My phone was lighting up again. It was about 3:00 a.m. My husband, Dennis, and I had told our son, Will, to text or call anytime. His wife, Allison, was in labor, and if he wanted to provide updates, we wanted to hear them. The new message was positive; things were going well.
I lay there, thinking in the dark. Surprising images began to form in my mind. I saw some type of meeting place, and shadows, outlines of people making their way towards something. I squinted.
Is that Dad? I wondered. Whoa, whoa, I think that’s Vandy, my father’s father, next to him. They are smiling. The two had never gotten along, so I was unsure of what I was seeing.
Soon, Mom and her dad, Billie whispered into a spot near a wall with glass. It was some type of structure. More shadows were coming. Most of the shapes were grayish, although some were darker and some were lighter. Some moved so slowly, while others glided. My two uncles, Billie’s six siblings, my dear Aunt Gwennie and her husband. And there was my grandmother, who was no longer blind. My husband’s parents appeared, too. There were many others I did not recognize.
What was behind the glass they seemed to have traveled so far to see? I squinted again.
It looked like some sort of gazebo. The structure’s lattice was painted white, with ivy growing through spots in its wood. Then I noticed the “room” or space was circular, so there was glass in the wall in every direction. I remember thinking all of it was beautiful. Then, I saw movement in the middle of the gazebo; a bundle. And the bundle lay in something so tiny, a tiny bed.
I peered in. It was a beautiful baby boy. He had just been born. Oh! I realized. This isn’t any baby boy, he was Will and Allison’s little boy and our first grandson.
I looked around in my mind and understood a little better. The curtain had been pulled back for me on this custom which exists above and around us. When a new family member arrives, generations from the past come from every direction. They may have to move over mountains or cross cloudy oceans. They come from each side of the family; two ancestral lines showing up to feel the connection; to witness the continuation of family.
Instantly, old arguments and conflicts evaporate. Every visitor I saw seemed to know this. There was only room for forgiveness and love in this space.
I had had my eyes closed through this imagery, but then they opened.
The text had made me think about family and of past generations meeting the future one. I realized then that it may not be so much a circle of life, but a line; a straight line that stretched back through Germany, England, Ireland, Wales and somewhere else before that. This was the same line moving forward again. It was powerful to see, and powerful to feel as an enormous burst of love and awe came to me that this was my son’s child.
*****
I wrote this the next day. It was important to catch as much as I could. I was so sure that I had been awake lying there, buoyed by the excitement. But as I return to edit, I am not as sure. Was I dreaming this? I know it sounds like a dream. I suppose it doesn’t matter. The concept of families from the past returning to embrace and honor the future, the line, fills me with a mystical joy whether it was my subconscious or something real revealed to me.
Sweet J.T., was born two weeks early and joined our family during that major snowstorm in the Boston area a couple of weeks ago. He is healthy, strong and his parents cherish him. We do, too. We all have dreams dancing in the distance on who he will be and what he will do and learn. We, of course, think it will be a lot.
There is so much love here already for this little boy, I thought. And now I understand how much and how strong; enough to push through mountains.
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