By the end of the day yesterday, I was happy.
I had tackled a mountain of laundry;
I received a long, encouraging e-mail from a sweetie pie of a friend;
And I tied up some loose ends on an important project and sent it off.
A fine day, all in all.
Come the end of it and I felt good—so good, in fact, that I thought that I’d “reward myself” by staying up past my bedtime with a movie.
Braveheart sounded delightful; a batch of popcorn, equally so.
Now, I always feel a little guilty about my late-night popcorn popping.
I know the smell of it wafts upwards, where there are many little noses just a-twitching and itching to join me.
And I remember that horrible feeling of being a kid and missing out on all the fun going on downstairs. I know you know what I’m talking about! Or how about this: did you ever sneak a peek into the garbage to see what all was eaten after you’d been sent to bed?
It’s enough to scar a poor kid, really.
So I’m thinking about all of this as I plop my big, grown-up butt into the rocker with my bowl of popcorn and my movie. I hear the occasional shuffle of “mice” in the rooms above me; I ignore it.
And then comes the scene in the movie where the little girl—oh, what’s her name? Something Scottish. She was Mel Gibson’s love interest before she got…what’s that? You haven’t seen the movie yet? Oh, well, for heaven’s sake, go watch it!
Anyway, she hands him a thistle at his father’s funeral. She’s just this wee little thing but she gets it—and so does he. The thistle is Scotland’s national flower, and she is telling him to be brave and to fight for freedom and to love this savage country that’s their homeland.
In my opinion.
I was struck at that moment by two things: one, the beauty of that little face, and two, the magic in that moment when the thistle exchanged hands. Mel Gibson knows how to make movies, that’s for certain.
Little faces; magic moments. I didn’t need a movie to have that.
Suddenly, I didn’t want to be sitting in front of a DVD that I’ve seen ten times before. I wanted to be making memories, not revisiting them. I thought of my daughters—such little honeys, just like the girl in this movie—and all at once, I paused the movie.
And I never did return to watch it.
We were up in their bunk bed—my little gals & I—having popcorn and reading by flashlight.
Now, it’s not that I’m this super cool mommy who always puts my children’s needs ahead of my own. Trust me, I’m plenty selfish.
But sometimes all it takes is for me to remember.
And when I do? Well, then I try to share a thistle of my own before I forget again.
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