There are moments in my life I wish I could stop Father Time, just for a few hours, a few minutes even. To be able to hold on to those precious times when something amazing was happening, or even just when something ordinary was occurring, that had special meaning to me. A first kiss..standing by the ocean for the first time..holding my babies after waiting to meet them for nine months..laughing with family..sharing with friends. The small things, the big things..all important moments in making me who I am today.
We long to hold on to those moments, to keep them from slipping away, but even with photographs and videos, or journals or good remembering, they inevitably fade with time. There’s just nothing quite as good as being in the moment itself.
I sit here in the sun on this chilly winters day, by the garden door looking out over our deck, to the snow covered yard and park beyond, marvelling at the billions of sparkling diamonds in the snow. The warm afternoon sun is melting the snow by the door and some drips are even coming off of the black BBQ cover nearby. Hopeful signs that spring is on it’s way eventually..signs that time is marching on, ever moving, ever on to the next thing.
My treasured wind-chimes from Prince Edward Island hanging by the deck are chiming in the gentle breeze, a cheery, yet also mournful tune. Cheery because it’s a breeze that promises Spring and new beginnings. Mournful because it says good-bye to the special moments past, that I can never get back.
In the distance the old church bell rings in the hour with three slow, steady gongs. Also a cheery yet mournful sound. Another hour has gone by, never to be seen again, but a new hour is here to be lived to the fullest. I’ve always found church bells both happy and sad. Maybe because they used to signal something significant had happened, like a birth, wedding or funeral. Chiming the passage of time and all the changing events along life’s way.
This morning we had the girl’s 3rd birthday party with a few friends over, and it’s so fun to watch them each passing year, enjoying their special day a bit more each time. I can’t believe they are three already, when it feels like just months ago really, that I sat in this very same chair and held them one in each arm, breathing in their newborn smell and kissing their fuzzy little heads.
Part of me longs to pause them at this stage in life, as I did back then, but the other part looks forward to who they will be in the future. Again, moments filled with a mixture of joy and sorrow. Sorrow for the moment that can’t go on forever, and joy that there are more special milestones in life to look forward to.
So it’s with a smile and a tear that I sit here and embrace the coexisting emotions that so much of life brings us. I would stop time if I could, but then I would not have the memories made today, that I can look back on with gladness tomorrow.
~When I embrace both joy and sorrow I allow myself to be fully human.~
