During this year of COVID, it may seem odd to cheer for a pregnancy. In fact, when I heard about the youngers in my family planning for babies, I wondered Really? Now?
Who would plan for a pregnancy, for a hospital stay with possible complications, for a new babe during a time with multiple COVID exposures?
Who would do such a thing? People staying in hope, that’s who.
During late 2019 and mid-2020, our family has added two new babies to the growing great-grandchildren pod. We now have two boys and two girls.
Even though the matriarch of the family has no recollection of these youngers, the rest of us do.
With the girl grands, we follow their ballgames and cheer for their teams. Support them in science and math contests. Give them creative gifts for Christmas.
Both girls carry so much promise, approaching puberty and beginning to plan out their adult lives.
I pray for them every night — safety from COVID, the fulfillment of their dreams, protection from any kind of abuse, self-confidence and enough gutsy strength to stay focused on their goals — to ignore the whine of peer groups.
The baby boys — one five months, one almost a year — are a delight to watch as they discover their toys, learn how to use a spoon, reach for the cat with chubby baby fingers.
The online Family Album has given us front row seats to their progress and growth.
In their sweet faces, I see the possibility of early verbal skills, of an extrovert who screams with excitement when air planes pass over the house, of creative gifts sometimes hidden within my legacy yet emerging in this new generation.
And their very presence, their little lives, stir up the juices of hope.
These children and others may help us solve the climate change emergency. They may create a new pathway for a vaccine that halts the next pandemic. They may become bankers or teachers or musicians and impact the world.
They have already impacted me by their very existence.
So I am grateful to these young couples who dared to start a family in 2020. They saw the bloom of hope and marched forward to plant seeds of tomorrow-living.
I am grateful for the babies of this next generation and for the positive expectations they elicit — just by being here.
©2020 RJ Thesman – All Rights Reserved
Check out more stories about hope in Hope Shines, available on Amazon and also in Large Print.
Babies fill our souls with joy.
True – no matter how old those babies are !