Wednesday night we started our drive, heading south and parallel to the sunset in the fading light. The day before Thanksgiving was fraught with traffic, suburbans and large SUVs scattering themselves into the twilight and only announced by the red of the rear running lights, racing us to our destination, passing us and being passed in turn with no real way for any traveler to track the travelers passed and passed by.
Our family, four lives living in the bodies of two, my wife pregnant with twins and I, feeling as home as I’ve ever been, on the road; in our own SUV, our Hyundai, imported like early settlers were imported into the United States, at once at home and at once foreign, strangers in a strange land, heading towards familiar and unfamiliar territory in more ways than one.
Tonight, Wednesday, not my first Wednesday; and Thanksgiving, not my first, but the first and only of this year and first as an in-law. Twins, and girls, my first and second and only, changing my life slowly and inexorably and all at once and in a moment, altering the pace and cadence in ways that no single or set of lives had ever done previously, to me at least; and in the very least, the newest source of joy and strongest sense of purpose I’d experienced in my few thirty-odd years of life. Identical twins and girls, destined and sure to share life in similar and simultaneous moments, near and distant and not far from my heart, moments very unique to only the same who share the womb and identical DNA sequences, sure to cause me concern and joy and no small measure of pride.
And to be thankful, the day before Thanksgiving; and on Thanksgiving, and every day after; for the right and wrong choices that had been made by two parties to bring them to become the burgeoning parents of yet two more, young and promising and full of vigor and life, and the community of friends and family that come together in solidarity for them at the onset of life.
I’m thankful, for life, and family, and friends, and you.
The Colorado Soul 