I love the song by Switchfoot, Twenty-four. I’ve always been a person who is fascinated by the passage of time. I can remember being a teenager and having moments of just thinking about yesterday and how different things were and how they would be altogether different tomorrow… So much can happen in a day…24 hours.
Yesterday started crazy, I guess it partially started crazy because I had been a week on my own, our nanny was with us for the summer but went back to Kansas city a week prior. Not a problem, we were leaving 2 weeks later and then we’d be back in our routine…the routine of having help. And 2 weeks isn’t too long, at least it isn’t too long until you have “the day.” I’ve actually loved having it be just me and the boys, somehow it just makes it a hurrah every day when we make it through that day and we enjoy and love each other…not that we normally don’t but you know what I mean, I guess if you’ve ever lived with a toddler or two you know what I mean….they are so loveable and wonderful but sometimes you just want a moment for you….the ability to just take a minute or two…is gone.
So, anyway, yesterday…if only I’d known, If only I’d had a preview….but you don’t get that do you? Life hits you as it comes…so it started with my decision that a day out would be less pressure than a day at home and off we went…the 3 of us going for a ride in the car….and then I remembered I forgot breakfast so we stopped at our little café just for me to get coffee and a bagel but the bagel took forever and I just looked over for a second to see what was taking so long…and then when I looked back Jonathan was trying to drink my coffee and crying because it wasn’t like trying to drink my water bottle and “Bad Mommy “ slinked out of the café, embarrassed but very thankful that Jonathan was ok and it was only a little dribble from a To-Go cup….…and off to the park and that was good and later than day, carrying David down the stairs and encouraging Jonathan to crawl down on his own and then I turn the corner and hear the thump-a-dee-thump and Jonathan has fallen and I am “Bad Mommy” again and I feel awful…again…and later we go outside to play and runnnnn down the driveway but Jonathan isn’t running, he is diving into the mud and eating it and his knees are scraped and oh, how could it be any worse, poor, poor little guy who must feel so overwhelmed by the big world….
Oh how good it feels, at the end of such a day, to thank God that there are no burns, or bruises, or breaks and to lay the little ones down and then walk upstairs and lay ME down to rest….and then there is a phone call and that question you ask , you know, you ask it too, “Who is calling me at this hour of night, I’d better check…make sure its not an emergency” and you go, and you check, and it never is an emergency and everything is always ok….But not today… Life is not what I though it was, 24 hours ago…and it is a voice and It is saying “Carolyn had a heart attack”….and I know it was only seconds but it seemed like hours before I heard the next thing…”She is ok.” Life is not what I thought it was 24 hours ago…and so the day ends and I lay me down to sleep. I can’t say the next day was any better but it certainly had a different perspective. I did not like that David poured coffee all over my laptop…but honestly, It seemed so insignificant and I did not care…Life was not what I thought it was 24 hours ago…she is ok. She is ok, but I am alone….because who can I call? She is the one I call. Who knows me and hears me like she does? And for all my inward focus in feeling alone I can see that what I realize in this moment is how much I love her and how much I do not want life to be void of her and how much I never ever dreamed she would leave me alone. I love my sister and today I realize that saying that has a different meaning….somewhere in my heart there is something more than I ever imagined for this person who has, as my friend, known me deeper and longer than anyone I’ve ever known…and today 24 hours later, a whisper of life without her has shown me just how deep that love goes.
