N
ew titles abound, they are cast about with heedless optimism by one who has no idea what he has done. Brothers are made uncles, parents into grandparents, and from nothing has sprung a new generation. The tumultuous tide of the last several days is starting to recede, leaving crowns and thrones behind on the beach. I'm starting to be able to breathe again, though that's not the right way of putting it -- it isn't that I was holding my breath, but that I was breathing a different air; a rugged air, air that had to be fought for. My wife breathed it too, and hers was sharper still. A lot remains to be shaken out in this more more temperate clime, on the other side of the mountains, but what keeps sticking with me is this -- how grateful I am to be the one that this incredible woman looked to during her travails. That her brown eyes affixed on me for strength and courage, and that when she asked from me she gave a thousandfold in piercing, overflowing love that cannot be deserved, only given. We were greatly tested, and greatly changed, as the new composite being that we are; and all is animated in every moment by love.