Reflecting Light

We fought all the way to the library. We fought off tears and the urge to run away from one another. It's too much sometimes, having to love and raise and educate my children. I'm not always up to it. To tell you the truth, I lose momentum, cave into frustration, run out of steam. As usual, I was bundled, but I neglected to put on boots. Through my silvery flats and black stripy knee socks I felt the slush, dirty slush. Well that figures, I thought, like Eeyore counting his mishaps, on top of everything else, my feet are wet. Oh bother.

Once inside, the five of us scattered. In separate aisles, separate spaces, we unwound. I watched toddlers running loose - heard screams of protest, whispered warnings; all around me were mothers in the messy, demanding, thick of it. I was comforted, in good company, not alone. Check this out, said Elijah, my nine-year-old. And together we marveled at a picture of hands painted expertly to resemble zebras, alligators, lions - spectacular stuff- in a kid's magazine. That is amazing, I assured him, relieved and grateful for the olive branch he was extending to me, having cooled off and forgotten entirely how unfair, how intolerable is his life as an eldest son.

The moment passed, as it usually does. Our despair gave way to acceptance, warm and manageable, with but a simple change of scenery. We weren't broken it turns out, only shaded for awhile from the goldenness of our potential. We lost sight of what is good, even holy, about being bonded, fused together, for all eternity. We forget and then remember and then forget again all the time. So it goes with faith and sacrifice: up and down, mountains and valleys, joy and sorrow.

It isn't less cold than before but the sun is bright, brilliant. The icicles (or "sharps," as Mary prefers to call them), so jagged and intimidating, protruding downward over our porch have begun melting. Seen this way, transparent and dazzling, reflecting the light, winter seems pure and clean and promising.

Harsh, healing, hectic, invigorating, binding, freeing - it's all just a matter of perspective.