Sometimes things happen in my life and they go by so quick and easy it's like I'm dreaming.  Other times I feel like my life is a nightmare and I can't get away from it.

I went to see my sister in in the hospital while she was having her 2nd, it had that odd dreamlike quality to it.  I came in near the end of her labor, an hour before the baby was born.  She was in good spirits, but the contractions were starting to build and get painful. My parents and I were ushered out of the room, and while we hung out in the waiting room and chatted, my new nephew was born.

Forty-five minutes after we left, my brother-in-law came in to tell us it was done.  We went back to the room, my sister now exhausted but smiling, her stomach now flat with a little cocoon of clothesand blankets containing two small grey eyes resting on it.  The only indication to me of the pain of childbirth were a few small drops of blood on the ground.  It was a surreal experience to come back to the same room and have the focus entirely changed from my sister to my nephew.

I held him and touched his soft skin and gave him back quickly before I broke him.  Then I had to leave and go to my sister and brother-in-law's house to take the afternoon shift of watching their two-year old.  Her and I were most nervous about this part.  He was supposed to be napping when I got there and how he would react to me when he woke up was unknown.  When I arrived, my sister's best friend had put him to bed but he wasn't keen on sleeping.  We could see him standing in his crib starring at us through the crack in the door.  I went in and was quickly overwhelmed by the smell, which thankfully Sarah took charge of and spared me the awkwardness of changing his diaper. As she was leaving she told me to rock him and then ask him if he wanted to go to sleep after a couple minutes.  It didn't take him long to get heavy and he responded "I do!" when I asked him if he wanted to go to bed. He laid down and I went to the couch and watched the news.  I always feel like I'm a usefull part of society when I hear what's happening around the world, like all of a sudden I'm enlightened.  Sometimes if I listen to music in my car on the way home from work, instead of NPR, I feel like I'm cheating on society, or letting my fellow humans down somehow.  Maybe that's how NPR is supposed to work?

So about an hour or so later, once I felt good and informed about life, I noticed that something didn't sound right in the baby monitor.  It was too quiet.  I peeked in the room and saw that my nephew was sitting in the middle of his crib, awake, and looking very upset.  I opened the door and he gave me a look of terrorized agony. I didn't know toddlers knew that look.  He made a suddering sigh and laid back down.  I sat down in the corner of the room and closed my eyes so I could just barely see him through my eyelashes.  He rolled around and then stood up with the same look on his face. 

Wendy had told me he'd started waking up in the afternoons having nightmares, which seemed to be what was going on now.  The look he had was like someone needing to be rescued but resigned to abandonment.  I picked him up and he sprawled against me, barely hanging on.  I took him to the rocking chair and tried to soothe him as he trembled and took gasping breaths while silently crying.

I'm the uncle, and I'm not prepared for these situations.  I don't have the right words or tone of voice, I didn't even know where his juice was. All I had was the knowledge that his bad dreams weren't real and that if I could somehow help him feel secure that he'd be okay.

I took him into the kitchen and tried to get his shaggy hair in order (he won't abide by barbers and hair clippers so he wears it like a teenager) and cool him off with some water to his cheeks.  I don't think it helped.  He went back to sobbing and I took him to the front door.  When I opened it, the sudden bright light scarred him and he tried to squirm away.  We went back to the rocking chair and once he calmed down, I tried again.  This time he went outside.  We sat on the porch, me on a chair, him on my leg with a comatose look on his face.  Every so often he'd slide down and reach for the screen door and I'd lift him up into my arms and we'd go back to the rocking chair.

It went like this for a while, until we saw a bee in the flowers and he pointed to it and said something that started with the letter b and meant the same to him.  The next time we went inside, he hid behind the rocking chair and gave me the slightest of smiles when he poked his head around to see where I was.  Then I knew he was game on for hide and seek. After that it was all fun, games and blowing bubbles in the house. By the time my parents came by to check on me -- since, afeterall, I am just the uncle -- he was all smiles and excitement to be alive. We packed up and brought him to the hospital to see his mom and meet his new brother.  Watching him so gently stroke the baby's head and kiss his cheek was touching beyond my ability to say.  Later that night I cried and cried at having seen the sweetness of life and the depth of sorrow we pass through in between. 

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child." -1 Corinthians 13:11

I wonder how many times I go through life entirely oblivious of the miraculous state of things around me, I suspect that it's all the time. I wonder how often I stare out into the world like my whole life is a nightmare of work and bills and life and never realize that God stands right by me even as I think I'm all alone.  To be honest, I think that happens quite a lot too. I know I have dark and awful days that I forget the moment life is fun again.

My 30th birthday, is in little more than a month ago, I wonder if this is the year that I stop thinking like a child and start to comprehend and appreciate the vast glory of God.