This morning I read an old journal of mine written in the days before my son Caleb was born. It contained my thoughts, anticipations and fears about what it would be like to be a mom. I wrote but was unable to imagine what life with a baby was going to be like. There was some advice I recorded there from a dear friend, who said, “People will give tell you what to do with your child, but the most significant thing is what YOU will do with your child. You are Caleb’s Mom.”

Today, Caleb is 22 — and I was right, I had absolutely no idea what was coming — no prescience about Autism, or the challenges associated with that. But more importantly no idea about the incredible joy of Caleb, of who he would become. Joy is not intimidated by life’s circumstances. Joy is maverick, indefatigable and anything but typical, normal, ordinary. Joy will show up, in my experience, in whatever and take you by surprise. Joy brightens and refreshes.

Caleb, above all else, has been Great Joy in our lives.

By Your Side
 
Life with you skips like stones
across glassy water – barely scratching
the surface, a string of kisses arching
away from us only to disappear…
 
Love searches for palm sized questions – 
smooth, flat, to fling fast and low
over the mystery, one question per rock, 
and a beach strewn with possibilities.
 
Steadfast love and faithfulness meet, kiss
Hope springs up from the ground, rained on
by a holy peace – the Lord will give 
what is good, will make a path for our steps.
 
Even misshapen stones splash, sink deep, 
urge, ‘try again’… and are good at extending
an hour spent just being with you
speechlessly searching by your side.

© 2019 – Laurel Archer