Memory Lane

It would seem that yet another sheer pleasure and JOY of my relatively new "re-LIFE-ment" is having the time to stroll ever so slowly down "memory lane!" this afternoon, that stroll brought a couple tears, but more so, much laughter--and left me in complete awe of just how speedily the years, and decades even, just vanish!

a recent conversation with my kids (now grown of course) reminded me of a book i kept when they were both very young. the days of "journaling" and "blank books" had not yet become popular, so my book is one of those old fashioned black & white marbelized "Compositions" that we always referred to as Copybooks. On the cover i wrote: "Memos to Remember - Conversations with J & J." The pages are now quite yellowed as my first entry was made in 1970. (WOW!)

when my children were very young i would have bedtime prayers with them, and after our "Now i lay me down to sleep...." and "God Bless... (the whole family and all our pets)" i always asked them if they had a special prayer, which they said in their own words. in addition to recording some of their classics, i also wrote some precious conversations that we had when they were 3, 4, 5 years old, and more. i truly, truly thank God that i had the wherewithal to record these incredible, heart warming, loving vignettes. The slices of life on those pages AMAZINGLY brought memories back so vividly that it was as if someone had just turned on the slide projector!

surprisingly it only took me about 20 minutes to find my book (and was also delighted that along with it were their "baby books" and old report cards from elementary school). they were in the second box i looked in...which reminds me: i need to put all the things BACK in the box, cause i have no room on the floor to walk until i do! but as quickly as it took to find my copybook, i then spent several hours sitting on the edge of the bed reading through everything. what FUN! what JOY!

(shhhh, don't tell my kids, but...) i think one of the nicest, most meaningful gifts i could ever give them, is to some day, give them each a copy of all these entries, which span from 1970 to 1978. one of the sheer classics (the one that encouraged me to find this book today) is a special prayer offered by my little guy regarding his 2 year old sister. he prayed quite ernestly, as only a 4 year old can: "Dear God, Help J to stop spitting at me and play nice. Amen." And as that same young man pointed out yesterday, God answered his prayer!

indeed, God still does. JOY