These God given reminders happen daily, yet I so often label them as simply ordinary consequences. But, ever once a while, a powerful brief period of time awakens my memories of beauty. My last grand reminder happened just this last Tuesday, but I am going to rewind the story a little bit before that, only like a few years back or so.
As you can tell, Greg and I knew each other but our friendship wasn't that strong, nor went that deep. It lasted that way for a while. There was only picture I could find of us being new acquiescence is, you guessed it. This one.
But I do recall one of the first interactions I had with Greg was him showing me a picture of a beautiful infant baby girl. He told me that it was he daughter, Olivia, and he placed her in adoption. I smiled as I held at the photo, not knowing how I was going to grow to love the little one.
As my two years of Snow College progressed, so did my friendship with Greg. I soon found myself classifying him as "my adopted older brother." He became a family member away from home. He was there to give me words of motivations, relationship advice, and hugs when I most needed them and so on.
After graduating I transferred to Utah Valley University. It was a pleasure to see the familiar face of Greg in the big hall way. In between classes, I would enjoy the pictures and short videos of Olivia that Greg would share. I truly became found of her cute squinty face as she smiled and her squeaky voice as she would speak. We both were falling in love with a beautiful little toddler through emails.
Now that we are all caught up I will explain this last Tuesday.
"Wow, you look real handsome today... did you get a hair cut?" I asked Greg as we sat in hallway. His brother laughed as he said no. "I like your shirt, what the occasion?"
"I have thing in a few hours" He replied.
"A thing? That's all your gonna tell me? A thing? A thing could be anything. " I grind.
"Yep."
Randomly within the next couple hours I would ask questions and try to guess what this mysterious "thing" could be. I would get yes and no answers but eventually I gave up trying.
Latter, I was sitting in my night class, I get a text from him saying "Text me when you get out of class."
My class went a bit longer then usual and I glanced into the doorway and there was Greg with a teasing impatient look on his face. Finally my class got out and I meet him in the hall way.
Beaming he said "I meet her!"
Confusion come over me for a second, until it dawn on me... he was talking about it daughter. It was the first time he ever saw Olivia face to face. Squealing, I hugged him. Both of us smiling, he told me every detail. Anyone that just walked by might have I was listening to a man telling a simple story about playing with a little girl, but they wouldn't realize the significance and power this moment held. The father's love that I saw Greg possess made me cry.
Crying as I walked home, I thought of all the beautiful small moments that we don't even realize that we own. Anything can seem glorious if we look at it through lenses of acknowledgment and appreciation.
