My wife sits in our living room rocking our son to sleep. She sings to him softly and sweetly. He is past the stage of trying to fight sleep. I think he knows it's inevitable at this point but he still can't help but try to entertain himself. So he reaches for his mother's face while she sings. This sight would melt any man's heart. There is no other sound in the house but that of the rocking and the lullabies. What a sweet, sweet sound.
She sings to him lullabies she knew from her childhood, youth group songs, and songs from church hymnals. I think those are my favorite. The songs that I grew up singing in the pews of various country congregations. Fifty to one hundred voices raising their praise to God in a wood-floored building with slight echos from the paneled ceilings. Now those same "Rock of Ages" kind of songs are among the last sounds my son hears before he drifts off.
Maybe he will dream about them as he sleeps. Maybe the sound and the words will stick with him as he grows older. Maybe he will learn pitch and tune from his mother and learn to sing those songs himself. Maybe he will hum a spiritual tune as he walks through his day. Maybe he will find himself in a place in his life where he needs comfort and finds the familiarity of those hymns in a small congregation, lifting its collective voice to the heavens. It's possible he could grow tired of them, as children are wanton as they grow apart from their parents. I don't see how, though, with the tenderness, the sweet whisper, and the look of love on his mother's face as she sings.
Few sights are more beautiful than my wife holding my son. The love of my life and my greatest pride. There can be little that compares with this image and yet, it is more touching to hear her voice and see his tiny hand reaching for her. It is the greatest joy my heart has ever known, yet it is not the most exciting nor tantalizing. It is peaceful bliss. In the quiet of the evening I realize the cliches about your children being your "pride and joy" and "you never understand how much you love them until they are here" are so very true. No longer cliche to me, I understand their meaning.
Moreover, I begin to understand how much my parents love me. I begin to see how they felt seeing me as a baby and watched me grow. I can only imagine how they felt when their son - their first baby - left the shelter of their home. As he began making his own decision, more bad than good. How must that have wrenched their hearts? And now that they have their fist grandson, I see the joy in their eyes that they must have felt for me as a baby. I see myself in a different way: not just their son but their little boy.
One day Brady will be grown and we will have to let him make more bad decisions than good. I pray that we will help him to learn from the mistakes of others so that he does not have to make as many himself. Until then, I revel in the sight of my bride and my son, and immerse myself in the sounds of his lullabies.
