That September we had a small celebration, our youngest was a baby. How d’you describe the sea to a blind person, leave alone a tiny human?
We did our bit, but he wailed, burrowed face in me. The sand, the huge amount of it, was too much for his little fingers. He’d just begun to walk, talk a few words. Now he expressed need to stop feeling afraid. In one year he was confident, even brave. This was/ is one fearless person, and a joyful one. But the sea, that sand and the fact that we others were having a good time too maybe, got him off gear. Suddenly you’re in a wide expanse that roars, crashes, pulls at your toe, sinks in a pool under heel, grabs, spits, is totally without manners, chases, pulls back, all that.
We went in the lil beach house, settled down to a shoulder to shoulder lunch. In a new place he’d keep reaching out to see if we were there.
That afternoon wore on…. lazy, sweet nothings. Some of us read. There was a worn out hammock between two casurina. I remember worrying about coconuts falling from overhead tree. Leftover bits of cake and piled plates in corner completed the sense of happy messy fun outside of home. Our Lil one Joh loved us all at peace. Then we chatted about the sea. Tomorrow we’d play toey in the water?
Uh Uh. He hated it the next day too.
We loved his lil face burrowing in us, but it hurt too: this huge content of what he couldn’t visually access.
Before sunset, the girls were back, building sand castles. NJ and son at a horse ride. Son loved it.
Still does. (Recent vacation👇🏼)
Our holidays do center around what’s best for all, but esp Joh. He still dislikes the sea, though ventures in a bit more. The last time, he sat in a wave, it slap-whacked tummy, and got a resounding scolding from him , “How dare you!”
Told Joh the sea was like that- playful and sometimes too much!
Like life. Sacred beautiful, and heartbreakingly too much.
Yesterday we celebrated a new lily, a sudden sparrow (sparrows are getting scarce?). There’s warm sunshine, Joh recovers slow and steady from a few years of set backs from sudden seizures. Emotions are returning, the snuggles and ‘love you Ma’.
As I write this, he’s in bed with a cold. He had scrambled eggs for the first time since school. (J. had taken gut wrenching dislike to anything near eggs) Its a sign! Am purring.
The girls and NJ are out. Light falls in, warm, warmer. The relieeeef of no expectations, just gratitude for miles done this far, and how.
🍃
An acquaintance worries about our son’s future. She worries about her well accomplished children too somewhere in another country.
Sigh. If all woe were shoved down in seabed, we’d still find a sandcastle to fret over.
I told an uncle when he asked about securities for our three here, “See, this whole earth? Spinning with nothing under ? We’re secure just holding onto to What held us this far.”
He thought I was being rude. When we told him we celebrated our children and their lives as given by God to us as guardians for a few days, oh then Uncle YS furrowed.
Maybe next time I pick up the energy to ask them why they say that. Maybe. Its gettn steadily more tiring to settle OPP -other people’s pain.
Mortality is not a nice subject for most, but it throws everything into perspective for those of us who’ve been rattled enough in this life to realize there’s more than meets the eye, and we ‘d like a nice slice of that, please.
How d’you celebrate gratitude, without sounding smug? Few of my contemporaries might call me that, besides being ‘unrealistic about challenges’ …
“..oh so your kid’s doing better, so what. Its all still hard.”
Do I care about OP’s comment as much as I used to? No. Is it still hard? Yes. But we’re changing. Like it or not, trouble softens us. Lends more eye. More perspective…?
How d’you celebrate gratitude, without sounding smug here?
The most blinding factor for me has been random Fear of the unknown. Life has enough Feeders and Headliners of Bad news.
Am learning from Joh to allow me to step out, fearless, just trusting the Hand that led us all this far, what dyou think?
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