Family photo 2013

Family photo 2013

Monday, April 29, 2013

When they were this age...

our older kids seemed so big to me. So grown up. So mature. So capable of managing themselves wisely. So ready for what I felt sure was necessary discipline. Now, as our youngest boy and girl are six (almost seven (!) gasp) and five, they seem so young, (just teeny tiny infant children born only yesterday) so sweet, so tender. So attuned and responsive to what I now feel sure is appropriate gentleness at all times. They still ask to be held and hugged and to share my lap.
They still fall asleep at almost dinnertime in their swimsuit with wet hair because playing outside all day, then staying awake all evening, is just a touch beyond their reach. And I am grateful for the chance I've had to parent again and again, a clean beginning with each child, adapting and changing and appropriately softening. It just seems fitting.
Every day he has been here to help Bobby with our magnanimous house project that's in the works. He allows her to style his hair for him, then take a picture with his phone. It reminds me the days I used to sit in my grandpa's lap and feather his locks. (Only there were not cell phones back in those dark ages.) Such sweetness.
I used to rarely {ever} allow pictures of myself. (If you've read long, you may remember those days!) There is at least a decade that my existence on this planet is scarcely documented. I'm just not photogenic, I would say. Pictures of me always turn out terrible. Mostly, they do. But as our lives have raced by in a blur of activity and commotion and meals and clean up and tears and scraped knees and sporting events and laughter and summers and winters and springs and falls breezing past in unrelenting rapid succession, I realized I will only be here for a short while.
One day, perhaps my decedents will care enough to desire record of their heritage, of which I am a part. Because even with my crooked nose and age spots and the lines between by brows and the crows feet that surround my eyes, I was present. Living the moments and loving and and grieving and laughing and observing and reflecting and dancing and singing (terribly! and loudly!) and cooking (and cooking...and cooking...and cooking...) and giving my best some days and others barely scraping by, and falling and getting back up and carrying on, grateful for the clean opportunity of another fresh start, again and again.

Growing in age all the while, coming to understand the simple truth that the mere chance to participate in life on earth is more than beautiful enough.   

That has to count for something.
It's surely worthy of remembering.
And maybe even recording....

1 comment:

Owlhaven said...

So true!

Mary

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