Boy Oh Boyers

This night, many of our friends are celebrating the year 2008 turning to the year 2009. We've had a peaceful evening at home. Granted Georgia Tech is presently getting creamed in football by LSU, but I won't fry that little fish here. I have high hopes of staying up to watch that sparkling ball drop in Times Square, and I'm nestled on the air bed on the living room floor, warm fire to my right, woeful football game on the screen in front of me, Christmas tree glowing in the corner. Tom wants to go to sleep earlier than I, and with no television in our bedroom the option for blissful sleep tonight was this air mattress arrangement. Quite fun, actually. Rowan is sleeping peacefully after a full day that included learning the word "robot" (he watched part of Wall-E with intense fascination). While we were in the rocker, Rowan requested three bedtime songs instead of one. The time we spend in the rocker these days is entirely different from those times of rocking him when he was an infant. It's even more precious now because he's completely capable of scooting down off my lap and going to play. Instead he chooses to sit with me and rock and sing. I don't take that privilege for granted. I'm very thankful for many things, and I do hope I mention them often enough that there is no doubt of it. But now, on to what I need to lament.

Morning gives way to evening. The sun rises, then after a full day, it sets. I know there's a lot to be had in the day, and there's a lot to be said for enjoying a sunset. But right now, lamenting the setting sun is what I need to do.

A few days ago I watched Mamaw see Rowan. This woman raised my husband's father and was an integral part of my husband's childhood as well. In this way she is responsible for the essence of my life as I know it. Mamaw is unassuming, approachable, and sometimes intentionally silly. She loves her children, grandchildren, and their families passionately. When she looks at my child, she sees a third generation that came from her. She looks at him in a way that only a great-grandmother can. It's a look my Grammies, another of Rowan's great-grandparents, also had in her eyes when she saw him. As much as my love for Rowan consumes me, consumes every fiber of everything I am, I realize as the years go by there will be even more of me to be consumed by this love -- more experiences, more wisdom, and a broader viewpoint. As his mother, I couldn't see him through Mamaw's, Grandma Rickard's, or Grammies' eyes; I can only hope to have a full enough life so that I can give that look to my own great-grandchildren one day.

Still, the arrival of this new year marks a most unwelcome change for me. Until tomorrow, it was only "earlier this year" that I last spoke with and hugged my Grammies. When that clocks strikes midnight, it becomes "last year" that she was last with me, "last year" that she answered the phone for one of what was usually several phone calls each day. It will be "last year" that she died and left me here to raise her great grandson, my own life lonelier without her. Time marches on, unstoppable, and Grammies will only become a more distant memory with each day. It won't matter what I say to Rowan, how often I tell him about her or show him some gift she gave him. She's removed from him to a level of abstraction that I can never cure. The past must fade so the future can come. The sun must set after it rises.

Somehow I feel like I ought to tell you, whoever you are reading these words, that I am an optimistic, purposeful woman who doesn't mope about letting sorrow steal the present day. Rather, I embrace my staunch refusal to indulge in the forgetfulness of a new generation. I embrace the pain I feel now, the tears that flow, because they shine a bright light of remembrance on the scarcity of breath. I am determined to make it true that this stinging awareness of my own setting sun will cause me to open my eyes wide, spread my arms, and soak up every ray of sunshine I'm blessed to have on me during my life's daytime.

No, I could not have dreamed how bright and warm it would be, being here. I could not have imagined, even with all the love I have known, the love I would feel right now. In this house, I am utterly overwhelmed. In my life, overwhelmed that Love moves through me despite my many flaws and weaknesses. With so few days to be had, shine, day. Shine, sun. Shine.