Breathe in, breathe out...

IWC: Inspired by: This piece on Spotify

Alive. 

I am alive. I feel the cool air on my skin, the warm breath of my mother on my cheek.  I hear a deep-throated chuckle, and my father holds me gently and spins me around and says: “Here is my son!”  I am fed and warm - loved.

I learn to walk; I learn to run.  My mother nurtures me and my father teaches me.  I fall from a trees and skin my knees; my mother binds me up and my father encourages me.  I am growing up, I learn new things, my father is around me and shows me the things the things he learned when he was young. My mother continues to love me and is always there.

I start to explore – my surroundings hold endless wonder, both near and far; I learn on my own now, I leave home and find my own way.  I am becoming my own person, I explore the world, I am finding that those lessons that I learned when I was young – the lessons of binding broken knees, and ‘Carry on son, through the pain’ are all needed in this world which is itself broken and needing encouragement. 

I learn to choose and so I do, making the hard decisions; I find the girl and we start to make a life together - I am getting excellent at all I do and am starting to leave my mark; there are times of success and times of failure, and yet through failure there are opportunities to grow.

My child is born.  I chuckle as I hold him gently, and I spin him around and say: “Here is my son!” I have a family!  The mark I leave on him will be more significant that the mark I leave on the world.   We visit my parents to show them our son and I see my father looking on and then holding him, chuckling softly.  He draws me aside and says – well done…

I look towards the future and imagine all that it can be – might be, could be, must be – but am beginning to realise how little I really know, and yet I continue to reach forward and say – this is what it could be like, and as I do this I reach the height of my work.  My legacy will live on when I am gone. 

I get the news that my father is ill – we go to him and gather around and celebrate a life well life, a full life, and I am reminded to continue to impart in my son all my father imparted to me.  I let his mother bind his broken knees, and I encourage him to stand up when he falls.  He does, and I continue to lead, guide, share, strengthen, build in him a resilience that will stand the tests that he will one day face.

My son leaves home; we watch him go, and celebrate with him as he finds the girl, and as they start to make a life of their own.  He visits with the news that they are to have a son, and a time later they return to show us their son.  I chuckle as he gently holds him and says: Here is my son!”   I hold my son’s son gently and then draw his father aside and say – well done…

Come my family, gather around me, all of you.  Let us look back and see the failure and success, the valleys and the mountain tops, the brokenness and the wholeness, the desolation and the restoration.  Let us look and see and celebrate a full life, a life well lived; a significant life, as we have had one another, as we laugh, cry, share, encourage, hold, weep, teach, strengthen, uphold… 

At the last I look around me, chuckle gently and …

Breathe in, breathe out.