Nothing is Promised

Crying on my couch reading stories of mothers who have lost their children. Nothing is promised. 

Watching the news and seeing world leaders falling and fleeing, reports of UFOs in the sky, natural disasters, unspeakable tragedies. Nothing is promised. 

The gifts we have today might not be there tomorrow. The way we live today might not carry on the next day. We can hope for but not expect a rosy future. 

NOW we must be thankful, NOW we must rejoice, NOW we must serve and love and live, because now is the only moment we really possess (and even then, only for a moment). 

You don't know when the last moment will be, so you have to treasure every moment. May I never stop seeking to have a grateful heart. 

Summer-Lover

Growing up I didn't much care for the summer. I hated being hot, sweaty, and sticky. I was convinced my sweat glands were clinically overactive. I felt self-conscious in warm weather clothes that didn't fit quite right. I saw less of my friends from school. I didn't like the beach. Summer was merely the precursor to the best season of them all: fall.

Now I am realizing I am a summer-lover. Long days full of sunshine. Sarah home visiting. Cheap produce and sticky sweet cherries and blueberries and peaches in season. My husband and my baby's birthdays. Knocking off work early on a Friday. Trips to the beach, which I now enjoy. 

This September was tinged with sadness as the leaves on Bedford Street started to turn yellow and fall. The gory Halloween decorations and scary movie trailers took over public spaces. I lost Peter to endless football (and somehow also baseball??) on the television--something I used to enjoy watching with him, but now it reminded that summer was gone. 

I was thrilled to escape to Rio de Janeiro during October. For a week I had summer back. The shorts and crop tops and sandals that hadn't seen use since August were back in the rotation. I got a tan. The days were still relatively short compared to summer in New England, but we stayed up late eating dinner on a Brazilian schedule. I went to the beach every day. 

Now I am back in Connecticut and the fall foliage is at its peak. It is chilly enough for me to dig out my ankle booties and slouchy tops. There is a smoky crispness in the air. Our first day back, I made Debie Peck's pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, which my mom used to make and freeze every fall. Coming out of the oven, the scent of nutmeg and ginger confirmed that fall is here and I am okay with that. 

A Year of Val

More than ever before in my life, time has flown. The cliches make me cringe, but also I can't stop repeating them because they are so completely true. Val has been on the outside for a year now and I have such mixed feelings on concluding this chapter of his life! My baby! 

Having a toddler--not an infant, but a toddler!--on my hands is surreal. I am not sure I am mentally or emotionally prepared to set and enforce boundaries. Today I went to go lift him out of his highchair, but he was fixated on the buckle and he shrieked and squirmed in protest until I assented and placed him back in the chair for him to continue his buckle examination. (I stood there and watched him and questioned, "Am I being too permissive???") Up until this point I have really only had to love him and keep him alive, but now I have to teach him how to behave. I am worried I am not up for the task! 

The shrieking and protesting when he doesn't get his way is a problem and something we will just have to work through with consistent boundaries, but I confess I am absolutely tickled to see him asserting his sense of self. When he sees us eating with forks, he wants to eat with a fork. When we get into the elevator, he has to press the button. My heart melted when my mom plopped Val on the counter and had him "help" her make a batch of biscuits--he was thrilled to dump the measuring cups and stir the batter. 

The older he gets the more fun he gets. Yesterday I threw a blanket over his head and called out, "Val! Where are you? I don't see you?" He pushed the blankets off and laughed uproariously at this game. He was never big into peekaboo, but apparently he loves hide and seek! Making him laugh is one of my favorite things. Having these moments of fun with him makes my heart feel like it's filling my whole chest. It is that delicious combination of delight and affection. 

Seeing my sisters with their babies does give me a little ache in my heart, remembering when Val was that age and that size. Peter and I compulsively watch videos from the past year. Val wriggling his arms out of his swaddle. Val protesting tummy time. Val waking up from a nap. Val trying blueberries for the first time. I felt nostalgic for newborn Val when Val was 8 months. Now I am nostalgic even for 8-month-old Val! I am thankful for all photos and videos we have--I have thousands and honestly I wish I had more. We can't put time in a bottle. But these images are little bit like that. Like a perfume, a whiff brings me back to that moment. 

An acquaintance of mine lost her daughter to cancer last fall. She was 16 months old. My acquaintance shared openly on social media about the treatment process, prognosis, and grieving, and I followed their story with my heart in my throat. It is a strange thing to ache so much for someone you don't know very well, but I hope sharing in their pain and grief was in a small way a comfort to them. I was blessed by their story, because it is good to remember that tomorrow is not guaranteed. It is good to celebrate often.