Baby Arthur

Not exactly the first picture that I thought I'd post of my first nephew, but there's actually a silly and sweet reason that I chose this pic...

A family trait that's quite odd for most... My brother and I both have a webbed second and third toe... My father had it too... Not sure if everyone knows what that means, but basically the skin between our toes rises closer to the center knuckle of our toe... Some people have "webbed feet", but it's odd that we have only these two toes on each foot... Mine is much less prevalent than my brother's (as his goes above the knuckle on one foot) but it's something we both share...

When I went to the hospital to see my nephew for the first time, I felt an unusual urge... I'd held him close, felt his soft skin and listened to him breathe softly as he slept in my arms... I counted each finger, and instinctively, I removed his feet from his blanket and that's when I saw his toes... I asked my brother if he'd noticed anything special, and he immediately knew what I meant... With all that went on that day, it hadn't occurred to him to check... I held up his toes and showed him the webbing between his second and third toe...

When my brother walked me out of the hospital, we embraced in a way we hadn't done since the day we lost my dad... I was 10 then, he was 8... I told my brother how proud I was of him, and how happy I was... I then reminded him how proud my father would have been to hold his grandson... As I let him go, there were tears in both of our eyes... The first time we'd cried and embraced since that day just over 20 years ago... That time I held my younger brother and faced the loss of our father together... This time, instead, we cried tears of joy for the life that had just arrived...