We can listen for the herald of trumpets, watch for a bolt of lightning, wait for the earth to tremble, but sometimes, God can floor us with the slightest of nudges.
Like late on Thanksgiving Eve when you fall, partly out of exhaustion and partly because age seems to have tinkered with Newton's Laws, onto the mattress on the floor, which will be your bed for the next several nights. You can't complain about the accommodations, though. Not after a 14-hour drive from Huntersville to Groton, Conn., during which your wallet was emptied for tolls (twelve bucks to cross the George Washington Bridge? Really?!), your back was clenched into a perpetual spasm, and your nerves were as frayed as the ends of Art Garfunkel's hair.
You try to read, but soon realize your eyes have worn themselves out with all those death stares beamed at pokey drivers camped in the fast lane of the interstate. You toss aside your magazine, switch off the light, and settle in for your well-earned slumber on your first visit to your married daughter's first home away from your home.
You will awaken Thanksgiving morning — and three mornings after that — to a highly orchestrated rendition of the Star Spangled Banner amplified by speakers from the neighboring Naval Submarine Base. But tonight, after you finally find the right sleeping position to accommodate your still-tense lower back and throbbing right hip, you'll be reminded of what really is music to your ears.
From downstairs, where your two daughters will be up for hours, you'll hear sounds you haven't heard for more than a year, not since your oldest daughter got married, left home, and moved 750 miles away.
It's just the muted voices of your two daughters, a muffled conversation that might as well be a symphony. You can't understand a word they're saying, but you follow the emotion of their exchange anyway — the long, even-toned stretches punctuated by explosions of laughter, mock indignation and instant delight, accompanied by the drone of the television.
You remember a time, not so long ago, really, when you were annoyed by the same sounds. When you lay in your bed at home, unable to sleep and irritated by your daughters' inconsideration as they blasted the television downstairs and did their best to talk over whatever MTV reality show they happened to be watching in the wee hours. When you finally got out of bed in a rage, opened the bedroom door and yelled down the stairs, "Will you PLEASE keep it down?!"
But here, on this night, in this place, what once was noise is now music, a lullaby more soothing than rain on a roof or the distant roar of the surf. You begin to imagine the sounds you have yet to hear, the coos and cries of your first grandchild, due in June.
As you lay there and listen, you realize you have a huge smile on your face.
And you are thankful. Oh, so thankful.
