Things that make me Smile

For me, like many of you, our lives have gotten smaller in the past two months. When I say smaller I mean in the span of territory we cover or inhabit. I have spent most of my time here in Franklin, TN on the property with occasional trips to the grocery or a few other places such as a local restaurant to carry out a meal. Even though my physical span has diminished, my true span has not shrunk at all and has enlarged in many ways. I’ll talk about this in a future post. This time has also included challenges, not unlike those addressed in my previous post at this site.

The things that have made me smile in recent months have been close and personal and mainly involve what I have seen and heard either on my own or through my family. Here are a few of the reasons to smile:

My grandson-I had always heard people say that grandchildren were the best thing they had ever experienced, but I downplayed this until we started to spend time with our own grandchild, a grandson, Charles Theodore Ryan, aka “Teddy”. I continue to be amazed at how cheerful and fun he is and he never fails to light up a room with his smile. He is now just over 6 months old and his mobility is increasing daily as he starts to scoot, soon to crawl. I could have never predicted how many smiles this young man has put on my face.
My sons-Having adult sons is a blessing that keeps on giving. Daniel is now 32 and Matthew is 30 and they are both making a great impact in their personal and professional lives. Daniel just completed his MBA degree at Vanderbilt and it makes me proud to see how he stuck with this over a 2 year period while working full time and also becoming a father. I know he will put this experience to work in his future career pursuits. Matthew returned to the Nashville area in early February after spending 4 years in the Washington DC area. Shortly after he got settled in he was asked to be part of a special group at his firm that focused on repurposing structures for COVID patients in cities such as New York City and Chicago. This assignment ended up being a 7-day per week opportunity, but it also provided him with great insight into disaster preparedness and quick project delivery.
My wife-Gena and I will celebrate our 38th anniversary in September and the past weeks have been enlightening as I have seen her adapt and grow in her work. She had worked from home with me over 10 years ago and didn’t like that much. Her role working from home now has been much better and I am doing my best to provide the best technology support to keep her going. She also speaks daily with her father who is quarantined out of state and never stops thinking about how she can support or help someone else, usually me.

During times like these we need to find reasons to smile and I can honestly share that I have smiled more than expected during the past two months.

My prayer for you is that you too are finding reasons to smile.