A Picture Like This

Well, that’s my Mom’s Mother’s Day present. My brother will give it to her some time today and I, hopefully, will be on the phone listening as she opens the large, flat package. When I was home in October, we snuck around and snapped it on our way out to Sunday lunch. I adore the picture. We took, oh maybe, 20 or 30 in a matter of minutes and most of them were normal smiles, some were camera smiles (delete, delete), but there was this wonderful series of genuine laughing. It’s sad I cannot tell you what caused these giggles but it had EVERYTHING to do with my brother, as usual. As I looked through all of the photos, this was my favorite and I imagined it would be the one my parents would love to see every time they walked through their door.

Mom, I look at this picture and can’t help but grin. I think of that house in the background and remember when it was being built amongst the skinny pine trees...... and layers and layers of pine straw. When we moved in that Christmas, I was one year younger than Brighton is now- my entire childhood before me. I spent many bedtime hours looking out from those two upstairs windows on the right and because of the all the time I spent outside, I know that yellow house with the red roof from every angle. Never in all my exploring, sun bathing, dam building, endless games of “keep away”, poison ivy mishaps, minnow catching or dirt bike adventures did I ever imagine a picture like this......... with these four children, these beautiful cousins growing up a thousand miles and a childhood apart , looking like their parents, calling you and Daddy "Nanna" and "Papa", loving you so much in spite of miles or familiarity and laughing, still, at my big brother, Blake.

I can imagine you think this is a lovely sight. It is to me, too. God alone put all this together-- from you and Daddy in little chairs in Sunday School at Conyers First Baptist to these four blessings in the pine straw in front of a yellow house. Praise be to God whose creativity of knitting families together leaves me speechless. Well, almost.

Happy Mother's Day! I love you as best as one from a thousand miles away can!