It’s weird today to be celebrating Tom being 15.
It does sound like a cliche, but I do vividly remember every detail of that day 15 years ago; the very ability to recall even minor facts from 15 years ago surprises me as I have difficulty remembering some stuff of the last week, or more recent years.
I can remember it was a Sunday and waking at around 730 to hear Sarah wandering around downstairs. WE went to the hospital at 8am. Tom was born at about 615pm. This morning he apologised for keeping us waiting so long – it was a long time and it is the only time that I have read the whole of the Sunday Times cover to cover while Sarah dozed or whatever.
I remember the room we waited in, the delivery suite, the colour of the walls, the enquiring phonecalls from excited young people from our youth group, the excitement on the telephone of new grand mothers, the first conversation I had with new born Tom as I held him in my arms as Sarah was taken off to have a bath, the leaving the hospital alone in the evening to join Annie and Phil for a celebratory beer (no change there then)and the journey back the next day.
I’m not a very good dad. Like other dads I look back and think I could have done more, have guilt about missed opportunities, wish I had done this or that instead of that and this … but this day each year, as do the births of my other two children, cause me to reflect on God.
I remember all those details as if they were yesterday because I, as a poor dad, allowed that day, that birth, to have a massive impact on me. It changed my life because here was a child I had had a part in creating and loved in a way that I could not describe. I guess I can only call it a father love, and maybe only fathers can understand what that is, in the same way that only mothers can relate to other mothers feelings – I don’t know, I’m falling into an emotional ramblement!
As a poor father these thin gs have had a massive impact and caused a great love to develop within me for Tom … it just gives me a tiny sense of the great love that father God has for all of his children. To think about it blows the mind, to try and explain it is ridiculously silly – the need to accept the mystery of it is just as ridiculously necessary.
Anyway – Happy Birthday Tom … 15 today, have a great day … I know you will!
It’s been a special weekend.
The Shiny Headed Prophet 