"Where it began, I can't begin to knowin' but then I know it's growin' strong. Was in the Spring and Spring became the summer who'd have believed you'd come along. Hands, touchin' hands. Reachin' out, touchin' me, touchin' you. Sweet Caroline, good times never seemed so good. I've been inclined to believe they never would." - Neil Diamond - "Sweet Caroline"
The tune heard at every Red Sox home game in the 8th inning has become a favorite of mine. It's a simple song expressing a simple love, but the kind of love that makes your mind forget what you had or did before you found it. The kind of love that makes time fly and you don't know where your Spring went because it turned into summer and now summer is slowly turning into Fall. The kind of love that gives you the butterflies inside when your hands touch for the first time. The kind of love that makes the ordinary things we do become extraordinary when we are doing them with that person. The kind of love that causes us to sacrifice our own desires to make the one we love better. The kind of love we all desire.
I became a dad November 17, 2008...yes, Abigail Rose is almost 2. I will become a dad to my 2nd baby girl sometime in the next 2 weeks, and her name will be Caroline Day...Sweet Caroline. Sally and I were talking the other day on a family walk and can't remember what life was like when it was just us or when it was just us and Wrigley. What did we do? We starting laughing because soon we will forget what life was like with just us, Wrigley, and Abigail. We haven't forgotten because they were bad times either. We have experienced the kind of love that just makes time fly by...and the good times never seemed so good when we didn't have Wrigley and Abigail and now we'll add Caroline to the mix and life will only continue getting better. Because of that I am getting anxious to get her home. Isn't it funny that even though time seems to be flying by at such a rapid fire pace as soon as we get anxious for something everything halts? And then when it finally arrives time kicks into an even higher gear. Think about it...Christmas Day takes forever to get here and then it's over in an instant. A long awaited vacation will never get here, and when it does it seems too short. And now I wait for Caroline and time is dragging...but as soon as she gets here I'm sure I will wonder where the time went.
I think about the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. I'm sure everyday as the dad looked out over the vast land hoping that would be the day his son returned time slowed down. And finally the day came...and as they celebrated I'm sure the time flew by. You can imagine that good times never seemed so good as they did that day. The love that dad had for his sons (both of them) was astounding. Obviously he longed for the "lost" son to come home and welcomed him with love (it says he was moved with compassion), but we often miss the love he had for his older son...and the older son missed it as well. It says the older son was mad about the celebration being thrown and refused to join in on the good times. The dad pleads with him and responds with "ALL that I have is yours because you have ALWAYS been with me." The dad had a respect for his older son and a pride in his work ethic. There was no longer a difference between his property and the son's property...everything that was his was also the son's. The love he felt for his older son was deep-rooted in the quality time they spent together while the other brother was away. They probably had times of laughter, tears, prayer, triumph, defeat...they had life together and nothing can take that away. Now that the whole family is back together I'm sure it's hard to remember what they did before brother was back, but those times also built a foundation for the prodigal coming back. It prepared the family for that time.
So as we wait for Sweet Caroline (she's not a prodigal...yet...and hopefully won't be) we have to be sensitive to Abigail. We will celebrate the life that is joining us and bring Abigail along in the celebration. She will be an incredible big sister and is ready to see what a "sissy" is I'm sure since we've been talking about it for so long now. And just like our first year of marriage was preparing a foundation to start our family and the next few years with Wrigley were preparing a foundation to have Abigail, we have to believe that the last few years with Abigail have been preparing a foundation for us to welcome Caroline. It started with a Holy Covenant between us and God believing that we would be together and our love would continuously grow for each other until death do us part.
And now as we look out over the vastness of Sally's belly waiting for Caroline to come, we realize that all of this was because two people fell in love...a simple love. The kind of love that makes you forget what you did before you had it, the kind of love that turns something ordinary (a family walk) into something extraordinary because of the quality of time that it was, the kind of love we all desire. I have found that love because of the ONE that loved me and sacrificed His life to make me better. And I am better because of the love that Christ has for me...a better man, a better friend, a better husband, and a better dad. May we continue to spread that love as the foundation of whatever might come next.
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