For a very long time I haven’t been the world’s best sleeper. My mother used to report that when I was an infant, I was pretty good at self-soothing and going to sleep. I was a thumb sucker until I was 5 or 6 years old. Fairly early in my life, though, I taught myself to wake up when there was something I wanted to do. When my father offered to take me to the airport and to go flying, I could rouse myself and be dressed in just a few minutes. Over the years there have been a lot of nights when I was so excited that I would sleep lightly and wake often.

During my working years, I used an alarm clock but I’m pretty sure that I woke myself just before the alarm went off as often as the alarm woke me. I used to say that the reason I set an alarm was so that I could sleep. If if didn’t set the alarm, I would keep waking and checking the time to make sure I didn’t over sleep.

For much of my career, I would receive calls in the middle of the night that required me to get up, get dressed, and respond. I didn’t really mind those calls and I was pretty good at dealing with whatever needed attention and then returning to bed for whatever time was left. I go to sleep easily and when I have trouble sleeping it is usually difficulty staying awake, not going to sleep initially.

I can remember a few nights when excitement kept me from sleeping as much as I might have otherwise done. The night before we met our daughter, I slept fairly well. The next night, however, when she was actually our responsibility, I was awake most of the night. I don’t know how many times I checked on that baby. When she did wake crying, I had her diaper changed and her formula mixed and was ready in record time, even though I had no previous experience with baby formula. I had seen my mother and others test the temperature of a baby’s milk by pouring a few drops on their wrist. I went through that motion, but within a few days, I could tell if the contents were the right temperature by how the outside of the bottle felt in my hands.

I remember the time that followed as being a time when I was often tired. I was waking up multiple times in the night. The baby developed ear infections on several occasions and I didn’t know how to soothe her. Several times I had to wake Susan to ask for her help, or at least for her to relieve me for a few minutes. Initially, I was working a part time job that required me to be at work at 5:30 am. Like other ministers, I often found myself in meetings in the evening that lasted late. I would sneak a nap when time permitted. I’m pretty good at taking short naps and waking up ready to go, but in those days there weren’t many opportunities for naps.

I’ve often said that while our first child was a good sleeper - so good that I was tempted to brag about our superior parenting technique. At least I thought that our bedtime routine was something that other parents could benefit by imitating. Our second, however, was not a good sleeper. I joke that she once slept all the way through the night when she was five years old. That isn’t quite true, but over the span of her life, I was awake with her in the night a lot.

I was still awake in the wee hours of the morning when she was in her twenties, but my worries had shifted. I worried about her friends and especially about a couple of boy friends who didn’t treat her as well as she deserved. I worried about parties and alcohol and driving. It turned out that I need not have worried as much as I did, but I didn’t know. When it is 2 am and your twenty-something daughter isn’t at home, one doesn’t exactly think rationally.

Right now, I’m feeling that excited awareness in the best possible way. This afternoon just before 4:30 their time, which is 1:30 our time, she and her son will board an airplane in Columbia, South Carolina. They’ll fly to Dallas/Fort Worth airport where they have a layover of a couple of hours and then board a flight to Vancouver British Columbia. Vancouver International Airport is just under 40 miles from our home. They arrive there at 11:05 pm. That is a bit after my usual bedtime, but you can count on a couple of things. One is that I will be wide awake. The other is that I will have arrived at the airport earlier than necessary.

With the international border crossing, we need to allow about an hour to get to the airport and a few more minutes to get parked and find the place to meet incoming flights. When their airplane lands, they have to go through customs, retrieve their luggage and walk out to the place where we can meet them. Our almost-five-year-old grandson will be pretty tired. After all it will be nearly 3 am by the time zone where he lives. But I’m guessing he’ll also be excited. He can fall asleep in the car while we drive back to our house.

Maybe I’m not quite as excited as I was the day we first met her, but it is pretty close. I know where my mind will be wandering during our church service this morning. I don’t expect to pay very close attention to the sermon and I’ll have my private prayers going during the time for the pastoral prayer. It is a good feeling.

I think it knew it before I met her, but one of the lessons she taught or at least reinforced is that there are lots of things in life more important than sleeping. You can make up sleep later when you need. I can sneak a nap sometime tomorrow. I don’t mind missing a bit of sleep one bit. I’ll be too excited to sleep anyway.