Post Sixty-Two

Theo Leads the Way

June 22, 2013

It's been six months since I last posted a journal entry.  Winter has come and gone. A new season of camps at Lake Louise is underway. Mary and Andrew are leaving New York state and moving back to Michigan.  Anna has passed her boards with flying colors.  Carl has begun his tenth year of Motown Mission.  

The winter at Lake Louise was dark, cold and long.  At one point I would have told you that it was not possible for the snow piled up around my cottage to melt away.  I really thought that there would still be snow on the groung through the end of May. But the snow is gone.  And summer is upon us. Life moves on.

I still think of Terry all the time.  There are still moments when I expect her to walk in the door.  But I also am finding real joy in my job as Executive Director of Lake Louise Christian Community and I truely feel that I am making a contribution to its future.  Life moves on.

Theo lives that statement.  He is no longer the slightly premature infant he was on the day he was born. For six months he has made it his business to adjust to his radically new reality of being born.  Everything he does is an exploration of the world around him.  He gains new capability everyday.  He discovers joy in the crinkle of paper and the squeek of a toy.  There is no holding him back. Theo leads the way by engaging his new reality.

I have decided to follow Theo's example.  What was is now gone except for cherished memories and our adult children who are making their own way in the world. Those will remain with me for the rest of my life.  Now I too must learn to live in a new reality.  The only way I can do that is to engage with the reality, explore the possibilities, and embrace joy wherever it may be found.  Perhaps this is one way to be, "born again."

Dave Gladstone