Our baby girl turns four tomorrow. I took her and the baby and our five year-old daughter with me to go grocery shopping today.
Shopping with little ones is rarely easy.
At one point when the baby was crying and the girls were being silly in the aisle a kind, older mom looked at me and said, “They are going to get older. My oldest is now nineteen. They will get older and you won’t even remember this.”
Words from a survivor.
We got to the checkout. Baby girl tried to help load the groceries up on the checkout belt and dropped a glass jar of pasta sauce. It broke all over the floor and puddled under the grocery “car” that no one wanted to ride in after about twenty minutes.
I was tired and a bit frazzled even though you would think I was a pro at this by now. We checked out. I breathed a sigh of relief as I put our van into drive.
The woman’s words came back to mind… “You won’t even remember this.”
You know, I can almost guarantee her words were supposed to be an encouragement to me- the light at the end of the tunnel kind of thing. But driving home, her words began to shake me up in a way that hasn’t quite gone away because as crazy and frustrating as this parenting thing can be at times, I don’t want to forget.
I don’t want to forget how our baby boy kept pulling me close for hugs as I tried to checkout. Over and over again he pulled at my shirt and my purse and he would lean his little head up against my chest and just rest there. And I don’t want to forget that.
I don’t want to forget how our little girl whispered to the cashier and bagger, “Tomorrow is my birthday.” How she then pulled me close to whisper in my ear, “I want them to say Happy Birthday to me.”
There is so much that I just don’t want to forget.
Because it isn’t about getting to the end of the tunnel. It’s about the little lights that are IN the tunnel.
So here I am writing again because I don’t want to forget the little lights nor the darkness that made the lights shine all the brighter.
What Matters Most 