When I was a little girl we traveled to Pennsylvania every year for Thanksgiving to see my grandparents. One of my favorite moments of every visit was Friday morning when Pappy would come downstairs and start the Christmas music. Then I’d curl up on his lap and we’d rock and sing and celebrate Jesus, and I’d inhale the scent of his aftershave feeling warm and protected and safe and loved.
The children love to climb the ladder to our attic and explore. I needed a few things so I asked for their help, happy to incude them in our daily tasks. The boys were up top grabbing the items we needed and handing them down to me. Bella-girl stood on the ladder with me behind her holding her so she wouldn’t fall. She began climbing down, and one of the boys began moving things back into place, finishing their job and not seeing what was coming…
“Don’t! Don’t! Don’t!” I heard the other boy shouting, insistently, almost fearfully.
The sky was beautiful this morning… a blanket of white clouds over colored mountains with golden rays peeping through every now and then. It was a breathtaking drive to school and the children and I “oohed” and “ahhed” the entire way. Well, maybe not the entire way, because we were running late and every now and then we’d stop to fret about the lights being red or the guy driving 15 mph below the speed limit. But most of the way we were spellbound by the beauty around us.
This morning begins as most mornings do.
My alarm wakes me in the darkness and I gently shake each child awake to dress while I make breakfast. Then we sit together, my children and I, and we read our Bible, and we praise God for who He is, and we list the blessings for which we are thankful.
“Warmth,” he chooses for his blessing, his eyes lighting on the heater in our dining room bringing the chilly air to a tolerable temperature.
Warmth.
It is such a blessing and something I so often take for granted.
The breezes taste
Of apple peel.
The air is full
Of smells to feel-
Ripe fruit, old footballs,
Burning brush,
New books, erasers,
Chalk, and such.
The bee, his hive,
Well-honeyed hum,
And Mother cuts
Chrysanthemums.
Like plates washed clean
With suds, the days
Are polished with
A morning haze.
(September, by John Updike)