Pick One Moment

Someone asked me to “pick that one moment in your life you’d like to live over and over again.” Either that was a really dumb challenge, or maybe I’ve just moved so far beyond that mindset that I can’t seriously consider it.

It would make more sense to ask if I remembered where I was and what I was doing when I first heard President Kennedy was shot, or when man first stepped on the moon. I certainly can recall those moments and many more. But to name one moment I’d like to spend eternity in – there is no such moment, although I can remember a boatload of moments whose recollections I cherish.

How long is a single moment? Could we instead talk about an event or a succession of events? Maybe a momentary impression that has stuck in my mind? Is this supposed to be something profound?

I can recall Marty Perry’s clear blue eyes, his long eyelashes curling up over the crease of his eyelid, and his innocent Peter Pan face that day in junior high when we were all on the cusp of young adulthood. I was shy and so unsure of myself. He sat behind me in homeroom and befriended me in my loneliness, giving me the best advice anyone had ever given me up to that moment. He told me my shy behavior was being misread as stuck-up and unfriendly. I had no idea until that moment. I will always remember the earnestness of his face and those youthful eyes. And because of that moment of honesty, I was able to turn my whole world around. Would I wish to return to that moment? No. Having the remembrance is enough.

I recall the feel of Jimmy Roiter’s thick nearly black hair as I clutched it from the back of his head in my right hand. What a darling, darling boy he was.

I remember, at age four, riding home in the back seat of Mother’s car with the new puppy we were bringing home. Heidi jumped up in my face and licked my nose. I squealed. Eight years later, months after Heidi had died just inches in front of me, I remember that Christmas morning when Mother whipped a shoebox from behind her back, trying to hold the lid on it as she shoved it into my hands, and Hexe stuck her little head out and struggled into my arms. My whole soul lights up when I remember these things, but I don’t need to live inside those memories, either.

The first kiss, more important, the first eye contact with my first boyfriend-to-be, Brian Buck. Yum! And the memories of a few succeeding boyfriends. These are all good memories, usually followed by sadder memories of those relationships as they ended.

Maybe it was a trick question and I’m supposed to say, “The moment Jesus entered my life,” but since I feel He was always there, I have no such recollection. Sorry, Dude, that’s not my answer, either.

Christmases, dances, weddings, honeymoons, falling in love, and childbirth; these are mostly good memories. It’s not the falling in love that is important, it’s the staying in love and sharing the daily moments that follow, mostly small stuff, that counts.

Each morning I awaken, I go to my balcony door and look out over the creek I live on. There are the docks reflected on still waters, the morning sunlight causing the tree tops across from me to blaze golden. And at day’s end, the golden-red sun sets behind those same trees flooding the sky and the water below with the pinks, purples, and golden glitters of the day’s last hurrah. In those moments, every time, I thank God that I live here in this place, at this time, and have these silent, perfect personal moments. Each day is the same, but different according to the sky and the weather. Sometimes it’s a soft gray foggy scene with spring green or autumn orange leaves, or wind-whipped choppy water dotted heavily with beating rain. Sometimes the water is iced over and snow covers the twisted bare hickory branches hanging over the creek. And sometimes I can turn around and see a rainbow.

I watch that scene every chance I get so that in case I should lose my sight (or have to move away) I will always carry it inside and revisit it at will. It’s awesome!

I try to remember that every moment that God grants me breath, vision, hearing, touch, smell, taste, and the hope of more beauty to come (in whatever form) is a blessing to be cherished. I just seem to waste far too many of them.