Waiting for the next bundle of joy...

Why is it that joy comes in bundles? Or should it be oodles? Or is joy quantifiable...don't really know. A bundle of joy that fell into our hands was when a little over two years ago, we were in Chicago and my sister decided to pop and there was a squirming little thing in my hand 5 minutes later after it made its first sound. It was my nephew Ashwin who I couldn't get enough of.

And its time for the next bundle to arrive in the form of a niece, Maya. My sister tells me that for those in the know, she is due anytime now and no later than September 5th. As I wait for that gift of life to wriggle in my hands once again, I am thrown back many many years when I was 11 years old, and I was in the grip of the same anticipation. It was November 5th, and I couldn't bear the screams of pain coming from the nursing home room where my mother was. My aunt seeing me crying asked me to go home. So I ran back home and to expend the nervous energy building up played shuttle with my friends in the forecourt. Suddenly Dad walks in and says you have a sister...I remember dropping my racket, and running to the nursing home which was about 6 blocks away. I peeked around the door of the room, as I was not allowed in as I had a cold...and I saw a tiny little bundle in the crib...that was my first glimpse of someone who would change who I am foreever. The first time I held my sister was not in my arms but on a pillow placed on my thighs, as she was small and frail and I was too young to be trusted with something so precious.

And I wait again to experience that joy and what it makes me....a man who is more because he is a brother and an uncle.