Baby Crib Milestone

I came in from my shop with a few tools in my hand.  My job today was to get rid of the old crib down in the basement bedroom. 
I walked into the room and caught my too kind and loving wife sniffling with a few big tears on her cheek just sitting on the bed looking at the crib that I was about to disassemble and haul to the dump.
As I look back on my life’s timeline, I realize that many of the important milestones are etched into my mind and heart by the purchase of certain things. 
I remember buying my first car; a used 1973 Opal Manta.  It had two doors, didn’t always shift into reverse and had a jillion miles.  The paint was faded and blistered with age spots much like my own skin these days. 
With the aid of duct-tape, bailing wire, and whispered prayers it hauled me and my too kind and loving wife around until we graduated from college and finally bought a new car.
But nothing we purchased was filled with as many dreams, hopes, and excitement as our first baby crib.  We were in college and didn’t have two nickels to rub together, but somehow decided that a good solid crib was going to be a sound investment and useful for many kids and years to come.
Years ago, when my too kind and loving wife was pregnant with our first child she started making receiving blankets, blessing blankets, bumper pads, and other things I had never heard of.  She made a carousel with a lion, giraffe, and monkeys that spun slowly around. 
She sewed a big wall hanging shaped like a balloon with puppies and kittens holding on.  Somehow, she knew that one day there would be a baby to put into that crib,
I only knew that “some assembly required” was taxing my engineer brain to its limit.
That crib helped us realize so many of our dreams.  Sometimes the crib acted like a manger for our own heavenly child, other times it was used as a jail for a child throwing a tantrum. 
There were several times when it was used as a safe playpen because my too kind and loving wife was exhausted from being up all night with a sick sibling and knew that the crib would be a safe place so she could doze on the rocking chair for a few minutes.
I can’t count the number of times my too kind and loving wife quietly snuck in and checked on a sick child burning with a fever lying in that crib.  She would stand at the crib clutching the rail, anxious and worried. 
Over the years she offered up thousands of prayers.  It was more like an altar where overwhelmed inexperienced parents offered up desperate prayers asking for divine help, wisdom, and comfort.
Some of the prayers were hopeful, wishing that this baby would have the best in life and that we would be good parents and always know what to do and say.  Other prayers were filled with overwhelming gratitude for a baby that somehow, we loved more than our own life. 
There were whispered prayers of desperation because the hospital had sent us home with a brand-new baby that we had no idea how to raise.  Sure, we loved the baby but that didn’t make her stop crying.  We didn’t know the difference between a sniffle, a cold, RSV, bronchitis, or pneumonia.
I mean let’s be real, up to that point in our life we couldn’t keep a house plant alive.  I raised a gerbil once, until my cat ate him. 
What the hell were they thinking?  Shouldn’t kids come with a manual or something?  I have had more background checks to adopt a puppy dog than to have a baby.  I dunno?
And here I am, tools in hand, ready to tear apart the old crib.  After four kids and thirteen grandkids that used it as a crib and bounce house it is barely holding together, certainly not safe, and like my old car it too is held together with bailing wire and duct tape.
This is a hard milestone to pass by.  Nothing we purchased was filled with as many dreams, hopes, and excitement as our first baby crib.  The carousel, bumper pad, and matching balloon filled with monkeys and puppies are long gone. 
The receiving blankets are tucked safely in her cedar chest.  As my too kind and loving wife leaves the room to go upstairs, she turns and looks one last time at the crib. 
It’s not just wood, springs, and a mattress; it is a treasure chest of the best memories and answered prayers etched on her heart.  So many of our hopes and dreams were realized peaking down into that crib. 
As she leaves the room, her demeanor is almost reverence.  I sense that perhaps this was once holy ground where many prayers were answered.