Life

Ezra met his great grandfather on Saturday. He was 4 days old. His Pop is 93.

I watched them gaze at each other, Ezra only able to focus 30cm, for short periods of time, with limited idea of what he was seeing.

My Pop gazed back, entranced, overwhelmed at this little bundle of fresh life so helpless in his arms.

I had a moment of sadness, an ache, a not quite sure how to phrase it...

I was seeing life just begun and life near it's end.

I wondered what my Pop was thinking, with his life experience in so many places, over so many decades of a changing world. Here he was seeing a beginning of (I pray) decades of learning and experiencing, yet he must have been acutely aware he would not see those same decades.

Here was a relationship just begun with limited time to blossom, such is the sting.

The sting of death, seen in physical life begun and life near it's end.
The sting of death, seen in hopes of parents for a knowledge of a creator and a heart that has struggled to see through much suffering to the possibility of a God who is good.