SHE'S 40

A NEW LEARNING
It’s my daughter’s birthday. Today my little girl is forty years old.

We lived in Mississauga forty years ago. While I was completing my pastoral training Christine was great with child. We had nothing. We lived in two rooms of Mrs. Stoll’s rambling large home as payment for a few hours of my service in a church. Graciously, Mrs. Stoll permitted Christine to use her piano and sitting room to teach a few music students. For those months our as yet unborn daughter heard Christine’s music.

If our baby was a girl, her name would be Carinne May. Her middle name a tribute to her maternal Grandma. Then she came. A long difficult coming. Maternity units forty years ago were no place for dads it was believed. I was impounded in the waiting room and ventured only briefly into Christine’s agony. My first glimpse of Cari came as our doctor brought her to me, not to hold, merely to see. She was simply, unforgettable, blue eyes bright, soft white hair. Primal medical sensibilities placed my tightly wrapped girl in a generic container behind a windowed room full of other baby containers. My father stood at the glass for a long time looking at his first grandchild.

During her early years music was a constant in our home. As no surprise, Cari showed interest in the piano. As she grew, her dedication and enjoyment at making music were promises of things to come. We moved to Smiths Falls, to Peterborough and to Scarborough and in each location Cari’s music filled our home. And then she was gone to university in Winnipeg and I was crushed. I wasn’t prepared to be Cari-free. During her studies in Winnipeg and her brother’s studies in BC, Christine and I relocated from Toronto to Cloverdale BC.

Upon graduation Cari joined us in Cloverdale, worked part-time while she earned a Master of Piano Performance degree at Western Washington University. Then this gorgeous gal lived with her mom and dad, year after year, through her twenties until Christine and I were asking ourselves, “What’s wrong with this scene?” And along came Tim. Then along came Tim.

Cari was twenty-nine when she held my arm to walk down the aisle on her wedding day. We walked to a highly emotional song from the movie ‘The Mission.’

And here she is today, a wife and a mother of three children, aged four, six, and eight. My girl. 40. And don’t I feel old, and HAPPY! She has blessed my life. I love her.

She is a published scrapbooking artist and member of the design team for Canadian Scrapbooker. You can see her work on her blog, Me and My Thoughts and various websites:
Scrapvillage
Creative Express
Class Dates and Projects
Creative Imaginations
Pencil Lines