2:07 a.m.

Today is my first-daughter's birthday.  She's a young woman now; she's married to an intelligent, caring young man who would do anything for her and she for him.  She manages a store and a dozen or so employees, encouraging them to be quick-thinking, customer-first salespeople.  And she's won awards for the success that her team and their store have brought the company. 

Twenty four years ago, early in the morning, I was the first one to hold her as she entered this world.  Her mother had cared well for her for the previous nine months, but for the first time, on that morning, I felt my daughter breathe.  She fit neatly in my two hands as my thumb and forefinger supported her head sprouting already a few tufts of hair.  I counted her fingers and toes, and I saw her skin grow pink as oxygen filled her lungs and spread rapidly throughout her body.  Her arms and legs, new toys to her, pushed and kicked at the air, recognizing that she was no longer held as one with her mother. 

I've been blessed to have been able to repeat that same kind of morning with each of my children.  Each with his and her own nuance of cry and kick, but the morning when our first child was born is locked in a separate room of my memory.  It's the room where both my wife and I go when our children celebrate a "birthday." For us it's the moment when we looked at each other that very early morning and held "our" child.  Each of our kids have brought us closer to each other, but that morning we learned that love was something that we could truly hold.