I’ve been in #reflect mode this week as my Bonus Son #1 finished his first quarter of college, Bonus Son #2 graduated from high school, and the school year wrapped up for my daughters, Princess 1 and Princess 2. My kids are ages: 19, 18, 15, 12.
I’ve been thinking about the passages of time and the seasons of life – how quickly it seems we transition from one to another. It feels like yesterday I was a young mother of a newborn and toddler. Now one of them is learning to drive.
My ‘story’ for the last fifteen years has been that of mother to young ones. Not only that role, of course, but it’s been the main plot, so to speak. For the last two years, I’ve been a stepmother to my Bonus Sons, who lost their mother five years ago. It’s been a privilege and honor to be their Bonus Mom for the last part of their journey into adulthood. Soon they will both move away to lives of their own. Just writing those words makes me tear up. I can’t help but wish I’d had them for a little longer.
As I venture into new territory with these four almost grown people, I can’t help but mourn the past, even as the memories of happy times make me smile.
I wonder…how do you keep happy memories alive? Do you look at photos, tell stories, watch videos? Or, are you more like me, and just close my eyes and remember.
Along those lines, I wanted to share a passage from my novel, “Deleted: Jackson and Maggie”.
And it seemed to him, there amongst the smiling moon and the first brave stars, that the meaning of life was found in the moments where love stretched and breathed like a living creature. It was in these brief snatches of time that one’s whole life made perfect sense. Love given and received gave our toiled years meaning. Love told the story of our life.
Because at the end, when all that remained were the memories captured in paintings hung on walls, or photographs in a box, or merely flashes of moving pictures behind our eyes, it would be a moment such as this that whispered our life’s story. This is your glory, your meaning, your purpose.
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