Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and just lay there looking at Luke’s tiny sleeping face and feel the most incredible awe.  Before I became a parent I approached the idea with great cynicism – I never believed that I could feel anything but tolerance for a child.  Certainly I didn’t think I would be able to love any child as much as I loved my wife.  Luke turned that all upside down in relatively short order.  I can say with complete honesty that I have never felt the depth or range of love I feel for him before and never expect to again.  He is the most phenomenal being I have encountered in this life, by far.  And with that love comes a great and abiding fear.  When you love this way you place your entire being in jeopardy in a very fundamental way – thay never tell you this, all those parents you talk to when you are childless – but it is true.  Luke carries my soul with him wherever he goes, he owns me in that way.  It is a joyous thing, a deeply reverent thing and I am thankful that I have been able to experience this depth in my lifetime.  It is also a terrifying thing which I am powerless to control.  When I look into his sleeping face in the dark silence of 3am I am also looking into the uncertainty of my own fate, linked so deeply with his.  And I pray for mercy, for him first and foremost, and if there is any left over, for myself.  It is a treacherous business, this loving, but they never tell you that.