Ryan's Community

I would tell you that I'm probably going to MIA this next week, but since my presence has been minimal on my little part of the interwebs, I doubt anyone is shocked.  It only takes so many old women "tsking" and looking at your belly when you say you have four more weeks to induce a bit of a panic about the fact that this baby may very well come before his scheduled due date and CLEARLY he does not understand his mother at all if he cannot stick to the discussed and acceptable date of March 22nd which is still a full week before his ACTUAL due date.

This next week is going to be full of grading so I can *finally* catch up with the advanced class I've been neglecting and grade the recent projects from my sophomores.  My mind has been so occupied with the things I have to do that little space in my brain has been available to construct any sort of understandable sentence--even when my heart has been itching for the opportunity to write.

In the few spare moments I do find, I write Ryan letters longhand.  I talk to him about this pregnancy.  About the type of man hope he will be.  About the fact that his daddy was convinced he was a girl...  Things I'd like him to know that I may not remember when they've passed.

In the back of my mind, I file subjects I'd like to discuss with him.  Sometimes I mentally write whole letters about how long it took me to become comfortable with who I am, and the fact that living honestly and openly with the people you've been given is the most functional type of Christianity.

But the closer I get to holding him for the first time, the more I realize that these aren't things that will need to be written in letters.  They've been written on the faces and in the hearts of the people who have committed themselves to us--come hell or high water.

Their encouragement and hopes for us have been functionally shown in tiny onesies and more than three thousand baby wipes.  And before those gifts were a possibility, in the silent steps they took beside us while we continued to walk.

There will never be a blog post or ink pen sufficient enough to explain to him the blessing of community.  And heaven knows that's one subject I will write over and over again with no sense of satisfaction as to its conclusion.  I'll never quite get it right.

But I'm grateful to be in their sphere.

Even when they tell me he's coming early.

(Or call him Doug.  But that's another story for another day.)