pieces and ponderings

Twenty-two.  It’s my youngest son’s favorite number.  I’m not sure why it’s his favorite number, but it is.  It was the number on his baseball jersey last season, which was nice…because it was his favorite number.

Twenty-two.  It’s now one of my favorite numbers also…at least for the next 365 days.  Today, my oldest child turns twenty-two.

Lots of memories can pile up in twenty-two years.  Lots of smiles…lots of laughter…lots of firsts…lots of adventures…lots of time spent getting to know someone.

I remember twenty-two years ago…the days before he arrived…waiting to meet him…our firstborn.  I looked so forward to seeing him face to face…instead of just feeling the hard kicks within my abdomen.  I remember wondering what he would look like…what color would his eyes be…what his personality would be like.  Twenty-two years later…I know…and I couldn’t have come up with a better idea for a firstborn son than the one God gave to us.

“Gift from God,” that’s the meaning of his first name, Matthew.  We knew, even before meeting him, that he was a gift to us.  He was appropriately named…he is a wonderful gift to his parents and his family.

He didn’t really want to be born on that Monday…two weeks after his due date, when my doctor said it was time for this baby to come on out into the world.  He is to this day; a procrastinator and I guess it began way back at his birth.  And once he did arrive, he liked to keep his mom and dad up late at night…he is still a night owl.  I guess some habits begin early in life.

He was a happy little fellow and that’s still true today.  He was the leader of his siblings…teaching his sister the alphabet and numbers and deciding what make-believe places they would travel to for the day.

We read so many books together, watched so many movies and listened to so many hours of radio shows…we still quote lines from them all.

Sometime today I’ll probably pull out picture albums and relive some of those memories of our little boy growing up.  I’ll show the photos to his brothers and sister and talk about how much our youngest looks like our oldest.

We spent so much time together…him and me, and I’m so thankful for all of those minutes that before you know it has added up to twenty-two years.  And the boy is now a man…a wonderful man, whom I’m proud to say, is my son.