Been away for two weeks welcoming our new grandson. He’s glorious, sweet, wonderful, and his big sister turned four while we were there. We celebrated at Chuck E Cheese.

Grands give me hope, yes they do. Not certainty, the world is too unpredictable than that, but a baby’s face does something, makes me root for humanity in spite of ourselves. Just keep finding something good to do where you are. It matters.

My daughter had a framed saying in her kitchen when we brought our little prince home: “You are the sky—everything else is just weather.”

We kept big sister while Mom and Dad went to the hospital. When the baby came, we drove down to Manhattan and saw his beautiful face. It took me back to the births of our three girls. When Erin, our second was born, we lived in North Carolina. The delivery was in Dunn, a small town nearby.

There is a beautiful intimacy, waiting together in a small room, listening to your baby, knowing she’ll be here soon. And I will never forget a little cross stitch handing on the wall of that delivery room (or perhaps it was a picture), but it was a quotation from the poet, Carl Sandburg. And it said, “A baby is God’s decision that the world should go on.” I’ve always remembered that.

I haven’t watched much news for two weeks. When I checked again, the dumpster fire full of manure was still on fire and whackadoodles are on the loose. But even in the craziest of times, human beings keep giving birth, taking care of their children, helping their neighbors and praying for a future for their little ones.

May the world go on, because of us, or in spite of us. We don’t have the final say.