CMP Review 2025-06-26

June 26, 2025

On Tuesday I held my daughter’s newborn baby. It was a powerful moment and a tender moment, to embrace a person, a complete person, at the dawn of limitless opportunity. And then I saw my daughter’s face.

I first saw that face when she herself was a newborn, moments from the womb, resting in my arms in utter serenity. I saw that face when she played and imagined, danced and sang, as little girls so often do. I saw that face when she felt sorrow and hurt, disappointment and pain, the life we experience in our teens.

I saw that face when we stood alone outside the sanctuary, the last to walk in. A brief moment to pray with her before family and friends witnessed her vows and she became joined to a man.

That face grew over the years, but it was always the same face, it was always the face of a child looking at me, her dad.

Now with a baby in my arms, looking over at my daughter, I realized that her face had finally changed. She had become a parent like me. No longer a receiver of life only, but now a giver of life. A brave, long, and difficult labor was for her the beginning of a lifetime of giving, of giving all she has to another. The same way I gave everything to her.

@artmiddlekauff