If People Knew

Today is the first time ever that I’ve let myself sit back and think about the last two years. 

If people knew how similar these two years were to another time in my life, then I wonder what would be said. 

I came to this pause as I sat, watched, listened and answered questions near others. 

This scene came at the end of the year and looked like this. 

A table was decorated with a long gray cloth then blocks of color and festive animation was strewn along the top. 

Then you can see rows of hand drawn prints from long ago made from markers, crayons, and pencils. 

Piles of books that included ways to dance through life were front and center. 

The book about The Boy Who Became More Than We Could Imagine was about grief, joy, love and that unstoppable son of ours. 

Think about that and find your song. 

It’s what people wondered about as they rolled past the decorated table.

Some wondered if there was a song for easy days and hard days.

Some wondered if there was a song for easy days and hard days.

Others glanced as they were searching for different things on their list. 

What came to me during the day including feelings of gratitude for each moment as the beginning came back to me. 

There is also the feeling of if they only knew what we lived through to come to this point of smiling and say good morning then I wonder if there would be more wonderment, joy, and sitting with what comes. 

That is when the quote came saying 

If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.

Michelangelo

Standing, watching and waiting next to this table for a day gave me time to remember that hard work that came in the first two years when our son survived his illness. 

That illness that changed the course of his life and the trajectory of ours. 

If people knew how hard I worked alongside our son as he gained back his ability to walk.

If people knew how hard I had worked alongside our son as he gained back his ability to walk again, to use his hands in the beginning and to return home from the hospital. 

Other moments started to flow as I sat with the wonderment of what I had come through with our son. 

It was then that I paused with the next powerful time of wonder. 

Wonder is what came to me from the beginning with our son. 

He brought light and joy, peace and motion, calm and deep questions from the day he arrived in our life. 

Picture a pudgy baby with bright eyes and long fingers that both opened wide from his first minutes. 

Gazing into your eyes with an immediate desire to go into life. 

Life is what came to use for the following two years with wild joy. 

Sitting with sticks, splashing in puddles, gazing at stars or fireworks. 

Each year started like this one and if people only knew how much work we put into creating joy, then it would seem more wonderful that they could see. 

Does that seem beyond contemplation to you? 

It did to me at the time. 

Yet as I stood next to a table with a story to be told, it all flowed over me with such sweetness that I could barely contain it in my eyes. 

Did I yearn for those first two years and then next two and then those following years to always be with me? 

Yes, and always will.

The words that I shared with those who stopped that day out of curiosity, kindness or desire to know more about our son were like icing on a final birthday cake. 

Spread thin, delightful and yet never enough. 

If people know that what I wanted to do what go sit with each of them and talk.

If people knew that what I wanted to do was go sit with each of them, talk for hours about how every year from start to finish was exquisite and planted firmly in my soul. 

Would they do it with me? Could we do it for each other? 

Yet what if all of us did that? 

Sat with others, shared about the exquisite moments that are planted firmly? 

Perhaps if people know that about us then our tables in life will also show joy beyond measure, lights that twinkle like stars at night from our ancestors and help us reach for what comes next. 

Who wants to join me for this part of life?