I noted this today in the book I'm reading--Gilead by Marilynne Robinson--as an old, dying father writes a memoir to his young son.
"I wish I could give you the memory I have of your mother that day. I wish I could leave you certain of the images in my mind, because they are so beautiful that I hate to think they will be extinguished when I am. Well, but again, this life has its own mortal loveliness. And memory is not strictly mortal in its nature, either. It is a strange thing, after all, to be able to return to a moment, when it can hardly be said to have any reality at all, even in its passing. A moment is such a slight thing, I mean, that its abiding is a most gracious reprieve."
I had one of those lovely mortal moments the other night when Bea snuck into our bed in the middle of the night. She quickly fell asleep nestled between Rob and me, and I was drifting off again, when suddenly Bea began to laugh in her sleep. It was a prolonged giggle of pure joy. I stayed awake a while longer, hoping to hear it again and wondering what in her dreams could make her laugh with such unrestrained delight. I will never know what tickled her so in her sleep, but I'm so glad I was there to hear it; a "gracious reprieve" indeed.
Shuffling
5 years ago
5 comments:
Those laughs are the best! That was the only upside of all the middle of the night feedings I did with Savannah--she was a total giggler, before we could get her to giggle much when she was awake, and it was so sweet.
Dear Flori
I love our Bea and miss her so. She has such a delightful love of life and people. I loved being with her and feel a little deprived because I know her so little. Yet the times I am with her their is something in her spirit that makes me want to be with her. Love Mom
Why do you get giggles and I get Charlie screaming and grunting in his sleep. Girls and boys. I think he's wrestling a lion. Bea is probably smelling a flower and it tickles her nose.
Yet again you and I are on the same page so to speak. I was just rereading this favorite poem of mine thinking about those little moments that can be so lovely despite the fact that they are so simple and fleeting and that those will be the things that we'll remember. (That This-Much-I-Do-Remember principle)
So some Carl Sandberg for you. . .
Murmurings in a Field Hospital
[They picked him up in the grass where he had lain two
days in the rain with a piece of shrapnel in his lungs.]
Come to me only with playthings now. . .
A picture of a singing woman with blue eyes
Standing at a fence of hollyhocks, poppies and sunflowers. . .
Or an old man I remember sitting with children telling stories
Of days that never happened anywhere in the world. . .
No more iron cold and real to handle,
Shaped for a drive straight ahead.
Bring me only beautiful useless things.
Only old home things touched at sunset in the quiet. . .
And at the window one day in summer
Yellow of the new crock of butter
Stood against the red of new climbing roses. . .
And the world was all playthings.
That is so sweet. I'm glad you got to enjoy that moment.
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