A Memory Meld

It was nice and rainy this morning. It was also the first Saturday following the first week of school so I was content to be in my pajamas and sipping coffee at nine thirty. (Okay, yes, I was also on pinterest. Don’t judge me.)   Two of the girls had stayed the night with my Mother and they were going to be heading to the beach. I was happy for them to be going but no thank you, I was quite happy to be staying home.

Until my oldest woke up. Nothing would suit the child but we call Nana and see if they were still at the beach. And wouldn’t you know it they hadn’t even left yet.

Do you see where this is going?

That’s right. To the beach. (I know, I know. I mentioned it was rainy. Here. In Pace we had rain. In Pensacola, not so much.)

So we went and it was wonderful. Sunny. Gorgeous. Just enough surf to keep everybody entertained.

That’s when the most amazing thing happened. I’m watching my Mother playing in the surf with my kids, listening to their laughter and it was like having a flashback to my own childhood. It was like a transparency of an image was being overlaid upon another and they were melding into one. For a minute the laughter and squeals of my own children blended with the echoes of mine and my sisters. It was the splashing leaping bodies of my kids converging into the memory of that same moment thirty-five years ago of my Mother teaching us to body surf in the waves.

The joyful threads of my own childhood memories intertwined with that moment…that memory being created right then was strengthened by ones that had come before it. The intangible things we give our children…love, security, our faith and beliefs…they will interweave into their own lives and memories. Hopefully giving them strength, setting their feet on firm high places.

One day I hope one of my kids will be sitting on the edge of the shore and when the laughter of my grandchildren flies through air I hope they remember this day.

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