February 2023—WE ARE GREAT-GRANDPARENTS!!!

On February 3, 2023, David and I became great-grandparents to a beautiful new baby—a boy! He was born in the same Provo, Utah hospital where we had our first beautiful baby—a girl—almost fifty years earlier! She was born on February 10, 1973. We feel that we have now gone full circle in the cycle of life!

When I was sitting at my birthday dinner last summer, my granddaughter leaned over to me and whispered, “We have a present for you, but it won’t be here for about seven months.” I looked at her and her husband who were both smiling at me as I thought to myself, “What would take seven months to arrive?” I knew they had been to Europe recently and thought that perhaps they had purchased something they were shipping to me. As the two of them kept smiling at me, I suddenly realized my “present” was going to be their first baby! They told me to keep it a secret as they hadn’t made an announcement yet—except to their parents. I glanced over at my son and his wife who were sitting nearby, and they had big smiles on their faces also! Such a memorable experience!

In the William Wordsworth poem, “Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood,” the sentiments expressed are exactly how I feel about a newborn baby coming into this world:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
          Hath had elsewhere its setting
               And cometh from afar;
          Not in entire forgetfulness,
          And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
               From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

It is such an honor and privilege to bring a child into the world. Yes, a bit of “heaven” is definitely in our homes, and God will always be there to help us raise these little infants as we go to Him consistently in prayer. As I say to all new parents, “It’s lots of work and lots of fun!”

We loved raising our children. We love watching our children raise their children. We also now love watching grandchildren raise their children. The cycle of life continues in a beautiful way. Pure love makes it all possible!