Time in a Bottle

I found this picture today of my mother and I. It's from August of 1992, which is the year I graduated from high school - and amazingly was taken fourteen years ago, give or take a day or more. This is the day my Mother and I said goodbye as she dropped me off at college in Oregon, which at the time was 8-hours away from home (California), but might as well have been 20 hours, because I was homesick for her from the moment she and my Dad drove away. Even though I was thrilled to be in College and living in a dorm with my best girlfriend as a roommate, I was so close to my family that I couldn't imagine that my mother and I would no longer be around each other daily. Fast forward those fourteen years and we've survived so many things they're hard to count, but here's a go: family death, marriage, divorce, separation, a move across country (me - boo hoo), infertility, grandkids, laughter, tears, and much much more. My mom is the kind of person who bears the brunt of the family drama - doesn't complain about it, but bears it. She has four children ages 17-35 (all from my father...just really spread out - oops!) She has three grand-daughters and another on the way. (Yaaa Keira Joy!) She has been fighting Multiple Sclerosis for 17 years and she's still sassy after all these years. Case in point: she has this scooter that she rides around on in public, because walking and MS just don't go together. So, apparently she has a "turbo" feature and when she wants to be really "cute" she'll hit the turbo and go flying down the store aisles - leaving me and shopping cart in the dust. Another example - she'll "honk" at you if you're in her way and she's stuck behind you on the scooter. It's the most annoying high pitched "beeping" noise and she'll hit it and hold....beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.....until you move out of her way so she can zoom past you, giggling as she goes. Gosh, I love her.
The real reason I wanted to share this picture is that I was thinking of my mom and how fast time flies. How it seems like only yesterday I was at college and she was waving from the car as they drove away. In retrospect, I can only see how the years have brought us closer and given me a better understanding of all she's done for me and my siblings, even though at times her ability has been and still is limited by her low-down, no-good "friend" MS. But she's a fighter my Ma. She's feisty...
Anyway, I digress again. The real point is: time flies. Did you catch that? I said, "Time Flies". It's not just a cliché, it's true. This picture is just a memory, but at that moment it was real and painful, and beautiful and hopeful and all the things that memories can be. The real challenge is reminding yourself daily that this too shall pass, and when it does it will be nothing more than a part of your memory. Do you follow me? The big "WAIT"...just a passing moment in time. Take a picture and put it somewhere where you and your daughter will find it ten years from now...and when you do you can say "Oh honey, that was just the time when Mommy thought you would never get here, and it was over before we knew it...and here you are...can you believe it? It seems like it was only yesterday I was taking that picture..."

I'll go first...here's mine...














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