Redefined

My best friend from 7th grade just had a baby on Friday.

Normally this would not be headline making news except for well, this is my blog and so I decide what makes the headlines. She's not my first friend to have a baby and not even the first of my peers to have a baby. But, when I look at pictures of my friend looking with down at her little one with the purest love and peace in her face, I have this sudden flashback to all the years I spent learning who this woman is and I am so struck by the idea that she has, in an instant, become suddenly and wholy redefined. In her glance, I see the same eyes that would light up with mischief as she would try and get me in trouble in social studies class in 7th grade by starting every question with "Mr. Finn, Meghan wants to know..." I see the same smile that registered joy and surprise at the simplicity of a swim in the cold Atlantic surf our family vacations in early April and the same determined brow that would furrow down as she rose to defend me against our priggish JV softball coach. I sense the same gentle manner that would turn a antisocial cat into a purring mushball and the same prideful tilt of her head that I saw the day she walked down the aisle. In one forever captured glance of the camera shutter eye, I saw the woman who I have known over 14 years become a mother. If I knew even one ounce of the love, compassion, loyalty and insatiable curiousity that this woman embodies, then that little boy is in store for an amazing life as her child.

Welcome to the world, JCS. You are in for a great ride.