happy birthday

Whether he or she was created from your genes, or raised by your love, is created from nature or carved from your nurture; having a son or a daughter is a miracle, a challenge, a joy an adventure and a reason why life is beautiful. Life before your child is like a history book placed on a shelf used for reference and to review when you find some down time to just sit and ponder. Life with your child is an adventure movie, a soap opera, a game show, and a 24 hour 7 day a week test. It is movement, momentum, mayhem, minutia, all filled with meaning. 

The thought of giving birth, adopting, raising a child takes time and thought. It is full of planning, precision, reason and responsibilities. For some it seems so easy for others it takes effort, energy and indulgence in a life other then yours.  For all however, it is about growing up, getting bold, giving love. And then the dream becomes real and has become a person and from the moment the two of you meet the promise of unconditional loves erupts, and remains.

Thirty-four years ago today I met Adam Elias Buncher and could not remember life before him. My son was born and before me was this child, of mine, whose life I could help carve, and whose life would change my very being. We are separate but the same. We are generations apart, but as close as shadows. We are father and son.

Time for me seems cavalier, constant, creeping and charged. It is suddenly NOW with  THEN being so far away. And before I know it the FUTURE once so far away has passed and a new horizon looms large. And my first born is thirty-four. When did that happen?

I am blessed for many reasons and give thanks for the miracles and joys I have encountered. Life is not always easy, nor do the promises it poses always come true. But life is also about loving and being loved. I gained a whole new meaning of love with the birth of my son, and am grateful to have learned its meaning and to have benefited from its results.

It is thirty-fours years since my wife and I saw his head crown with a beautiful crop of dark black hair...thirty-four years ago when the doctor standing in the delivery room at Women’s Magee Hospital said its a boy. Thirty-four years ago when for the first time I kissed my son, held him in my arms and loved him as if I had known him my entire life.

Happy Birthday, Adam, I love you!