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Perfect Moment Monday: Now and then. And now.

I cuddle in bed with Tessa and do to her what I love having done to me:  I stroke her hair as she falls asleep. I caress her brow ridge. I line the contour of her ear. Such intimate gestures occur with only a few very special people in one’s lifetime.

As I marvel at her beautifully full cheeks and peaceful expression, I get lost.  Yup, I do the time-travel thing again.

Dwelling in my heart are aches from the past week. It has been filled with mother-sadness, first about my mother-in-law’s prognosis, and then with the death of my good friend’s mom (my friend was able to be at her side. As I write, the burial is taking place. I have been with my friend in spirit all week, many states away).

So with heavy heart but light spirit, I move into the place where time and space become fluid. I feel myself old. Like 90 years old. Resting, weary…

I feel my grown daughter’s hands stroking my hair, caressing my brow ridge, lining the contour of my ear. She has such love in her eyes for me. Older now than I was on that night so long ago. Tessa is fully independent and capable of going on in spite of the deep loss my eventual death will bring her. I have lived a good life; I have done well at the important things.

In an instant, I came back to now. Insha’llah, I get to live 40ish more years. I get to love, stroke, caress, hug, enjoy, endure, witness, feel, experience all that my life is and will be.

The thought wows me.

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Perfect Moment Monday is about noticing a perfect moment rather than creating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between.

Once a week we engage in mindfulness about something that is right with our world. Everyone is welcome to join.

To participate in Perfect Moment Monday:

  1. Follow this blog.
  2. Between Sunday night and Tuesday night, write up your own Perfect Moment somewhere on the web or simply leave a comment below (if you do the latter, skip #3).
  3. Use LinkyTools below to enter your name (or your blog’s name) and the URL of your Perfect Moment.
  4. Visit the Perfect Moments of others and let the writers know you were there.

Once you make a Perfect Moment post , you may place this button on your blog.What Perfect Moment have you recently been aware of? Visit these moments of others and share your comment love.

23 Responses

  1. Powerful – I find myself torn when I begin to think to far in the future. I don’t see myself being old, older – can’t imagine not having my babies at home with me…. but then that is the cycle of life and our purpose is to prepare them to be without us. Oye – so not ready to go there!

  2. Tears are rolling down my cheeks for all the lost moments, for all the stolen ones,and for all the treasured ones with each of my daughters. We can’t have everything, but we can treasure those we have!

  3. With all that’s going on in Tucson right now (where I live), this honoring of the beauty of life really touched me! THANK YOU for your beautiful heart and loving words!

  4. I’m amazed at how your writing can evoke such strong feelings. It’s very powerful!

    In my life coaching practice, one of the exercises I love to do it helping someone step into his or her Future Self, say twenty years in the future.

    It’s amazing what insights, wisdom and centered-ness can happen from a future perspective. It’s a very powerful perspective.

    Thank you for sharing your insights with us. Wow!

  5. Maddie is the kid who will let us rock her a bit before nap and bedtime, and she welcomes the cuddle. Just in the past week, she’s started to want to sit next to me in teh glider instead of cuddling in my lap. That makes me sad.

  6. When people around us are transitioning or have recently done so it is natural to ponder such things, and you have expressed your thoughts so exquisitely. I could see the whole scene unfold in my mind. It is the rare, exceptional writer that can make me do that since my learning makes it very difficult for me to think in pictures.

    I can appreciate your story for its own sake, definitely. Personally though, I prefer not to time travel. I want to lock in the present moment, where my son is little and I am healthy and don’t have to worry about what will happen to him after we are gone.

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