The Cycle of Life

Every day I look at Ainsworth and marvel at the miracle of life. He amuses me, frustrates me, exhausts me, leaves me feeling guilty, perplexed and amazed. I love to discover something new that makes him laugh and watch him discover something new in ordinary everyday things. (Today he spent half an hour climbing up and down the hill at the back of our house and another twenty minutes putting stones from the road into the recycling box!)

Reflecting on our little bundle of life has added another dimension to my grief over the tragic loss of my brother five years ago and my Dad two and a half years ago. I'm struggling to articulate how his life has put a different perspective on their deaths, but it has. In some respects it has intensified my grief - they would both have loved Ainsworth so much and I would have loved to see him with them. The fact that this will never be so pains me to the core. And yet, in another way, his life coming after their deaths was very restorative for my soul. It was proof-positive of the the never ending cycle of life, and that was strangely reassuring.

I'd like to think (perhaps somewhat naively) that Dad and Dan have some concept of what is going on in our lives and are enjoying Ainsworth from afar. Dan was always on at us to have children because he believed it was the best thing he'd ever done - and I know where he was coming from now!