The Winning Touchdown!

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My son scored the winning touchdown. I screamed, the crowd cheered and we all let out a sigh of relief. 10 year old Zachary is a born athlete...walks, talks and thinks like a winner...and he loves every minute of the challenge. I'm thinking someday-he could be my meal ticket.

As I watched him play--I couldn't help but think about the year from Hell. The same year he was born. In January while in Cuba reporting on the Pope's historic visit...I got a call that my dad had died suddenly--of a heart attack. What a shock... I made the arrangements, buried him and I got another surprising jolt...New life was stirring...inside me...I was pregnant with my fifth child...just five months after the birth of my fourth son. Wow-that came out of left field. Then--a few months later my 33 year old sister went into a coma just months after the birth of her second child...and she died a few days later of a brain aneurysm. We buried her just in time for the doctors to tell me there might be something wrong with my baby...Down Syndrome, or heart and lung defects....The ultra sounds weren't promising.

By that time-I think I was numb...in disbelief...not knowing how I felt or how I should react...so-I did what every strong willed German/Irish girl does...I dealt with it. I stayed strong...stayed away from feeling my fears...and faced the future with acceptance...or whatever it is you do to get by.

I'll never forget B-day...He was ready to exit me and enter the world...and I got scared...There was no turning back...What would he be like?! Would he be okay? A split second of fear...and then-there he was...Big and beautiful and brandishing strong vocal cords...Zachary blew us all away...he was just perfect! To his mom -anyway!

Of course-he would have been perfect in any condition...he was my child and I knew-God had gifted him for a special reason--for an exceptional purpose. I learned that from my own mom...My little sister-the one who died-was a surprise child...came along six years after the rest of us...at a time when 40 year old ladies didn't have babies. I remember my mom sobbing in disbelief. She wanted to know why this happened. Why God had given her another child! She found the answer 25 years later when she was dying of cancer. My little sister took care of her...lived with her...and loved her unconditionally through her last dying breath. She was a living angel for a dying woman. And she taught all of us-that some surprises are supernatural sensations.

Zachary certainly is surprising... Watching him today on that football field...or slamming a baseball or dunking a basketball...or mowing the lawn or studying...I've discovered that life's little surprises bring big benefits. And for every moment of Hell-there's an eternity of Heaven waiting to embrace us.

Zachary scored the winning touchdown today...but his mom--little ole me- scored the winning touchdown in the Superbowl of Life! Corny-- but true!

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