The Beauty of Life
Audrey Sue made a grand entrance into our family at 12:26 am yesterday morning, weighing 10 pounds and 6 ounces and stretching 22.5 inches in length! She’s a beauty, but I’m not sure I could have expected anything else from her mother, our daughter, and soon to be perfect mentor for Audrey. Although this is really about Audrey and the incredible miracle of life, I want to spend just a few minutes talking about the one that brought her into this world and the incredible daughter and now mother that she is.
Melissa made her grand entrance back in 1985, and we realized from the beginning that we were blessed with a wonderful child and a beautiful person:
I remember being afraid to hold her when she was little because I was so worried about dropping her…she appeared so fragile. In fact, sometime early in her life, I remember tossing her into the air and catching her in the basement of our house and at one point she hit the ceiling as I forgot how low the ceiling was and reminded myself of how fragile she could be!
That young, fragile girl quickly grew up into a athletic and ambitious child:
In her grade school years, Melissa gave us lots to cheer about and some things to worry about, but it was hard to argue about her hard work, her maturity for her age, and her love for family and friends. She made us proud in school and in sports, and she always seemed to be a champion for kids that were younger and smaller than she was. She made friends quickly which was important as we moved around with the military, and she fit in so easily into new communities and new schools wherever we lived.
As she moved into her high school years, we finally stabilized in Colorado Springs, and she entered high school with passion and pursuit, having college and medicine (in some fashion) on her mind:
In high school, she played sports, wrecked cars, began dating, established lasting friendships and decided her path would be nursing. She picked nursing after a special summer program at Cal Berkley which totally turned her off to studying to be a doctor. During high school, she also battled her Mom on so many things, and I remember saying constantly, “you may be fighting now, but you’ll be best friends for life.” Her confidence and conviction led to a level of maturity that most young people don’t achieve, and it gave me an incredible optimism that her stubborness which accompanied those traits would pay off well as she entered adult life.
She graduated from high school in 2003, a beautiful young woman in pursuit of her own dreams:
Melissa excelled in college and seemed to really enjoy being on her own, but midway through her college years, she met up with this guy that seemed to be very different than others she had dated previously. He had his act together, which may be the most important thing that a parent looks for in a person that their child may date! As the bond between Melissa and Mark tightened, talk turned to marriage and ultimately turned to timing. Melissa’s very wise parents highly recommended that they wait till college was over so that they didn’t put undue burden on their relationship trying to finish college while paying their bills. As we all know, love trumps logic, so they committed themselves to a life with each other in July of 2007:
As we all know, laughing in the limo leads to joy in other aspects of life, and that joy in the other aspects of life led to 9 months of eager anticipation:
As we moved through those 9 months of eager anticipation, we proudly witnessed the graduation of both Mark and Melissa as Mark finished his finance degree and Melissa graduated from the school of nursing. We were very proud to see her walk across that stage, even with that 9 months of eager anticipation so obviously showing out her front:
Her graduation was less than 3 months ago, and as both Melissa and Mark put this phase of education behind them, they prepared for the first phase of education in parenting which now begins with the arrival of Audrey Sue yesterday:
So that beautiful baby that burst onto the scene in 1985 has come full circle delivering her own beautiful baby just yesterday. It’s impossible to describe the thoughts I’m having as I think back to her early days and now think forward to her life as a mother. As I look at my wife, I can only hope that Melissa has the relationship with Audrey that Denise and Melissa have today. All the tension that they shared during those years of maturing have turned into friendship and respect now that they are both adults. As I look at Melissa, I hope she will be patient and loving of Audrey as she grows and plots her own path in life, and I hope Audrey gives her as many smiles and as much love as we have received from Melissa. I also hope that Melissa and Mark will let us spoil Audrey with no constraints and then not blame us as Audrey leverages that spoiling to her advantage!
As I bring this to a close and struggle for something profound to say, all I can say is this – for Melissa – thank you for the beauty you have brought to this world both in your life and in the new life of your daughter. I pray that all the joy that you have brought to me and your Mom will be returned to you through Audrey, and I pray that Audrey will model you as she grows and thus also become a beautiful, confident, loving, and passionate young woman. I love you sweetie!
PS. I started this blog wanting to talk about Audrey, but I’ll do that later. Suffice it to say that beauty begets beauty and Audrey has a great start in life because of the beautiful parents that she has. As I see the smiles on the faces of her parents, I know those smiles come from deeply rooted love that will provide a foundation for nurturing and support as Audrey grows. In turn, I know Audrey will love her parents and respect them for the beautiful people they are. Welcome to our family Audrey!  We love you!
Audrey Sue
August 19th, 2008