One Pair of Eyes

The Luckiest

-- Ben Folds

I don't get many things right the first time

In fact, I am told that a lot

Now I know all the wrong turns, the stumbles and falls

Brought me here

And where was I before the day

That I first saw your lovely face?

Now I see it everyday

And I know

That I am

The luckiest

What if I'd been born fifty years before you

In a house on a street where you lived?

Maybe I'd be outside as you passed on your bike

Would I know?

And in a white sea of eyes

I see one pair that I recognize

And I know

That I am

The luckiest

I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you

Next door there's an old man who lived to his nineties

And one day passed away in his sleep

And his wife; she stayed for a couple of days

And passed away

I'm sorry, I know that's a strange way to tell you that I know we belong

That I know

That I am

The luckiest

What I'm Learning

"The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not--Do your duty, but--Do what is not your duty. It is not your duty to go the second mile, to turn the other cheek, but Jesus says if we are His disciples we shall always do these things. There will be no spirit of--"Oh, well, I cannot do any more, I have been so misrepresented and misunderstood". . . Never look for right in the other man, but never cease to be right yourself. We are always looking for justice; the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is--Never look for justice, but never cease to live it."
— Oswald Chambers

Love Letters

Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn,
Hundreds of bees in the purple clover,
Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn,
But only one mother the wide world over.
~George Cooper

My mommy wrote me a letter today.  Actually, she wrote it last night.  LATE last night.  I woke up to the little blinking of my blackberry light and was pleasantly surprised to see her name in my inbox.  Oh, technology.  You change so many things and yet, some things do not change...

When I was a very little girl, my mom wrote me notes.  I found notes in my lunchbox.  I found them on my pillow and propped against the mirror in the bathroom; I even found notes tucked into my pile of folded laundry waiting to be put away...

My mom surrounded, encompassed and held my childhood together with little random notes of love.  Sometimes it was a congratulatory note about my most recent test or project for school.  Sometimes it was to tell me that she hoped I'd have a "blessed day." Sometimes it was to remind me that I could "do all things through Christ who strengthened me" and during the rough, tumultuous middle-school years, those little notes usually included reminders that I was "beautiful, inside and out" and that I was "fearfully and wonderfully made."   

I bet I received a mom-note for every event of my life.  Graduations, acceptances into choral groups and school plays, honor rolls, birthdays, milestones, EVERYTHING.  My mom even inspired other people to write to me.  For my thirteenth birthday, she secretly asked all of the most important people in my life to write me a letter.  They did -- dozens and dozens of them -- and my mom collected them into a beautiful scrapbook for me to treasure.  

When I went away to college, my mother's notes stopped showing up at my place at the dinner table and began arriving in Box 845.  Hundreds of letters.  The old fashioned kind that would sit in my mailbox in the Student Life Center and feel so good to hold in my hands.  Those letters were my tangible connection to home.  To love.  To knowing that someone believed in me and was rooting for me and was excitedly looking forward to seeing me. 

There are a lot of women who are good mothers.  And sadly, as I've gotten older, I've realized that there are a lot of people -- a LOT of people -- who didn't have good mothers.  They didn't grow up being sheltered and protected and staunchly defended by the eternal love of a very good woman.  But I did.  I most certainly did.

My mommy wrote me a letter last night.  She had just finished "catching up" on my blog, and she wanted to tell me what she liked about my posts and how she'd laughed at certain ones and been proud of me for others.   She told me a funny story about her week and asked if I was feeling better -- had I worn the green socks she sent me on St. Patty's day?  She ended her letter with love and reminded me that she is always, always praying for me.  She signed it "your own Musmi," because that is what I call her.  

There are people who are easy to love.  

There are people who teach you to love.   

And then, there is my Musmi.  Who IS love.  

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If the whole world were put into one scale, and my mother in the other, the whole world would kick the beam.  ~Lord Langdale (Henry Bickersteth)