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.
“…two “old souls” met in early childhood, and the friendship was instantaneous. Monica has taught me much about finding beauty in the every day since then. Whether it was playing orphans in my backyard lying beneath the Dogwood tree, or traipsing through the golf course behind her house. Whether it was writing poetry and mailing it to each other for critiques or heading off to watch baseball games together. Whether it was crying or laughing or imagining or writing or fighting, we were always there, kindred spirits.”
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.
As you can imagine, there aren’t many places to go in our little country community for trick-or-treating fun, so we loaded up the kids and spent the evening with friends at their home downtown.
There they were, 4 boys of approximate age and 2 girls of approximate age walking down streets with their dads. She was inside carving a pumpkin and preparing chili for when they returned, and I got to sit outside on their porch and watch the festivities, passing out candy and guessing what costumes the children were wearing.
Her footfalls were soft down the stairs this morning, muffled by her sleeper jammy feet. She peeked into the den where I sat under a warm blanket in the quietness of our dark house.
“Mommy?” she whispered, curling up next to me and looking deep into my eyes, “Did you see the snow?” I nodded, gazing at her barely contained excitement. “I did.”
Her eyes sparkled (don’t they always?), “Iiiiiii LOVE it!” she threw her arms up, jumped off the couch and proceeded to twirl through the room.