How to Look Through a View-Master

This is the year I have dreaded, or subconsciously prayed for, this blessed miracle of turning seventy-years-old. They say it's a milestone birthday, I like to think of it as a conspiratorial wink to that younger self, my constant faithful companion. Every so often she winks back, a personal high-five, a signal giving me permission to reflect, to appreciate and celebrate this absolutely crazy one life we are given. Gratitude, kindness to self and others are grape Kool-Aid for nourishing the soul, and we've done this together. 

I love the ocean. The soothing sound of the rolling waves, how they still the soul, the various seashells resting on the shoreline, waiting to be inspected, tucked into a coat pocket, seagulls telling us how it really is. And the left-over granules of sand that follow you home, how they sift out of the shoe at unsuspecting times, dust the floor, the carpet with tender memories. In my teen years, we lazed on a beach blanket for hours at a time, Baby Oil slathered all over our innocent bodies, flipping through a Seventeen magazine, gazing at Twiggy, at her hair-do, at the body we sighed over but now we'd rather wear elastic waistbands. The salty breeze fanned our sun-burned young bodies, unaware we were then of the importance of sunscreen. If the soul was on our minds at all, we thought it was on the bottom of our Capezio flats.

Turning seventy was not in the forefront of our thoughts. Motherhood yes, meeting The Fonz, possibly. And Grandparents? Since becoming a grandmother, I have a deep respect for the generations of grandparents who've travelled this road before. For all the women who wore those knee-high nylon stockings, the ones that left red rings just under the knee cap, and dressed their hair all up in tight silver perms. Fashions and hair styles ebb and flow like the ocean tides, I had a perm in my thirties.

                                      

As the body ages limitations can at times set you on the sidelines, a humbled spectator, a grateful cheerleader. Possibly dabbing a bit of sunscreen on the face. It's during those moments that the teenager inside longs to be part of the action, screams at the injustice of the pain, but the older, wiser part understands that the soul can be fed holy peace in the stillness, in the quietude of the unrepeatable moments. It's in the brokenness, the pain and sorrow, the interruptions and uncertainties of life that He does His best work. So you lean a bit further into Grace, breathe those deep grateful breaths, wear comfortable clothes, steal every bit of joy you can, and then steal some more. A Joy thief.

With a wee bit more wisdom than the younger me, and buckets of gratitude, I now understand one indisputable truth. Inhaling the sweet scent of memory, I ease this aged body into a cushiony recliner and wait. The sound comes softly at first, then builds its tempo as the past plays across my mind as if I'm looking through a View-Master, those toy projectors from our youth. And a thunderous noise, that stampede of ridiculous Grace that has chased she and I all these years, it floods the room with unspeakable Joy, it settles the bones, emits sparks of hope. Click, click, click goes the View-Master, and we smile wide in unison. Remembering, Hoping. Rejoicing. Age is irrelevant. This then, is blessed manna for the soul.

"The Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays."

~C.S. Lewis~

The Day You Were Born

 The birds are trilling, getting their fill at the feeder, the late cherry blossoms dress up the deck and ground pretty, delicate pale pink petals brightening the landscape. A snow day in spring. The calendar on the wall marks the date right clear, and my mind, it spools backward to 1984. Way back when Ronald Reagan was president, Ghostbusters opened in the theaters, and the clock ticked much slower without the humming of the Internet and the incessant need of cell phones. I see a ghost of a little boy out there on the deck, standing in a baseball batting pose, pretending to be Will Clark, his favorite baseball player.

During pregnancy I joined a prenatal aerobics class where I fell in love with Michael Jackson's "Thriller." I learned all the words to the songs, could sing them in my sleep. The labor went sideways that spring eve, me shuffling through the chilly hallway with one arm attached to a liquid I.V. and the noise from all the hospital construction drowned out all my brave, caused the lyrics to "Billy Jean" to freeze in my throat.  Drugs please, give me drugs please. When the doctor gave us the news, "It's a boy!" my young mother's heart melted happy joy all of over the hospital bed. 

A son who loves God wild and large, this then gives perfect rest to his mother all the days of their lives.

Having a son is a blessedly true gift from God. So is labor amnesia. Once we started raising this cheerful, beautiful baby boy I understood God's cleverness in gracing us with our daughter first. Our beloved boy liked exercise, movement of any kind and the toy bin soon housed balls of any kind, lovely dolls sighing deep having to share the tight space. Maybe God was giving us a glimpse of our future early on, the years spent on hard bleachers and lawn chairs, watching our son practice his gifting in three different sports all through school and college too. His two sons have the sports itch, a generational endowment.

 A son may move across a vast ocean, yet never leave the sacred space in a mother's beating heart.

We chat on the phone every Friday, my son and me, about anything and everything. Elongated conversations about his three kids, two boys and a lovely daughter, work, Jesus, books, health, politics and more Jesus. He lets me vent about a certain past president, he is most kind that way. Bursts of joy pulse through the cell towers all the way from Virginia. When in town we sometimes go to the gym together, he opens the car door for his mother, he doesn't slam it shut. His eyes are like my brother's and it catches my breath at times, this likeness that passes on through the generations, how can that be so? One son has those same deep-set piercing blue eyes and maybe that similarity will just keep repeating, like a glowing sunset you watch for every day.

Perhaps one day in the future I'll be sitting on those hard bleachers again, or maybe a kind blanket or forgiving chair, watching one of my grandsons playing in a college baseball game. Patches of azure blue peek between the clouds and I will look hard out on the field. "Is that Will on first base?" My son chuckles, his familiar eyes shining kind. "No, Mom, you're thinking of Will Clark." I blink the eyes a few times, they don't work so well now. A red cardinal sings sweet, all perched in a nearby cherry blossom tree. And I hear music coming from a car parked down the street. An unmistakable beat, a faded memory rekindled, filling my mind's eye. Oh, what a thrill to come full circle. Drumming blue-veined hands on my thighs, keeping time with the music, I scan the field looking for my grandson, spotting him in the batters box. I turn then to my son and say, "Did I ever tell you about the day you were born?"