Remembering . . .

  I pulled Rachael onto my lap and held her close, feeling her wispy brown hairs dance onto my cheek. I looked into those dark, dreamy eyes and we talked about brown eyes.  I slowly rocked back and forth and gave myself over to the emotions.   The crib was coming down in just a few minutes and I wanted to just sit with my growing-up baby and remember.  Remember how all those babies looked, scrunched-up and swaddled, all tiny on the mattress.  Remember the piles of newborn diapers and wipes, the first sitting ups, the baby howls, the smiles that greeted the morning and mama.  Those endless times of rocking and rocking and wishing Jared would just let me lay him down in that crib. The quiet late afternoon golden moments, light streaming through the dormer, holding my babies and reading and reading and reading.  The screws that held together the well-used rungs, the splints tied on, the trip to WalMart for a crib mattress.  Mostly I wanted to remember and feel and let it all wash over me in holy gratitude for the hours that passed like instants.  Grateful for the then, and grateful for the now.  Wishing the now would just pass a little slower and that the thens hadn't gone so fast. Feeling like here was an end, and knowing that a bend in the road was ahead, even being on the bend, but wanting to look back, just a little longer, before I really turned the corner.