My eyes linger on the toys strewn across the room and I think I must take these moments, take the time now and spend them in clean rooms, on scrubbing floors and wiping the toothpaste marks off the counter in the bathroom. I must erase the evidence of the three tiny humans in my orbit, the messes that trail behind them … and I don’t know why, because these tiny bright stars are the light in my life.  

And I look down on the smallest of them all, curled up on my chest with his silk spun hair in sweaty swirls, eyes screwed tight shut, his heart in tune with mine, and I don’t move because it feels like time is careening by, and oh I just want to plant my feet and spread my arms wide and hold it back … to make the present stretch interminably into the future.

But I can’t … it breaks over me like the tides, drawn inexorably forward, without wisdom or will.

And so, I will memorize these moments, these obstinate, obdurate seconds slipping from my grasp.

I will linger on the couch with my babe in my arms, and I will treat my present like the present it surely is … the gift of a Father who holds earths in His hands … “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, measured heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?  …  Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, and are counted as the small dust on the scales.”  (Isaiah 40:12, 15, NKJV) … and babes in his Arms . . . “He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those who are with young,” (Isaiah 40:11, NKJV) and loves me. Me. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5a, NKJV).

And amongst these moments, a small cobwebby corner of my heart-that has lived through love and loss and unwillingly carries the memories of four deployments-knows, {but does not appreciate}, that the moment this fall when Husband steps on a steel gray beast of a plane, time, the swift and steady tick-tock measuring my moments, will crawl. It will settle thick and heavy on my chest, a choking, living beast of a thing, and I will wish desperately for the present to be the future where my handsome soldier-Husband returns to me.

But now, right now, I smell my sweet son smell and breath prayers of thanksgiving.

~M.

Another Five Minute Friday post courtesy of the Gypsy Mama and the Friday flash mob. I have written recently at least two other times about living well in the present … you can read them here and here if you so desire …