As I’ve watched my children,
and my grandchildren grow up
I am grateful that I have been around
to enjoy all the steps they have been taking…
And I look forward to enjoying
the steps they take from here…
and all the steps our great-granddaughter will me making.
Today’s blessing is about our children
and how time with them goes by so fast…
as I paraphrase the words of James M. Barrie
and a bit of wishful thinking…taken from the past.
Once you read the words…smile
as you let them rest upon your shoulder:
If we never put our babies to bed
they can’t wake up another day older.
It was a wonderful afternoon…one that would make any parent glad…
We spent it with our grandson Damien, his wife Trista,
our great-granddaughter Violet and Trista’s mom and dad.
They came to the cabin for a visit…yes, including their dog Ghost, the entire bunch
and to make things even more special…they brought along pizzas for lunch.
Adding to this beautiful afternoon…again I must assert…
Deborah made a salad to go with the pizzas and and eclair cake for dessert.
Getting a chance to know Trista’s parents was awesome…one we won’t forget
and one of the highlights for the old folks…was getting to hold Violet.
Holding Violet in our arms…we all felt energized, exhilarated and inspired…
I was blessed to walk around holding her for so long…my arms got tired.
She would cry and I’d walk and rock her to and fro…it’s a memory I shall keep
as she gazed up at me with her wide eyes, then slowly close them and fell asleep.
How we love moments like this…a moment when two people blend…
and how we wish we could stop time…so that moment would never end.
We have such a short time to hold our children, grandchildren
and great-grandchildren safe within our arms…
A short time when they are with us every minute
and we can keep them safe from harm.
So we learn to cherish these moments…
while we can still hold them in our arms
where, in the intimacy of the moment, we can enjoy their beauty and their charms.
There will come a day when Violet will be too big to carry in my arms…
when I’ll wish in the course of a rhyme
That, for a moment, just for a moment, we could go back in time…
To this particular day…when I was energized and inspired…
the day I walked and rocked and cradled my great-granddaughter
for so long
my arms got tired.
I am grateful every day this simple prayer is answered…
It’s a prayer I repeat every night with deference and grace:
“All I ask,” I whisper to the heavens
“Is for one more day in her embrace.”
Instead of finding someone to grow old with…
may we all break the mold…
and find someone to grow younger with
as together….we grow old.
I like to think our Creators once they finished creating our world
and humans they decided to build…
made sure we were born with hearts full of empty spaces…waiting to be filled.
Their plan was for us to be pure and innocent when we are young and new
with enough empty spaces in our hearts…to last our whole life through.
So when a person comes along…when into our life their love will play a part
they fill immediately one of the empty places in our heart.
We might always not feel it at first…with some people love will grow
until one day we look at them a little differently…and in that moment…we will know.
The beauty of this gift…its charm, its mystery…its grace
is we often times do not know who will come along and fill a space.
And when we stop every now and then to review who holds places within our hearts
we are immediately filled with pride
at the diversity and the beauty of all the love we find inside..
We are able to see clearly in the variety of this dispersal…
how love…is awesome….unlimited…and how love is universal
As we age and see all the people filling our empty spaces
we begin to understand…
how we are meant to love a multitude of people…
the way our creators had it planned.
We marvel at the wisdom of those creators.
Our respect and admiration for them we cannot hide…
For they knew to place the room where all our love is stored
next door to the room where our dreams reside.
So we can sit back and smile at the life we’ve lived
thanking our creators up above…
for coming up with such a beautiful way
to fill our hearts with love.
I am sad my parents are gone now…
that off their presence I am deprived…
but I remain grateful for the memories we made
when they were both alive.
And on those days I begin missing them
when I start out feeling rotten…
I think of them and all those memories…
too beautiful to be forgotten.
