Tuc and Gramps

Do you know what I see when I look at this picture?

I see grace, great grace and beautiful love poured out on me.

That’s my Dad. And that’s my son. My little, bitty blondie boy with the best laugh ever, who grew up when I happened to glance away for a millisecond or two.

Most days, 900 miles separates us from my parents. But a few days a year we find ourselves living life together.

 My young teenager man traveled to his grandparents to spend a bit of precious time. It makes me smile big to know he’s there, drinking Gatorade and eating apple fritters and giving Granny hugs.

This picture shouts grace to me and a great big Father God love that my son sits there with my dad and strums guitar for fun. Not everyone gets this privilege. Not everyone has grandparents living. Not everyone gets to travel. It is gift. We are no more deserving than anyone else on this globe.

And, I can feel it. This underlying sense of how terrifically precious each day is and each one numbered. Of more worth than a ruby, rare. I see the gray and white adorning my parents. I see they don’t move so easily anymore. And I see all this through a blur of springing tears. I am not ready. I struggle with living in the tug-of-war pull of this. Precious versus pressures. Time together versus tasks and daily grind.

 I  jump up on tiptoe to grab time as it twinkles by and capture it like an escaping helium balloon. I frame it to remember. It shows up in various forms. Sometimes I’m fully present. Sometimes it’s in the chirping of my phone announcing a photo from my mother.

I lock picture treasures securely on my heart and hang on tightly. They are all this and more.

I scrolled through the picture texts and I smiled and my heart flip-flopped happy and then I burst into tears. Right here on the gray carpet in my living room, I sobbed out thankful because this picture touched something deep inside.

I understand a little more every year the heart of Mary as she treasured up the moments and pondered them.

This very afternoon a friend and I chatted back and forth about the elusiveness of every good day and grappling for the good because life will not always be as it is today.

And this picture shouted at me from the screen, of the grace of living and the absolute awe of watching the generations of your flesh-and-blood, before you and behind you.

Teen versus three score years and ten.

Tuc and Gramps. Gramps and Tuc. Making music and memories.

{pass the Kleenex, again, please}

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