New Inspiration - for Pencil Sketching, and all kinds of things!

Payton #1 © 2014 Tracey Hewitt
Pencil 12cm x 12cm

We've had some big news around here.... A granddaughter! This post has been written, rewritten, scrapped and started over a number of times now. Then, I remembered that I wrote a letter to this baby girl the night she was born. Not quite your run of the mill, regular post, but then again, a family's first grand baby is not quite your run of the mill, regular experience is it?

Dear Payton,
 

Today we met you for the first time. New to this world- just hours old - I was captivated at once. Maybe one day, many years from now, I'll remember this letter and give it to you - a memory of one of the most favourite days of my life.
 

It rained! All day. And we had been hoping so hard and needing it for so long, which made it even more wonderful. Much like we hoped so hard for you. I feel as though I have loved you forever already - certainly since I saw you swimming around in your Mums belly at her first scan. And even before that, when you were just a possibility and we hoped so hard you would decide to stay and grow. And today, on the day of  my first baby - your Dads - birthday, you joined us in this mad, happy, crazy, wild, fun, fantastic circus called life, and our hearts are so happy.
 

It's difficult to describe how I feel tonight - excited, happy, content, nervous, pleased, thrilled- a whole lot of emotion all rolled up together, and full, my heart feels full. Thankful, grateful, full. I'm sitting quietly, listening to the rain on the roof - one of my favourite sounds, and thinking of you, of your tiny, perfect face, little bit of soft hair and wee fingers and toes. You had so many visitors today, and you slept and ate and were not the slightest bit amazed by the excitement your entrance into the world had caused.
 

We had a cuddle, you and I, and the world felt perfectly right. 

I know that as you grow and the years pass there'll be times you are sad and unsure, times you doubt yourself - you're human and we all do that. But I hope that through all those times, I can help you remember you are a miracle. You are perfect exactly as you are in any moment and magical in your ability to bring joy just by being in a room (that will never change for me, nor, I expect, anyone else in that room with you today).
 

So, on this ordinary, rainy day, while the newspapers ran headlines about a Malaysian Aeroplane that disappeared without a trace, and our Govenors General, Quentin Bryce (the retiring one) and Peter Cosgrove (the new one) have been announced a Dame and a Sir, and the republicans are getting all worked up about it, and most of the world was going about its business as if it were any other day; we know better. Today was a special day. The day Payton came to live on planet Earth as part of our family. And we are so very happy you are here.
 

Welcome to the world precious girl. I can't wait to get to know you, and the wonderful person you will become.