joy

Last week, my family welcomed to the world my second niece – baby No-Name Nhari 🙂 After a very difficult pregnancy in which she was mostly bed-ridden, my sister was too weak to push the 5.7lbs bundle of joy into the world. But thanks to vacuum suction, baby No-Name entered the world with no other complications than a little jaundice – which, by folklore is attributed to her Mom eating too much tripe during pregnancy…

As you can imagine, the entire family is ecstatic! Something about this type of good news bonds a family together. It’s the opposite of losing a loved one but has the same stickiness factor – that is, you know family best understands how you feel. There’s something comforting about that.

I thought to describe the joy that I’ve experienced and came to realize that the joy of welcoming a new life into the family is its own descriptor. You can’t liken it to any other joy. Rather, you’d use it as a hallmark of joy so to speak. I mean, you’d say “seeing Person X being baptized gave me the kind of joy you have when welcoming a newborn into the world…” 🙂

It’s an exuberant joy. Shared first with my family, then with close friends who knew my sister was expecting, then with my spiritual family (the church), until it overflows in a blog post open for the world to read. It’s a joy that seeks expression.

And you know what’s crazy, I actually expect others to be as happy about the news as I am. It’s obvious that the more distant we are from each other, the less likely that would be the case, and yet that knowledge does not abate my hope that you would share my joy. In a sense, it doesn’t matter to me whether or not you can relate – I feel like my joy is so contagious it will force you to be happy too!

So, welcome to the world baby No-Name Nhari! I’m excited to meet you, get to know you, love you!