The Trifecta

As I begin to write this, it is 11:50 p.m. on March 20, 2012.  I wanted it to post on that date, but I realize I am most likely going to miss it by minutes.  That is OK, because March 20 has been a trifecta.  For me, there has never been and likely never will be a day quite like this one.  Therefore, I will savor these last few minutes even as the clock ticks its way past midnight and I type away.

I like that word--trifecta.  I see that it means "a run of three . . . grand events."  That is the perfect way to describe the day that is just now passing out of my reach.  Here's why.

As you know, it is the first day of spring.  Although it has been a rainy day here in my neck of the woods, there is always something about the coming of spring that suggests newness, freshness, and promise.  Everyone's grass is taking on that vibrant spring hue. The air is warm, and the landscape bursts with redbuds.  The whole outdoors sings with expectation.

It was thirty-one years ago today that Pa-pa and I got married on this first day of spring.  I realize that it may not be every young couple's dream to get married on their lunch hour, but we did just that.  He pulled his best man away from his potato planting, and I surprised my matron of honor with a phone call just as she was settling into an otherwise routine workday at J.C. Penney's.  "Do you have plans for lunch?" we asked them both.  Instead of what they had planned to do that day, they watched the two of us step out in the hope of a bright future together.  The rest is a rich history that came to include two children and three grandchildren.

Until tonight, that is.  Tonight we welcomed Beenie into our world.  After giving his mama a good night's work, our fourth grandchild came a week early to celebrate our anniversary with us.  He weighed 8 pounds and 4 ounces, and was 20 1/2 inches long.  He arrived at 10:18 p.m., which is why I am officially a day behind with his birth announcement.  I just got home from the hospital and I am falling-down exhausted, but this is a story that has to be told now.

Beenie is a healthy, beautiful little boy.  I can't wait to hold him tomorrow, or, I guess I should say, later today.  I am anxious to rub the soft, dark hair and touch those tiny, slim fingers.  I want to breathe in the sweet scent of him and tell him I love him.  He has to know that he has a Googie, and she has plans for him.

If you know me personally or if you have followed this blog long, you know that we lost my dad to lung cancer last September.  The winter has been long.  But with the day just past, spring has arrived.  We celebrate our marriage, and we welcome another grandchild.  What a day this has been!  It has reinforced for me how, in the midst of the turmoil and unrest that make up this world and the pain that so often accompanies this life, there is, after all, hope. 

Life renews itself in spite of it all.  It always has.  Sometimes it takes a trifecta to remind this old Googie of that, and I rejoice.