Whitney, Bed Sheets and Beauty

I've been feeling really down lately, physically and emotionally, and today isn't much different except that our home is in disarray and my children are constantly at each other's throats. Well, that's not so different from any other day but I haven't fixed the girls' beds in days nor have I fed their fish or picked up the books scattered on the floor. So today, I decided to force myself to accept my pain and not let it hurt my children or my home any longer...at least for today.

Anyhow, there I was fixing the girls' beds while letting my iTunes run on random when The Greatest Love of All by Whitney Houston comes on and almost instantaneously I am transfixed and transported to another room in another house in another time. A room as white and as fresh as the woman it belongs to. A room that for me has always brought back my warmest and fondest memories. I see myself sitting on the floor rummaging through dozens on cassette tapes as I had dozens of times before. Whitney is playing just as she is almost every day and my mother is moving purposefully around the room tidying up and lecturing me not to get her tapes all mixed up and out of order. Every so often, she stops and sits with me and shows me her favorites and why she loves them. How many days had we spent like this? Just me and my mom. This was my world, my safe place. No one else around but us sharing our love of music. No other place, no other memory makes me feel as safe as this one.

How serendipitous that more than twenty years later, a song of love from a mother to her child takes me back to my mother and her child. The pain of remembering her instead of reminiscing with her is still so indescribable but just as powerful is the memory of her love and our wonderful, special moments together. I only hope that one day, life will take my family to a place where my children can hear a particular song or smell a particular scent and they will automatically be brought back to me, wherever I may be. May I have that same impact on my children as my mom had on me. May all mothers and fathers show their children nothing but love that when we are nothing but memories, they will be ones of love and light and life.

Be good to your children. Be positive. Be supportive. Be strong. Be uplifting. Show them beauty. And spend time with them. One day, they won't be children and one day, we won't be here. Leave them a legacy of goodness and godliness.