Night 1 Remembered

Over Aerin's first night in the world, I slept in the hospital room with Kira. She was recovering from the surgery, of course. We were happy to see Aerin have such a great first day, but the warnings of the neonatologist just prior to her birth were still with me. He described Aerin's road as "long and rocky." While half-asleep, I recalled Sam's words to Frodo in The Two Towers:

I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.