People smile and tell me
I'm the lucky one
And we've just begun
Think I'm gonna have a son
He will be like she and me,
as free as a dove
Conceived in love
Sun is gonna shine above
~Kenny Loggins, Danny's Song
We began seeing the symptoms of my Mercie's expectancy in March of 1986. You know, the usual. She was eating more. The monthly visitor was late. Her sense that she was more than one person occupying the same space. Morning sickness that at times veered into the comical. Strange cravings for odd foods came forth. As the symptoms increased, my smile did too.
She blossomed in spring, our first one in South Dakota, our first one in a place of marked, changing seasons.
Yes, the unending rolling Dakotan hills covered themselves with a delicate green hue. Spring showers came. The few trees started to bloom. The emblems of spring were out in force and I, I was a father.
Yes, the baby had not been born yet. He hadn't seen the light of day nor knew what such a thing was. I was a father already of someone like me someone like her, our love meshed into a living being. I was a father, as God is Father and the source of all fatherhood. We'd become co-creators along with Him. A unique, unrepeatable life has formed. Nothing I've done would've changed the world so much than bringing this child forth. God foresaw him from before the beginning of time, and now was on the way. A child made in our image and likeness, we would love and cherish him until our very last hours on this earth, and beyond.
The first "official" news came in the form of a do-it-at-home pregnancy test. We met in the trailer's bathroom for the mandatory reading. We laughed, we cried, we hugged. Our love had fructified!
I grabbed my guitar which I had brought with us from Puerto Rico, and went to the trailer's small room. We used the little room for impromptu storage. I'd carved in it the prayer space I've since made everywhere we've lived. I then lost myself in glory, and praise, and song.
- You've got a party over there? - she asked with a smile.
- Yes. - That's all I was able to say.
We made the mandatory happy news phone calls. “The baby was set to come by December” - we said again and again.
I saw The Glow enfolding her.
Then we went out shopping for our very first baby things.
Bella tu historia🙏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🙋🏻♀️💓