Twenty Three Years ago today

This is a copy of the email I just sent our twin sons about this day, twenty-three years ago.

"J & J,

Twenty-three years ago today, I hesitantly left for work, thinking your mother was having contractions. She assured me they were not the real thing and were very erratic anyway. Your grandmother came over to stay with your mom while I was gone. While at work, I got a 'voice page' right about now, 1:00pm to call home. I called and my mom told me your mother was having contractions every ten minutes and that I should come home. I left work early and I could not wait to get home. I was so excited about how our lives were about to change.

About 4pm I was walking your mother into Trinity Medical Center in Carrollton stopping every few minutes for her to endure a contraction. We got settled in, and the hospital staff hooked everything up to your mother, to monitor her and the two of you. When it became apparent that Jason was in trouble they decided to move everything up and get you guys out as fast as possible. C-Section. They would not allow me to enter the surgical room because there was no way for me to scrub in so fast. But I stood outside the door listening. Literally with my ear to the crack of the double doors, I stood waiting to hear anything, something that I could to identify that my sons had entered the world. Only about 10 minutes passed when I heard a baby cry. Followed a minute later with another, different cry. Those were the only signs I had that I was a dad.

About 15 minutes passed and a nurse came out with two baby boys encased in incubators on the way to the nursery. She stopped to let me look. I can not tell you how much emotion was in that one brief moment. It was like time stood still.

I was staggered with how beautiful you both looked. While I am not an expert on beauty I thought you guys were the most beautiful thing I had ever laid my eyes on. I could not wait to see how your lives would turn out.

Fast forward to today. You both are still beautiful.
Sharing so much in common at the start, you still share the most admired qualities of any man: Intelligent, strong, confident, trustworthy, hard working, fun, dependable. You both have turned out to be great men. I can't wait to see what the next few years hold for you both, as you graduate, get married, develop a career, and maybe have boys of your own.

Happy Birthday guys!