The end is the beginning...

Howie Day was right when he sang, "The end is the beginning and every point in between."



I've had a lot of ends, and beginnings, and points in between in my life—graduations, new jobs, moves, my wedding—but none of those really compares to Matilda. When Kirsten and I left for the hospital I knew it was the end of "just us" and the start of something new. What I couldn't have known, however, was how beautiful the journey would be. What I witnessed over twelve hours was my wife, my hero, my baby momma deliver our daughter into our lives; what I experienced was art.

I was listening to NPR the other day and there was a feature on the photographer Sally Mann. I'm not familiar with her work, but the way that she described a photo shoot she did with her husband encapsulates how I felt as I labored with Kirsten: "It's almost dreamlike, the way we move. You know, each one of us knew what we had to do and we weren't talking, but there was something very quiet and very loving about the whole process." Of course, those that know us, have to know that we weren't perfectly quiet—we cracked jokes, we laughed, we cried—but we were quieter and more instinctual than I think we have ever been. In my mind's eye it's less chronological, less "memory" in the traditional sense. It's moments, it's feelings, it's snapshots, it's art. I am blessed to have been a part of it.

So that was the end.

And this is the beginning.



My heart is full.