SARAH BRECKEN HAMILTON

Our son Jon and his wife Jamie welcomed their second daughter into the world Monday, May 19, 2008, at 2:52a.m.

Happy parents and new daughter, a mere 2-1/2 hours after Jamie started labor!! Sarah weighed 7 pounds 15 ounces, and was 20 inches long.

When I first held her, the next day, I started crying and kept saying to her, "Is it really you???"

Grandma and her newest granddaughter.

Every girl loves our son Jon, especially when he's her daddy.

In the late afternoon, Abbie came in, brought after school by her Grandma Judy, and I got to hold my two youngest granddaughters together.

Abbie is an "old hand" at being a big sister in this picture, having been the first family member to hold her after Mommy and Daddy the day before.

Abbie chose Sarah's first name, insisting from the moment she knew there was a baby that it was Sarah. She would not entertain the possibility that it might be a boy or that there could be any other name for her. Jon found her middle name. It's Scottish (like the Hamilton ancestry) and means "freckled."

So we now have 4 grandchildren: Collin, 12; Gracie (Grayson), 9; Abbie, 5; and Sarah, now not quite 48 hours old. Then there's Hevan(pronounced ay-vahn): he's the 5-month-old son of Cecile, who came to us as an exchange student from France in 1997 and instantly became our daughter. That makes her husband Joachim our son-in-law, and their son Hevan our grandson.

Sarah. I'm never going to let you go -- I want to hold you in my arms forever. I get to see you every week or two until Christmas. Whatever made me think I might rather have been hiking?

GOT ANY FIRES TO PUT OUT?

Granddaughter Abbie, thrilled with one of her Christmas presents from her firefighter-paramedic daddy.

She'll also put on her nurse's scrubs and her real stethoscope and pretty darn near give you a complete physical. We sent her a doctor's kit for Christmas.

New Grandkids

Our French daughter, Cecile, who was our exchange student 10 years ago and was our daughter for that year and has been ever since, is a mother. She bore a son, Hevan, on December 12.

We have another grandchild on the way. Our son Jon and his wife Jamie are expecting a daughter in May. Almost-5-year-old Abbie has volunteered that she wants to name the baby Sarah. I think that would be beautiful. The same enduring, never-out-of-style type of classic name as Abigail, with the classic surname Hamilton. And it would be lovely for Abbie to get to be the one who suggested her sister's name.

Abbie goes to school with a Sarah, and an Ella, and about three Lindsay's, but she wants to name the baby Sarah. "I like it."

So, until further notice, I'll call the new granddaughter Sarah. I don't have a picture of her yet.

Because of Sarah, I am doing the SavageMan Half-Iron Triathlon next year, instead of hiking the Appalachian Trail. Because of Sarah, my friend Sally (whose name, of course, is Sarah), who has thought she was too old at 60+ to hike the AT, has another year to think about it, and is thinking she wants very much to go with me after all. She called me a couple weeks ago and was extremely excited to find out I've put it off for a year, because she can't go in 2008 but is getting very worked up about doing it in 2009.

Because of Sarah, life is different. Life is better.

SACRED TRUST

4-year-old Abbie spent the night with us last night. I read her two favorite bedtime books, "I Am A Bunny" and "Goodnight Moon," and then Grandpa lay on the fold-out couch with her and sang her to sleep. This is our established bedtime routine when she has a sleepover here.

For readers who don't know, Abbie has Down Syndrome. She understands and remembers everything but doesn't talk well. She uses American Sign Language.

In the night I woke to to crashes of thunder and explosions of lightning, rain (or hail?) pounding on our camper roof. I opened the bedroom door and Abbie was sitting bolt upright on the couch, wailing with each flash and crash. I lay down with her and talked about how cozy it was inside with the storm outside; she murmured "Yeah," and slept again.

This morning she woke up to get ready for preschool. I was fixing her toast and she said, "Gamma," and made some kind of sign, shaking her fists. I told her I didn't understand. She shook her fists again and pointed out the window and I remembered the sign for "thunder" from last summer. "Oh, THUNDER!" She beamed and nodded, "Yeah!!" Then, the sign for "scared." "You were scared of the storm?" Solemn nod, "Yeah." A happy smile: "Gamma!" "Grandma came and stayed with you?" Satisfied nod: "Yeah." Signed "sleep." Then she said happily, "Away!" and gestured with her hand flying towards the window.

There was thunder, and I was scared, and Grandma came and stayed with me, and I went to sleep, and the storm went away.

I love it. It makes my heart beat faster to send this.