The Best Days of My Life

Once upon a time, there were two little girls.

Their hair was long and their eyes were brown.  The picked blue flowers in the spring and rode bikes all summer long.  They sang in the mirror, each one taking a turn lip-synching to the voice of the other.  They fought like cats and dogs and shared a bed on cold nights when it just seemed to make sense.  When the little one got scared and "turned green" with fear, the older one was always there.  They hung upside down to imagine a world that way.  They cut out pictures from magazines and created their own dream houses out of cardboard boxes.  They loved ballet and ice cream and read books and played paper dolls.  Sometimes they piled into the hammock and did nothing at all.

Once upon a time, there were two.

And now?

Two grown girls, eyes brown still, one with short hair and the other still long.  Maybe a few greys hiding here and there. Still love ice cream and flip through magazines, dreaming of that ever elusive dream house.  Only now we dance with babies in our arms to the sound of birds chatting in those pre-dawn moments when all else is still.  Once there were two but now there are eight, the babies we've welcomed in the years since those early days of childhood.  We place our latest loves in our own Mother's arms, born just days apart, and my heart feels so full I can hardly breathe.  This may just be it - the happiest moments of my life.

These days all seem like a blur, starting bright and early and fresh and ending with that bone tired feeling known only by those who live a full life - full of work and service and fun and all the other stuff that makes life...life.

My oldest tells me he can't wait to be a teen, to be old enough to drive, to watch the movies he wants, to be his own boss.  That will be "the best days of my life," he says, shouldering his bat bag and heading out to baseball practice.  I smile and remember feeling the same way.  I say "enjoy your childhood, it's really the best and most free time."  It's not until later that I think about it and wonder...

Maybe the best time of life is when you come, on your own, to a place of appreciation for the life you have.  Whether you are 9 or 90, that moment when you look at what is and can't help but give thanks. Maybe I'm in the best time of life, yes, even here with those 3 loads of laundry a day and endless cooking and baking and care-taking.  Maybe the years lived serve as a lens by which I can examine those around me...and love them all the more.

My sister, always my best friend, pushing my nephew on the swing my back yard.  I gather up my own brood and run out to join her.

And these are the best days of my life.


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