Crônicas do Cotidiano

Last week, we received a long letter from a niece, daughter of my sister, who lives in the USA (for those who are reading me for the first time, I live in São Paulo, Brazil). C… and her two older sisters lived with us for five months each, when they were fifteen or sixteen. Bonds of affection increased during those days, and continue until today, despite the distance. She and our youngest son are approximately the same age (she is a few months older), and she is a sweet, cheery and kind young woman, who just turned 23. This is how I answered:

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I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful; my soul knows that right well. —Psalm 139.14

Some days ago, my husband showed me a post on a blog of one of the oft-time contributors to the Revista VEJA (one of Brazil’s major weekly news magazines). The post had been cited in the section called “Blogosfera” (Blogosphere) in the January 07, 2009 edition. Entitling his thoughts as “Trevas” (Shadows or Darkness)—the author bemoans that

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We have reached the end of the first day of our grandson’s life. By way of telephone, Skype and Facebook, we have already heard a description of his birth in Bangladesh, have seen photos with and without his mother, we have heard his cry and we have watched a 45-second video of a baby with wide-open eyes, with his hand under his chin looking like a philosopher (similar to his father that graduated in this field and like his Brazilian Grampa), sneezing, following the movements of his Daddy’s hand, reacting to the tickling of his feet… I am already most certain that my grandson is the cutest and most intelligent baby in the world! I would love to be able to hold him! And to be able to kiss my eldest child on the top of his head as he so tenderly looks at his own firstborn.

I remember his birth in Recife (Brazil), thirty-some years ago. It was an experience so different from that of the women in my country (Canada)

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Tonight, at 10:45 PM, São Paulo time, our first grandson, Lucas Donovan Portela, was born. As a matter of fact, although I am writing this on the 2nd, his birthday will always be celebrated on January 03. This because his parents live on the other side of the world, in Dhaka in Bangladesh, where they are eight hours ahead of us.

The last days have been full of prayers and attempts not to allow myself to worry too much, finding distraction in the Christmas and year’s end events. And God kept granting us moments of encouragement, in the midst of uncertainties linked to the fact that the baby was to be born at the time of a possibly problematic election, when curfews might be imposed, to a couple that normally goes around in rickshaws, in the capital of one of the poorest countries of the world.

We received the greatly expected phone call near noon here.

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