Ordinary Miracles
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007“Change can come on tiptoe, Love is where it starts…”
Barbara Streisand sang Marvin Hamlisch’s tune from the DJ’s speakers as my oldest son, Stephen held me and moved me around the dance floor.
Finally, I thought, I get to dance with my son, even though I had to wait until he was 30 and at his wedding reception to get to do it.
But as he twirled me and spun me, and as I sang the words of the song to him, I realized we had danced together before. Only I did the twirling, holding his small body in my arms, his pajama-clad feet barely reaching my waist, as I sang nursery rhymes to him to ease him into sleep.
“Ordinary miracles, Happen all around, Just by giving and receiving, Comes belonging and believing…”
Where did the time go? Now, here he was, spinning me, amidst a circle of friends and family, each group marking a stage of Stephen’s life. His childhood friend, Jesse, who spent so much time in our house each summer he was like an adopted fourth son. Stephen’s friends from college, with whom he became more steadily himself. His colleagues at work, a couple of who were the matchmakers for he and his new wife, Mindy. And, finally, the new circle of friends and family that Mindy brings into his life.
“Every sun that rises, Never rose before, Each new day leads the way, Through a different door…”
And as we sat an hour earlier in the melting Virginia sun, watching Stephen and Mindy say their vows, I wondered, when did Bob and I move through this door? And where did the days go that led us to be celebrating not only Stephen and Mindy’s wedding that day but Bob’s and my 34th wedding anniversary as well? How did we get from three small pajama-clad boys who needed singing to sleep to three tall young men in tuxes? Wow!
And yet, here we were. Stephen, standing before us holding Mindy’s hands, promising to love her, just as Bob had promised to love me, while his two brothers along with two other friends stood as groomsmen.
Ordinary miracles. Often our children may seem more ordinary than miraculous but then there are the moments, like the sudden slumping of an infant’s body against my shoulder into sleep, or like that Saturday evening, when I was held by my now-adult son, that we know…
“No lightning bolt or clap of thunder, Only joy and quiet wonder, Endless possibilities, Right before our eyes, Oh, see the way a miracle multiplies…”
Who would have thought that a wedding 34 years ago would lead to this? A wedding anniversary, three grown handsome, healthy sons, and the wedding of our oldest to a lovely young woman who loves and supports our son. We could only imagine. And when by cooperation of the Fates, it happens?
Ordinary miracles!