One Year Later

368 days ago, baby Louis was born, and 357 days ago, Steve and I were on a plane to visit our new nephew in Minnesota. That's a whole bunch of days, a bushel of minutes, and just a ton of seconds. It was a quick year and it's hard to believe that Louis is already on his feet and moving around. It's exciting to see new life develop and even more exciting that pretty soon, I'll be able to teach Louis the fine art of crushing your enemies through sarcasm. We're going to have so much in common - our love of shoes and boxes, our hatred of Santa Claus, and our strong interest in putting our hands into our mouths.


It's also exciting that Gail and Jeff have now been living in Minnesota already for 2.5 years, and if things go according to plan, they'll be on their way back to Michigan in 2.5-3.5 more years. Residency takes a long time, and I guess brain studyology isn't as easy and requires a bit more training than whatever it is that I do. So on that front, the time thus far has flown by and I feel somewhat optimistic that we'll be able to spend more time with them in the not terribly distant future, and the time between now and then will go by somewhat fast. This is all good and well, but the biggest heart pain I feel now is that even though this time is moving by quickly, this time is moving by just too quickly. It's hard for me to comprehend simultaneously enjoying and fearing the passage of the time living away from loved ones - because you want the time to float right on by, but that just means that is time that you don't have with those people. Fortunately, we have Christmas and other holidays to all come together and remind us that the times between don't last forever. However, I still wish the times between didn't have to exist.