There’s nothing like a new baby in the family to make the world feel like a beautiful place. Our niece’s new daughter Emma made Richard’s sister and her husband first-time grandparents on Wednesday.
At Emma’s parents’ wedding, the groom’s father told the tale of arriving at BYU as a freshman from Sweden with no plans for where he was going to live or what he was going to do. A man who had been a Mormon missionary in Sweden years before and knew his family from then happened to live near that campus now and invited him to come stay with his family.
Where he was taken in as if he were their own, to the point that when he eventually married, his benefactors helped him and his bride with the down payment on their first house. Everything, everything he had in his life now, he felt, had all grown from that good man’s generosity, and if only his friend had lived to see this day, how happy it would have made him. He’d recently passed, and the groom’s dad was both overwhelmed with joy for his son and grieving his friend.
He and I had already met by that point, but after hearing that I had to circle back.
“Let me re-introduce myself,” I said, and told him my unusual maiden name.
Which was Swedish.
And the same as his late friend, who was a second cousin to my dad.
He was stunned. He was thrilled. His son had just married into the family that included–!
Welcome to the whole world waiting for your discoveries, little Emma. You are greatly loved here.