imagination or lack thereof

Our little girl, Olivia has to be the most entertaining thing in the world. I find myself mesmerized by her imagination. I mean she'll just sit there and entertain herself for hours. It's just funny to watch her and to listen to her have a different voice for her doggy and her kitty and her turtle and so on. She'll just create conversations between them. Or it's funny how sometimes she won't eat or won't do this or that but if I create a voice to be her caterpillar or her monkey and tell her to do the same thing that daddy just told her to do, she'll do it (not sure if this is a bad thing or not). Or her new thing is to talk about the snakes or ants that are coming to get her and then we proceed to run through the house as they chase us. Or the "cute dinosaur" pet that she has. It's just crazy because you really wonder, does she see these imaginary animals? Does she hear them talk? What does it feel to have that kind of imagination? And the question I keep asking myself is, when did we lose this imagination?

At what point in our lives do we lose our child-like imagination? I mean, what causes us to lose that imagination? And as I search for the answers to these questions, I can't help but wonder, what would the world be like if we still had the imagination of a child? How many more things could we accomplish if we let our minds wander and we didn't set limitations on what we could accomplish?

Or perhaps that type of imagination for adults would lead to nothing more than us all having our imaginary friends to keep us company? Perhaps you'd randomly see grown adults running down the streets from an army of talking snakes? I mean how fun would that be? We wouldn't need TVs to entertain us because we could sit and play in a box all night and be content. We wouldn't need to waste all of this money on "big toys" and instead would find ways to use blankets, cereal boxes and rope to become MacGyver and build an entire town.

Sometimes I wonder if life would be better if we all had the imaginations that we had as kids. Perhaps there is a way to get imaginations back...if we could only figure out how we lost them in the first place...

We will remember (9/11)

9/11. Those three numbers elicit such vivid memories for everyone. Everyone can probably tell you precisely where they were on that infamous day. I remember that I was walking to my first class of the day at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. I remember getting there and the professor was late (which never happened). Then, he walked in and explained to us that a passenger plane hit the World Trade Center in New York and that class was cancelled for the day. I recall slowly walking back to my dorm trying to let my mind process what I had just heard. I remember sitting in our dorm suite with some guys watching the TV, our eyes becoming dry because we refused to blink and then we saw the second plane hit. Just then the words "terrorist attack" and "hijacked planes" starting being repeated again and again.

I had never experienced anything like this. Others generations remember Kennedy being shot or Pearl Harbor being bombed. This would become my generation's Pearl Harbor. This would become that day we would never forget. I remember watching TV for countless hours, taking in every word that news anchors had to say. All of the theories, all of the stories, all of the speculation. I couldn't pry myself from the television because my brain could not quite process what my eyes were witnessing. I was witnessing a day that would change the world as we know it. Airport security would change the way we travel. A select few of a certain religion that masterminded the attacks would provide new heights to stereotyping.

And today as we remember 9/11 and it's 10 year anniversary, we are all brought back to that day. I was confident that that event would always be the only thing that would come to mind when I hear 9/11. However, that all changed a couple of months ago. Now 9/11 means something so much more personal. 9/11 hits so much closer to home that it did before. Today (9/11) was the due date for our Gabrielle who we lost earlier this year. 9/11 will now always be the day my baby should have been born. I can still remember that day that we found out that we lost our baby and the doctor telling us there was no heartbeat. I remember walking down the hall to where my mom was to tell her that we had lost our baby but not being able to get any words out and just sobbing uncontrollably. I can still remember holding our tiny lifeless baby in my hand as if it were yesterday.

Today as we wait to bring home our baby from Ethiopia, I can't help but think of the baby we should have with us today. Yet, as I think of our baby, I realize that our baby is in a much better place. I realize that our baby is in the arms of a father that is far more loving and far more good than I can ever dream to be. I realize that even though it still doesn't make sense to me why our baby isn't here, God's ways are not our ways and God's thoughts are not our thoughts. I realize that 9/11 will always mean something different to my wife and me than it will to almost everyone else in the world. I also realize that God is good. I realize that He alone is my strength and He alone is my hope. I put my trust in Him alone.

I love you and miss you Gabrielle. I wish I had gotten to see you grow into a beautiful woman but I know that I will see you someday. Until then, I hope that by your death, God will be glorified. I pray that He will use the life that you had for such a short time to give a life to someone that only He could give.