What’s in a Word?

Hello, I’m so glad you’re here!

I wish you were sitting right HERE,  right now. The light outside my window is a-m-a-z-i-n-g!  The sun’s just about tucked itself in for the day and there’s just  a faint blush on the inky horizon. Its moments like this that fill me up.

Today we started pulling out the Christmas decorations. I have to say once everyone has left home it kind of feels like “what’s the point” but this year is different. There’s new life in the family and with it has come new eyes.

With every decoration I place, every ornament I hang, I think of her big bright eyes discovering this new part of her world. Its such a gift to see and contemplate life through another’s eyes.

I started sifting through the boxes and along with them the memories.  The memories of those fat little fingers stringing popcorn (I’ve been told I traumatized my kids with that little ritual) the cookies and hot chocolate that year after year had been lovingly left for Santa. There were saltwater dough handprint ornaments . . . the paper Santa’s with cotton ball beards. Such fleeting years leaving in their wake, a lifetime of memories.

I opened another box, unwrapped the tissue paper and pulled out the big red sign.  I remember the day we were shopping and I had found it protesting to my husband that I needed it.  He reminded me of the countless boxes of Christmas decorations (come to think of it, I seem to recall the word he used was actually crap- *grin* ) already in the basement.  I knew he was right but there was something about that sign. . . It said,  Joy and I simply had to have it.

I love the word and all it encompasses. It instantly makes me think of Tiger bouncing about as he talks to Pooh.  It’s the word that describes the feeling when I look at my family or my dog when she knows I’ve brought her home a new toy. It’s so many wonderful things.

When I went to put the sign in the hallway  my mind was suddenly flooded with so many thoughts. What a year it’s been! A year filled with so much joy that at times  I truly wondered if my heart could possibly hold it all.

Joy perfectly described the feelings that enveloped me as I watched my son hold his precious new daughter and then too, as I watched him as he gazed at his wife with unspoken pride and admiration for the gift he now held.

Joy  was the feeling that flooded every corner of my heart as my husband and I walked our daughter down the aisle and into her dreams that had now all come true.

It was the thing that radiated from her and the man she had waited a lifetime to find. It was what poured out of each of them and into everything and everyone around them.

Yes Joy is the keeper of my most treasured moments and memories. I think it just may have to be my word for 2016.

And a new chapter in life begins

 

Every now and then, life gives us a true life fairy-tale