Such is Life

 August 8, 2025- Friday 

It is very interesting how much life can happen in three weeks. Peace and quiet, replaced with joy and then followed abruptly by distress and anxiety. My family has gone from the joy of welcoming new life to being scared a life might be lost in the span of forty-eight hours. What has this past three weeks of joy and turmoil taught me?

First, seeing a newborn baby, much less two babies, gives you a sense of wonder and a sense of hope of what new life has in store for it. I know those emotions have been written before but when it invades your life it brings a realism that is so warm and welcome. Those babies do not really have to do anything but eat and sleep and everyone is happy.  Even their cries are fun to listen to for a while. As a grandparent, you all of a sudden want everything good this life has to offer.  

The next thing is being slammed in the face with something you know is a horrible aspect of our lives. Watching a person go through alcohol withdrawal from a very toxic state makes you wonder why alcohol is so easy to get. Yes, not everyone abuses alcohol but the accessibility to vast quantities of alcohol puts everyone at risk. Seeing someone on life support because of their level of toxicity puts you in such a defenseless situation. One sits and waits and wonders what the other side of this horrible situation will look like. It humbles a person who realizes what the potential outcomes could be.

There is also the realization of what the power of a family is. When not only family members start to work together to provide for the family, but you also learn who you can count on. Not only family but friends of those family members start providing things no one even considers and knows is needed. This people do not expect that thank you note or any kind of recognition. They just want what is best for the babies.

A person also begins to learn how much life stress a person can endure. Out of nowhere, death leaps into your family from a place that was not expected. How does one mourn when there is care to be given and intense unknown situations standing in front of you? Compartmentalization of emotions is demanded in order to stay present in the short term, knowing one has to deal with all the events in the long term.

Then you learn what the love of God really means in your life. Enormous stress is real but so is the peace that begins to settle in your soul. God know s life will be hard and there will be times a person has to endure so He provides peace. He provides understanding. He provides rest in short periods of time. He quickens the mind to deal with the unexpected. A life lesson at multiple levels in a three-week period of time.

We grow by allowing those lessons to settle in our minds and then be prepared to share and know the experience has prepared you for the stress of the future.

Such is life.