What Remains
By Lisa McCrohan
I see now how this life is fleeting.
Every breath,
every time my little ones
wrap their tiny arms around my neck
and shout, “Mama!,” every gleeful plea for
“one more story” at bedtime
is holy
ripe and ready in this moment to savor,
then it is gone.
Like a breeze that flutters the curtains in my room,
kisses my skin on a warm summer night,
then returns to where it came
and only stillness remains –
I see how fleeting my life is.
Suddenly from darkness I am born,
I caress this world with my gentle presence
for only a short while,
then I return to where I came
and I am no more in this form.
What remains?
I want it to be my thousand gentle kisses on
my children’s forehead before going to school,
my slow caress on their backs they’ve felt
a million times as they drift off to sleep,
my voice of steadfast encouragement
at decisive moments to leap and
follow their hearts,
their inner prompting to notice suffering
and respond with compassion
as they’ve seen my hands
and heard my soothing words
hundreds of times on ordinary days,
the everyday moments of me returning to
my holy stillness that slowly filled them –
like sweet, sacred drops of holy water –
with an inner quiet that sustains them
when life shakes them,
the words I’ve whispered into their being
a million times a million times,
“You are my delight.”
Lisa A. McCrohan, © 2014
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Dear readers, in the “everydayness” of parenting, it can be hard to “parent the bigger picture in mind.” We are focused on getting out the door, making sure everyone has shoes and sunscreen on, and what in the world we’ll have for dinner tonight. The challenge becomes – can we go about the tasks of daily life while we parent with the bigger picture in mind? What do we want to remain when our children are grown? When they have children of their own? When we are gone?
When we answer those questions, the “now” becomes ripe with opportunity for filling our children with what we want them to remember, embody and become many years from now. How you talk today, how you pause and listen, how you caress their backs, read them a story, and show them how to care for themselves by YOU caring for YOU with quiet moments of stillness — this all gets weaved into their being. It comes who they are. AND how they carry you with them.
This can really focus us. And in a culture of so much distraction, we need focus. So this season -whether it be summer like us in North America, or winter half way around the world, take some time to reflect on this: “When I am gone what do I want to remain with my children?”
Blessings for a season of holding what matters.
Blessings,
Sister, you as a parent with this ideology as expressed would never cease to exist.
For if we and our children are already where we come from, even if we leave our bodies and the whole world reckons us to have died and gone, we would yet be living on in our children who carries a memory us while in body.
Just as a friend mine recently postulate, this is indeed the season of Perfection!
You comment has been sitting with me for several days now! You remind me to look at the bigger picture. Yes you are right on. I recently read a study that memory is passed on from generation to generation (of course thus doesn’t surprise us!). Thank you for your lovely comment.
I love that your intentions are in the right place. I am putting my kids first, even though that means things slow down around me. My clients are also like my children. They want to be cherished also. Even though I have a list of things to do, nothing is more important to listening to someone when they need to be held.
This is beautiful, absolutely Beautiful.
Thank you so much, Kate. I’m very appreciative of your kind words. Many blessings to you, Lisa
my daughter danielle was murdered at 17 yrs old on 2/23/06. the evening before she died for no reason she came up to me and hugged me and told me how much she loved me. i hugged her and stroked her hair and told her i love her more. the very next day she was gone. i felt her hug for almost one year. i know this may be hard to read for some… but the last time i hugged my daughter was at the murder scene …i laid with her sister and we hugged and caressesd her until her body was taken away.
i have to say danielle and i had a special bond and great relationship. she was more like me than her sister who is 7 yrs older and my only other child. its been 9 years and most of dans friends are out of college; very successful and each and every day i wonder how would she look as a 26 yr old adult… would she be in graduate school while making a name as a successful journalist. sadly i will never know… cherish your children… love them and make sure the know how much you love them…. dont sweat the small stuff…
Patti,
I have read this post now several times. You make me focus on what matters most. You remind me that this life is so very precious. You remind me to see it all as a gift. I am so sorry that you lost your daughter and in such a tragic way. Please, Patti, know that you and Danielle are inspiring this woman – me – to live with radical “cherish” — cherishing my dear ones. I am sending many blessings to you, Lisa