Our Sweet Sixteen!

          August 28th is a very special day in the Meyer household. The first announcements that the date is fast approaching begin around February 28 of each year, with reminders increasing in frequency from monthly, to weekly, to daily, until the hourly countdown begins during the week of August 21st. Perhaps you’re thinking that the Meyers have a particular devotion to St. Augustine, whose feast day falls on August 28th, or that we celebrate the day Henry Hudson discovered Delaware Bay in 1609. Maybe you’re thinking that we’re marking the beginning of the Second Battle of Bull Run in 1862 or the day that Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands opened the Peace Palace in The Hague in 1913. No, those events, though noteworthy, can’t hold a candle to the importance of August 28th to the Meyer family. In fact, this year, they can’t hold sixteen candles to it. On August 28, 2000, the Good Lord blessed us with our first child, Caitlin Marie, who tomorrow becomes our Sweet Sixteen.

          At about the hour of this writing on August 27th, 2000, Jessica went into labor. Having had several false labors over the previous weeks, we dutifully went through all of the prescribed routines to see if labor would stop before heading to the hospital. Jessica drank lots of water; she took a hot bath; and at 11:00 pm, we dragged our faithful lab Bubba from his beauty sleep to walk seemingly infinite circles around our Northern Virginia property. I’ll never forget the frustration in Bubba's eyes every time our circles continued past the side door of the house as he desperately tried to go back to bed. With contractions increasing in frequency by midnight, we knew it was time to head to the hospital; and at 7:00 pm on August 28th, Caitlin was born.

          Three memories of Caitlin's birth remain indelibly etched in my mind. The first is of the enormous outpouring of unconditional love that I felt for her. Jessica and I joined the ranks of parents who confess that we never knew we could love so much. The second memory is of the overwhelming sense of responsibility that landed squarely on my shoulders at the moment she was born. “Holy cr*p, I don’t know how to be a father” has echoed in my cranium every day since. No doubt, my daughters agree. The third memory is that Caitlin had an enormous head. Her head was so big that she bore the nickname Pumpkin-Head until my friend Bill warned me that she'd need therapy if I kept calling her that name. She then became my Punkin, and she remains so to this day.

          Sixteen is a big year for young ladies and their parents. Caitlin will get her driving permit sometime this week, and she begins her first full-week as a high school junior on Monday. To prepare myself for what else may lie in store, I checked out Wikipedia’s list of the rites of passage that accompany the sixteenth year of life. Here are a few, appended with my thoughts on each:

o Sixteen is the minimum age for getting an adult job in most states and provinces around the world. Well, I don’t know what they mean by an “adult” job, so we’ll just delete that word. Jobs are good, though.

o Sixteen is the minimum age that one can drop out of school in many states in the United States.  Don’t even think it, unless you have the aforementioned job and are prepared to pay exorbitantly high rent while living at home.

o Sixteen is the minimum age to get married with parental consent in many countries.  Such consent will not be forthcoming any time soon. Just keep repeating the first sentence I taught you: “My Daddy has a shotgun.”

o Sixteen is the legal drinking age in Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Portugal.  Nein, Nee/Non, Nein/Non/No, Nein, No, and Não!

          As cliché as it may sound, I can’t believe the time has gone by so quickly. I’m much too young to have a 16-year-old daughter. Each of Caitlin’s sixteen years has been a blessing in its own way, and I’m sure this year will be as well. Yes, August 28th is a very special day in the Meyer household. It’s the day we thank God for the gift of Caitlin Marie, who tomorrow becomes our Sweet Sixteen. Happy Birthday, Punkin! Your Daddy loves you!

It’s a Miracle!

For the past three weeks or so, I’ve been nursing a backache brought on by stupidly tugging on a stubborn weed while hunched over lower than Quasimodo snatching a centime off the streets of Paris.  Though I’ve dutifully performed the exercises given to me by a great physical therapist, the backache just didn’t seem to want to go away.  In fact, as time went on, it slowly began to spread across my lower back.  By Friday of this past week, I was hobbling around like Mr. Dawes in Mary Poppins.  But by Saturday morning, I had had enough.  I said to myself, “I’m done with this backache,” as I hopped out of bed bracing myself against the nagging pain that undoubtedly would follow.  And then it happened, or it didn’t happen, as the case may be.  I had almost no pain at all.   I was standing up straight as an arrow, walking tall once again as homo erectus instead of homo curvatus.  All I could think was, “It’s a miracle!”

I’ve always believed in miracles in the fullest sense of the word.  As Albert Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as though everything is a miracle.”  I choose the latter.  Miracles are any signs or wonders that can only be attributed to divine power.  So sure, I believe that the parting of the Red Sea and the multiplication of the loaves and fishes are miracles, but I also believe that miracles happen all around us all the time.  I see miracles in the rising sun and the dew-touched grass.  I see miracles in a brilliant thunderstorm and in the rainbow that follows it.  I see miracles in the changing seasons and in the circle of life.  I see miracles . . . all the time.  They’re everywhere.

The God of the Judeo-Christian tradition is active in our lives.  God’s presence fills all of creation; God speaks to us through signs and wonders, in the depths of our consciences and in the words of the prophets; and God himself “became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”  (John 1: 14)  So it just makes sense that God would give us miracles to let us know that he graces us with his presence all the time.  Just last week, I received a phone call from a dear friend at a time when I really needed a friendly voice.  I hadn’t spoken to her in months, and the first words out of her mouth were, “Something told me that I needed to call.”  That’s God.  That’s a miracle. 

Miracles are like Pokémon:  you’ll find them in the most unexpected places, as long as you look for them.  If you believe in miracles, they’re everywhere; if you don’t you’ll never see one.  The trick with miracles, though, is never to expect them.  We set ourselves up for disappointment if we relentlessly expect a particular miracle to happen.  God doesn’t work that way.  God gives us what we need, not necessarily what we want.  So the miracles we get may not always be the miracles we want, but the miracles we get are always the miracles we need. 

          So do I really believe that my back was miraculously cured?  In a way, yes.  Now, I don’t believe that the hand of God reached from the heavens, touched my back and cured me.  I still have a little back pain, and I’m still doing my exercises.  But I do believe that on Saturday morning, God gave me the insight to realize that my growing back pain wasn’t coming from my original injury, but rather from increased stress in my life.  Once God inspired me to get up and get the stress under control, the additional pain all but disappeared.  That insight was a gift from God, and I truly believe that God actively intervened in my well-being.  And in that regard, at least, it’s a miracle!