That Was Then...

If you know me, you know that I hate the month of August.  Only one day in the entire month do I like; the day my eldest daughter was born.  That's it.  That is all.

I do not like the heat, I do not like the memories of those that have died in this month.

I have tried always to find the good that lies within the bad, and recently I realized I was not looking hard enough.

I am one to point out the sky frequently to whoever happens to be near me.  My children will notice a beautiful sunset, some will wake earlier than normal to see witness the sun appear over the waves in the horizon, only to go back to sleep.

We take in nature as much as we can.  We baptize ourselves in the waters of a pool, lake, creek, and the occasional salty waters of a beach.

We witness the color of leaves as they change, and that is a hard feat to achieve in this part of Texas, as leaves tend to turn to brown and fall off out of boredom, or some sort of heat suicide.

When the children were young they played with Rolly Pollys.  Poor little bugs curling up in defense of our entertainment.

If a toad reaches our door we all go and look.

I have woken children up to witness a meteor shower, or just to see a full moon.

And should it snow?  That is certainly a reason to wake up a sleeping child and go outside and play!

Since my Mom has arrived to live here with us, it has been more like we are the ones living with her. We do as she wants to do.  Much of that is sitting outside.  I have spent more hours outside than I have within.

Mom will often look up to the sky and comment how beautiful it is.  I glance up, notice nothing unusual and say a half hearted, "Uh-huh" and go back to looking at my phone.  Anything to distract me from the heat.

I wait.  I wait for hours to pass so we can go inside, I wait for Meredith to come home from work so I can spend a precious few minutes in air-conditioning.

Day after day Mom will comment on the sky.

When the sunsets Mom has no desire to sit out back and witness it.

I try to coerce her.  She is perfectly happy where she is, looking up.  Looking for planes that will never take her back to what she once knew.  Looking up at birds, always looking up.

Yesterday I put my phone down and when she commented on the sky, I too looked up.  It was blue.  Cloudless and blank.

What does she see?  What am I missing?

Like a tornado it hit me.  I am missing the now.  

She sees infinity, she does not see blue skies of her youth, or of her child rearing years.  She does not see blue skies of the future.  For her there is only now.  She sees the vastness of the day, for her that is all exists.  Now.  Today.

I breathe in the now with her.  I see it.  For me it is fleeting, I am barely in the now with her.  I am in the past, the future, and yes the now, but the now of children with flat tires, to children who are angry at me, or meals that need preparing, to ice that is melting too fast.

I take her hand.  Together we sit in the now and look up.

And isn't it a beautiful now?

I am glad to have the now, because all too soon it will be then.