About a boy . . .

I often tell him the same story time and time again, hoping one day he will actually 'get it' . . . today I will share the story with you.


Let's back up about nine months from today twenty years ago.  My sister Ginny and her husband Keith announced they were going to have a baby, meaning that I was going to be an aunt! YAY for me!!!! I had been so blessed by the many aunts in my life this was the roll I had been waiting for ... or destined for! In other words to say that I was over the moon happy was quiet an understatement.  A few months into Ginny's pregnancy she and Keith invited me to a doctor's appointment for an ultrasound.


  ITS A BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


 I think I suffered significant hearing loss from Keith's scream of joy and excitement! ;-) My thoughts were 'let the spoiling begin'.  November 4, 1994 I worked third shift in the ER, I got a call from my momma that Ginny was in labor and to come to Florence ASAP.  So sleepless me showered and went and waited and waited and waited.  The entire family was there grandma's, great grandma's, papa's, aunts, uncles, cousins an overflow of friends all anticipating his arrival.  We should have known from the start he wasn't going to like big crowds ... because he kept us waiting refusing to cooperate with his momma and the doctors.  The labor became complicated, he and Ginny were in distress and within a matter of seconds Keith looked like a blue mummy, my mother was inconsolable and Ginny was humming 'three blind mice' while being wisked away to a cold sterile operating room. The minutes felt like hours . . . prayers were being said quietly and loudly.  Some were on their knees   crying out to the Lord for the life of mom and baby.  I remember feeling sick to my stomach, my hands were cold and my face was hot. 


Then ... BAM! Keith kicked the doors opened and was holding the most precious and perfect BIG BLUE eyed little bundle of boy.  He was the most handsome thing I had ever seen in all my life.  At that moment seeing Keith hold him and his eyes as wide as quarters I was hooked.  That was the moment my heart was opened to a love I had never known ... as far as I was concerned.  He was the most perfect being this side of heaven and all mine for the spoiling. 


Dalton Michael Smith Robinson, born November 5, 1994, to Keith and Ginny Robinson. 


All of our lives were changed that day, for the better.  He was the reason I maxed our credit cards and rearranged work schedules.  I learned about fire trucks, hot wheels, talking dogs, bikes that could jump a mud puddle higher than anything I had ever seen.  There really were 'bad guys' in the woods and he and his trusty dawg 'pup' had everything under control, the family would be kept safe!  Summers spent with me away from family were filled with adventures to all sorts of places, we even saw 'starsky and hutch' in Idaho Falls!  I have been accused of messing up his 'love life' by asking too many questions of too many little girls (all under the age of 10!).  I found new and inventive ways to use duct tape!  I heard a voice change from a soft spoken fun loving little boy to a deep growl of a tough guy.   He has been faced with decisions and challenges that most middle aged men couldn't handle. He has grown from a small bundle of blue eyes to a tall handsome young man. 


This is my story about a boy who is loved beyond measure.  A boy who was 'perfectly and wonderfully made in his mother's womb' Psalm 139.  A boy made in the image of the Lord for HIS purpose and HIS plan.  A boy that the Lord delights in and laughs over him (Zephaniah 3:17)


One day maybe,  he will look back on this and he will 'get it'. One day maybe, he will call me and tell me about his boy.  Until that day, I will settle for him calling me Hopey and I will call him D and that is who we will always be.


I will always be his 'Hopey'.