my treasures
my kids holding their super water squirters
kids playing in my room
I hear my children squealing with delight. I checked on them just 5 minutes ago and they were in our garage, with swimming goggles on, unapologetically squirting water at each other with bright-colored water pumps. We do not have a swimming pool so we use the inflatable ring pool instead. I guess it's the next best thing to beat the heat.
I am sorting out clothes - mine, Andre's, and kids' - putting away some for storage, setting aside a pile to give away. Each closet are crammed (we are six in the family which means I have to clean out six closets...whew!) especially mine and Andre's. I really feel the constant urge to unload. Moments later I go down again, looking for something to eat, only to realize that my boys found another playmate. My husband has joined them. He who loves to swim is now teaching the boys the basic water breathing techniques. I get a piece of banana, settle in a chair contentedly, and watch them while I eat.
I am soaking in the sun, the heat, my sweat, the sight before me. It is hot outside and I feel all warm and cozy inside. I feel very blessed. Before me are my real treasures.
After taking a shower, they laze around. And in the quiet of this very hot summer afternoon, they lounge. And loll around in bed. Play XBox 360. Watch disney movies. Fight and argue a little. Make up. Goof around pretending to be the monster from the movie Unborn. Then they look again for more food, settling on some fruit. They explore, they discover, they widen their little world and grow.
Where did my summers like this go? The long, languid days that stretched on forever, as lovely as my dreams - when can I have them again? I am a wife now, a mommy, with a household to run and many lives to organize. There is a structure to my hours, a plan to my days. I guess from time to time it is but natural to miss the loose knots of youth - those cushy, carefree loops that allowed me to skip from moment to moment with nary a care in the world. I still remember clearly the many joys that came with it. I remember the feeling so clearly that can almost touch it. But I've had that time of my life and I enjoyed it fully while it lasted. I wish all of that now plus more on my children and children their age. This is the golden time of sun and fun. Pretty soon they will all grow up and find out for themselves how life will not be always be so simple. It will still be beautiful, definitely, just not as uncomplicated. So I want to tell them, in all their innocence and youth, to soak it all up, every bit of it, so much so that there will be enough to get by when life's little bumpy rides arrive. Happy childhood memories have a way of molding adults into a resilient, positive bunch.
They are now playing in my room. I look at them and listen in on their little musings; their conversation making for an interesting backdrop while I am doing my chores. They are now laughing at the name Ilay (the name of an old man from the movie Unborn). For some reason it amuses them and me as well. They say it out loud and promptly collapse in heaps of laughter. The whole day, all the way before they go to dream land, Ilay is a happy word. I wonder what it will be tomorrow.
I listen to them and thank them in a big way in my thoughts. Dear God, I am grateful for gentle days like these. I too often forget what it is like when life is this simple, when every day is but a summer's day. Thank you for your hands on my shoulders, for this shot of inspiring joy, coming so unexpectedly, like a warm smile from a stranger, or the fragrance of flowers carried ever so softly by the breeze.
For now, this is my summer - my days are packed. I'm craving for mais con yielo, loving my family in heaps, and feeling so blessed. My summers may not be as simple anymore, but there will always be days like this to remind me how carefree it once was, and how one day when I am much, much, much older, it can still be. The cycle of life will make way for that.
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