I like to check my email in the morning. I'm one of those people who gleefully approaches the mailbox and inbox as if there will be some wonderful surprise, somewhere between Publisher's Clearing House good and a 1/2 price car wash coupon good. When I checked this morning it was with a distracted mind as I was much too challenged for hoping in earnest. Engaged in the full contact, high aerobic activity that is feeding Avery a banana, while attempting to drink my coffee before it either slushed out or became so cold that I would have to abandon it, I hoped for nothing more than to check for new messages.
The program opened as I managed the odd sip, Avery stamping shiny, sticky banana marrow along the bust line of my navy cable knit top.
3 messages: The Lottery Board out of Burma, The Children's Place out of Saratoga Springs, and Lara out of Cali.
Delete, delete, grin. Lara is always good for an uplifting word. She once told me she thought my family was so adorable she wanted to tuck us all in a little snow globe. That killed me, sounded like my sister, Abbie. For the first 6 months of Briar's life she declared Briar cuter than a lion cub, which, if you didn't know, is apparently one of the cutest types of cubs. Anywhere.
Lara's email was simple, but its impact on me profound. She wanted to share a picture with me and would I email her so she could send it to me. I replied and hoped she would write soon, thinking it was deliciously nestled between PCH and a car wash. I thought it would be a funny or endearing portrait of motherhood.
...it reminded me of you and your girls.
15 or 16 hours ago I began my day with that image and Lara's sentiment on my mind. Now, alone downstairs with my girls asleep in their rooms, Briar no doubt twisted and in danger of falling out of her bed, Avery with her perfect little not yet walking bottom saluting the ceiling, I am looking at the photo again. It seems so improbable that a woman living in California would happen upon three pink roses and see me with my girls. It's even more of a stretch that she would snap the shot and send it to me. But she did.
Thank you Lara, for lifting the veil of my own disappointment in the
things I sometimes do wrong. Seeing this image and your words behind it, gives me the most amazing lift.
