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  Family pictures seemed the right thing to do considering our family is complete.  We went out to Hart Park during the second weekend of November to do just that.  There had been some blustery and wet weather the weekend prior; the grass was vibrantly green and it was poetically littered with fall leaves.  It was the perfect backdrop for what I had envisioned as the perfect family photo. 

   When I got the chance to view the pictures, I cried.  I've looked at them several times since and have wept a few more times as well.  I couldn't quite understand why I was shedding tears until recently when I viewed the pictures in a different order than I had before. 

     The family photo first.  Everyone looked so happy and so good next to one another.  Then a shot of the boys.  They are just so darn cute.  How did we make such handsome little men?  Then a picture of just the parents.  Yes, I can see bits and pieces of how we made such handsome little men.  Is it vain to say?  Oh, I don't care...they're all ours and they're fabulous.  Finally, the candid picture of the family.  No poses, no frozen smiles, just a family walking together and holding hands while walking in a fall landscape and loving one another.  The tears came back. 

     I was absolutely moved by the course of our little family.  From the time when Charles and I were dating until the present, a family of four.  Seeing that candid family picture reminded me of a picture of my husband and I so many years ago when we were dating.  We were two young kids in love and without a breathable inch between ourselves as we posed for the picture.  I mentally compared it to the family picture now with children in between us, linking the two of us together.  The difference between the two pictures portrayed a process of evolution that made me feel waves of pride I had not considered before. 

     How does someone go from a love-struck young adult  to a child-awing middle aged adult in what seems like a blink of an eye?  Just time, I suppose.  Or is it more?  Might one consider it faith?  Faith that you've found someone you will commit to for the rest of your life and faith that you can bring other people into this world through that commitment. 

     Sure, many people can see love and family as an accident.  But I challenge you to see it as a matter of determined course...a matter of faith.  Loving has never been easy but when we choose to love through thick or thin, when we see it as an un-chartered course similar to a merchant vessel on a voyage for the ultimate treasure, we see the joy in the journey.  Sometimes the ride is boring, sometimes the ride makes us sick, sometimes we fear we won't survive the storm, sometimes we want to throw out extra baggage to conserve fuel and food before we hit the shore, and sometimes the ride is so sublime that we cannot deny God is amongst us. 

     When I go back in forth in my mind between the picture of Charles and me dating, and the picture of just the two of us at the family photo shoot, there are two differences I notice.  One, there is much more trunk space in my post-baby baking body frame than the original model, and two, there's a subtlety in my eyes now that hasn't been there before.  And yes, I can convince myself the latter is worth the expense (or expanse) of the former. 

     The subtlety now is a stark difference from that calf in the gate, wide-eyed expression in my eyes when I was younger; when I wanted to charge at life and take everything I thought was due me.  Now, my eyes are saying: I'm not racing toward it, I'm living through it...I'm going to finish this journey, it' s a matter of course. 

     So, take a picture and prove you are living it and loving it.  And wear a pair of flattering jeans.  For your trunk of course!   

 Portraits by Melissa Bench at www.melissabenchphotography.com  (She was fabulous! )