I was sitting here in the dark tonight with the Drama Queen, listening to my son’s music. I played it several times.
She finally asked,
“Mommy, why do you keep playing it over and over?”
“Because,” I said, “It takes me back to a special memory.”
“What’s a special memory?”
So I told her, “A special memory is a memory of something special that has happened to you, or with you and someone else. It can be anything, but it brings back that special moment.”
“But why is this song special, Mommy?” she asked.
So I told her about the song and the memories it created the day that the Talented One played it for me. And no matter what, I’ll always consider it “our song.” And when I”m tired, or he’s just there playing, sometimes I can ask him to play “my song” and he does. I don’t have to tell him which one or why, because he knows. And he plays it for me. And I think back to that first time, when he played it for me over and over. And so, sometimes, I just like to sit and listen to it over and over.
So she asked again, what kind of special memories I have. And I told her about one I have of the Smart One. He was younger, and it was just the two of us and we were listening to praise music in the living room. And a song came on. And he just lifted his hands up in praise to the Lord. He lifted his face up and closed his eyes and just sang and swayed back and forth, with his arms outstretched and his face shining as he sang along. I honestly don’t even remember what song it was; but the moment..wow. I’ll never forget that moment.
And so we talked of why I want to keep homeschooling her for now; so that we can created special memories together. ‘And we talked of things we’ve done together. And we talked about just knowing, some day, that there is that one special memory we can share and how she’ll have other special moments with other loved ones; maybe even her own children some day. And we talked about how important it is to just stop sometimes, and grab that special moment; make a memory, because you won’t ever get that chance back. Grab it while you can.
“Mommy, why can’t we go back?”
“Because, those moments only happen once. We can’t do it again.”
And she asked me, “Mommy, can you be there with me when I have my baby, so we can have that special memory?”
I’m not sure what her future husband will say about that one, but I know, when she has that precious baby, I’ll be reminded of this night. The night when we sat and listened to the Talented One’s beautiful music and talked about grabbing the moments in life that we can and making those moments count.
Because tonight, we made our own special memory.