Liesl

The instant your eyes well, you know it’s over. The pressure behind them is love at its most pure. It’s the kind that starts at your toenails and radiates through your soul before your brain has a chance to fire a single synapse and say, “Hey buddy, get it together.”

Last night. It was over.

There was the woman I love, sliced open again (literally) and giving me a smile that I’d only seen twice before – the day we married and they day we met Gwen, our first born.

Liesl Jean Haney cried for the first time just after 9 p.m. on Monday, April 8 at Adirondack Medical Center. Gwen was sleeping soundly less than a quarter mile away. The woodstove warming the fuzzies on her pajamas. I like to think she heard Liesl cry, then rolled over and with a dreamy smirk and pulled her little pink elephant a little closer.

It’s one thing touch the cheeks and feet of your first born, to tuck her close to your heart and nuzzle your chin to the top of their head. It’s another to see that first born meet her sister.

“Liesl is cute,” said Gwen. Those tears, that smile. It happened again. It’s totally over.

Love is a word, but the feeling I have right now is first tracks on a powder day…times a million. I can’t wait to ride a hundred more of those chairs with my girls.

Onward,

doug