Catching Susanna

Catching Susanna

So many things, like time, like rest, like fear,

Like apprehension and anxiety, feelings of inadequacy,

They all just seem to  disappear

In the perfect moments, those ones

Where God removes the escape hatches,

And doesn't let us press that eject button,

But stands there with us in the embrace

Of all encompassing presence, face to face.

She let me know it was time, the clock was ticking,

And though there seemed a lifetime between each pulse,

Action was needed now. We had to move quickly,
So we did. We had to be ready,

So we were, and I'll never know the pain,

Only she could feel that, but I could see it,

And I could hear it, and I just wanted it to end

Though I knew what its end meant.

It meant I would be the first to touch, to greet,

To make contact and welcome what would in a minute be her,

And it meant when she came to us, it would just be us three,

In our room, in our bed, in our home, the same room,

Just mere feet away from exactly where we met her sister.

Please God, let it not be like that was. I'm not equipped. She saved

Her life, but she's not here. It's just me and an amazing mother

Doing her part. No, It'll be fine. There is no choice, no other.

As fast as it was, it crept, compared to the moment she came,

A head, for just an instant, then like the release of a kinked hose,

She blasted into this world, into my hands. I felt her warm frame,

Slippery, slimy, but she coughed, she breathed, no cord, all clear,

I must have had her in my hands less than a second, but she's alive.

I could feel her life, and I just knew, she breathed and I with her

Then I like a second basemen turning two, quickly passed her on,

I placed her in her mother's hands, and just like that my job was done.

All three  were different, and each had its own fear, its own fight,

And each left its mark on me. God knows I wasn't ready to be a Dad,

A man of responsibility, with a sense that moments matter, so he gave

Me these, and I stand in thanksgiving to Him and to her, my wife,

For bringing me into the moment, to be a part, a real part, of something

I could have otherwise avoided, playing the spectator on the sidelines.

Instead I got to fight for one, to pray for another, and deliver the last today,

Though days of doubt will come again, I've thrice now known presence, grace.