By four o’clock today the girls and I figured the day was a loss. The man of the house away and missed, some disappointing news, important mail that didn’t come, an orthodontic appointment for Sunshine, a dentist appointment to fill a cavity and add sealant for the Novocaine resistant Pumpkin, the rescue of a sun stricken baby possum, and a missed haircut due to the delay at the dentist, not to mention the house sorely unprepared for the move next week, had us all looking at each other and heaving a big sigh.   I had been eyeing the new Iron Man movie and decided that instead of going to work out at the Y, I’d see if we couldn’t redeem the day. 

I called the girls from the various and sundry areas of the house to which they had retreated and asked them if they wanted to go.  There was an unusually cautious response but a positive conclusion was reached with some encouragement and we set out for the theater.  Several hours later our moods were substantially improved.  The movie was a hit all the way around and we set off for the local pizza place amid post movie chatter since everyone was hungry and the massive quantities of Novocaine incapacitating the full half of Pumpkin’s face had finally worn off.  The pizza came and went… and as I sat waiting for Sunshine to finish her last piece I looked around at the animated faces of my four daughters caught up in the conversation.  Their faces were bathed in light as the day came to a close outside and time slowed as I caught a glimpse…

I’ve caught glimpses before you know, glimpses that take me back… kissing Pumpkin’s forehead goodnight I’ll occasionally get a whiff of that smell she had when she was a baby and closing my eyes see once again her tiny form making the mattress of her baby bed seem as big as a King size mattress.  Watching Cricket do her excited little hop reminds me of the hop Precious used to do when she was about two years old.  Little things that take me back to days gone by, precious memories of when my girls were small.  This glimpse was different…

This glimpse was of future days… days ahead when my daughters will no longer be teens and pre-teens, but beautiful young women in their own right.  Days when they are grown, with lives of their own, when we will get together and do things not just as mother and daughters… but as friends too, sitting around some future table making new memories or reminiscing over the old. I looked at their faces and saw, for just a moment, the beautiful women they will become and heard, for a brief second, the laughter of more mature voices and good times yet to be had echoing back through the years. 

As we drove home through the dark blues skies and greens hills of a late  spring dusk, country music escaped the windows and warm breezes whipped our hair around our faces.  Peeking in the rearview mirror, I spied smiling faces tipped up to the wind, eyes squinted against the strings of hair lashing their cheeks and thought how proud I am of them, how much fun we have together… We have had such an awful year, my husband and I agree that this has been the worst year in our entire marriage… not because of family strife, but due to outside events – many beyond our control.  Yet even now, at the end of such a year and with yet another move and many uncertainties ahead, the girls are able to find, to make, these shared moments of joy… They are happy… and my heart fills with joy at their happiness. 

I ignored the urge to prolong the drive home, to hold on to the moment just a little longer, and allowed this precious time to come to its natural close, buoyed by the knowledge that it would take its place in the hallowed halls of our family memories… and that here are many more to come… after all…

I caught a glimpse.