No Words

Her tanned skin taste like the Ocean ... salty, wet and full of unseen life ... as she giggles, lowering her beach blond hair onto my shoulder.

Tossing her into the sun, she catches her breath and blue eyes blaze as she falls back to my arms and we splash in the Sea.

Happy until she realizes we are leaving, she lets out a cry until I say, "Let's go see what Mommy's doing."

Sticking the pacifier in her mouth with tiny brown hands clutching the stroller, she carefully watches everything we pass, occasionally standing as I push she dances and we make our way home.

I used to write during these hours of the morning but now I meander around the island with Che punctured with swims in the Ocean as the sun climbs out of bed.

For years I wrote every day because I had things to say.

Sometimes they were meaningful words but often, I now see, I was just trying to be heard ... to find acceptance of who I am by putting it out there ... taking affirmation from whoever would click "Like" ... horrified at the manipulative actions of many ... and delighted at the rare real exchanges that rarely occur virtually.

I wrote in the morning because I find inspiration easier to find as the world comes to life as God's gifted us with another day to do with what we will.

I wrote in the morning because Hemingway did and I love the crazy, mentally ill brilliance of the egotistical maniac where one true word always seems to follow another.

Now I find I don't have as much to say.

The need to be heard has diminished and what talking I do these days is for a few minutes each week in a Church meeting in a dark and dingy bar.

Mornings are now filled with a new life full of morning wanders, silent observations, baby giggles and the Ocean swims.

She's taken all my words replacing them with a two-tooth grin, eyes the size of moons exploding like a Super Nova of blues, and the humility that comes with standing before the Author of Life.

What have I done to deserve this?

"Can you believe we made her?" Sarah often asks sharing all of my own feelings and disbelief.

Neither of us could ever have imagined.

Home, Che falls asleep easily and I bother my wife who's busily managing our life full of surprises, three other girls, adult children and some greedy people from the past who refuse to stay back in what was.

Taking a few moments, I check on what's happened in the rest of the world but can't find much emotional investment because I'm already too excited for when the baby wakes up ... and we get to do it again.

Our life isn't fair but it sure is full.