Thank God

I know exactly where I was twenty-eight years ago tonight.

I was in the Princess Mary Hospital in Newcastle. Outside in the frosty dark cars sped along the Great Norh Road as people came back from visiting their families, while I was hidden away in a high up room in that elegant old building. With the curtains drawn, I lay in bed and watched my beautiful new little miracle. He was fast asleep.

He'd had a busy day. He'd been born, for a start, and phtographed by his daddy, and then he'd met his brother and sister and grandparents, but I don't think he knew much about them. He knew that sleep, milk and cuddles were good things and that he needed lots of them. I know everybody thinks their own baby is the most beautiful baby ever, but in my case, I was right.

Like all babies, he brought a lot of love with him. And something strange happened, that first morning. Six hours after he was born, I was well enough to go and have a bath, and as I came out the sun was rising. I stopped at and watched through the window for a while, with my new baby in my heart, and something came to me very powerfully, without me thinking of it. It was the powerful sense, almost as if I'd heard it, that one day somebody would thank God for him.

And they already do. Especially me.