Just thinking about how lucky I am to have the children I do. My daughters have been a joy to me every day of their lives, and sometimes before, as when I felt each of them kick for the first time. In those days, 1977 and 1982, we did not usually know the baby’s gender before it was born. I remember thinking when I felt the kicks, “Hello, small person. Boy or girl? Whoever you are and whoever you will be, I love you now and I will love you forever.”
I am closer to the younger one, possibly inevitable given that her mother was my beloved second wife and we raised her, while the older one’s mother was, and still is, the treacherous “Jezebel” whom I have discussed here so often. The situation has been difficult for the older daughter but she has handled it very well. She is also the mother of all 4 of my grandchildren, and they are turning out well, though I do worry about them being “the preacher’s kids.” (My son-in-law is a Baptist minister, though not of the crazed southern fundy faction),