May 1982, I was deployed to Diego Garcia with Naval Mobile Construction Battalion SIXTY-TWO, when I get the MARS Gram ... "It's a girl, Jennifer Lynn Gassman, mom and child are well."
September 1984, I was deployed to Autec Island, Bahamas with Naval Mobile Construction Battalion SEVEN, when I receive the phone call, It's a boy, Leo Joseph Gassman.
April 24, 2013, I'm waiting for a family friend to discuss her wedding plans. While I am waiting in my truck outside the restaurant a very pregnant woman and her (I'm assuming) husband came out. Something about the way they were walking and talking made me think, "Does he understand what is happening?" I mean really understand.
I know from my experience those two contacts changed my life tremendously. Jennifer is now 30 and Leo 28. I carry copies of their baby pictures and I love them now as much as I did back then. It is funny how our relationship with our children rides the proverbial roller coaster. Yet, as parents we love them so deeply no matter how rough it might be. If we are separated physically, emotionally, or because of differing points of view, we love them tremendously.
This is how I know God exists and that He came to be one of us in the person of Jesus, human in every way, willing to give His human life for our salvation. This is agape love. The kind of love we live out sacramentally as a married man and woman. We are graced with the ability to be co-creators with our God, by our ability to produce children through an act of love and we come to see God in the child who loves and trusts us unconditionally (until they are teenagers), then we come to know God's pain when we sin (turn away from Him). Yet, He loves us, calls us back, and mercifully forgives us.
This is the 5th Sunday of Easter. The Gospel calls us to love as Jesus (God with us) loves us. "This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:35)
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