my life going so smoothly because things are wrong? I know it sounds messed up- and I know that I am messed up. And the world is the most messed up place in the world.
There are other examples of happiness and sorrow from the past few weeks- it's pretty hard to process sometimes. Because the people in our lives don't suffer alone- we are there with them, if for no other reason than because we realize that it could have been us. And so we should celebrate when they are happy and lament when they are sad- because it could have been us. The calender marches on, but congratulations and consolations are always in season. As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, remember to give thanks to those in your life who mean the most to you.
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