"it’s been a long hard ride (we've got a ways to go),
but this is still the place that we all call home."
dierks bentley
“Suddenly it seemed to me that I looked back from a great distance on that smile and saw it all again - the smile and the day, the whole sunny, sad, funny, wonderful day and all the days that we had spent here together. What was I going to do when such days came no more? There could not be many; for we were a family growing old..." Jetta Carleton
I have nearly ten good friends who are now wives and mothers. When I met most of them they had neither "a guy" or "kids." What a meaningful and fascinating experience it is to watch someone else grow, overcome hard new things, nurture a brood, bring new relationships into the world, develop, and happily thrive. Jessica (Shae) and I met with weirdly similar life goals, and similarly weird current-life circumstances. "It's the oldest story in the world. One day you're 17 and you're planning for someday. And then quietly, without you're ever really noticing, someday is today. And then someday is yesterday. And this is your life." It's wonderful to look at a short-legged, fat-footed, brownie-eyed, watchful, puppy-boy and see my friend looking back up at me. At least parts of my friend. His eye-shape is the same as hers when he smiles, and just like his dad's "at rest." Her dimples, his eyebrows. Her goofiness, his need to figure out how things work. A whole, original, never-before-and-never-again human who was wondered about in parks and Chipotle's all over the east coast. I love knowing a talented, quietly sassy, determined woman and then meeting the new characters in her story -- finding out where her story all along was written into somebody else's. This is the man. This is the child. Here is her family!
Josh is a friendly, smart partner for Jessica, and she is a lively, tough match for him. Judah is clearly and affectionately loved by them both (I think every time we've hung out together Josh feeds/changes/cleans-up Judah. Caleb and Josh have special bonding time over their sons' stank! haha) Being with them is easy and warm. I love this little family, mostly because I know how much joy they have in each other.
