(I am reposting this after a few years, because it just needs to be said more often!)

I’m excited to share an article with you that a dear friend recently shared with me. {Thank you Ann!} She reports that it was written at least 40 years ago and has no byline except, Anonymous.

Knowing that this was written before many of you were born, I offer a few notes about the author’s perspective. When she was writing, “the common denominators of women’s days,” it was simply accurate.

She says they listened to a record, which you may or may not have experienced {think big, vinyl CD that plays audio recordings by spinning around on a gramophone or record player}, and yes, people used to chat with their backyard neighbors a lot more than people do today! It was a slower time and in many ways, simpler.

Now for you, thoughtful reader, who will hear and understand the profound point the author is making, here it is. I hope you are as moved and blessed by her words, as I have been!

Let Me Hold You While I May

“The day is over; now I will sleep.

It had been a normal sort of day, common like a rock along the path. Nothing about it would make one stop suddenly, pick it up and exclaim over it, as one might do with a shell, or a glistening piece of quartz. It was just a rock, lying there along my way. But now, knowing that it is about to go from me forever, I hold it in my hand curiously, turning it this way and that, marking its shape and texture, weighing it on my palm. What was it really, this normal day?

It was routine, mostly—washing, ironing, a trip to the store, meals, dishes, the common denominators of women’s days.

It was pleasant here and there—a letter from an old friend, my husband’s telephone call for no reason, a back fence chat with my neighbor, half an hour with a good book, some loud laughs with the children at dinner time.

It was irritating now and then—a sticky ocean of spilled maple syrup, mealtime with one greedy child and one finicky one, the arrival of a bill unexpectedly high, a persistent salesman’s theft of fifteen beautiful minutes.

It was deeply joyous at times—the whole house glorified with the strains of the new “Greensleeves” record; our unliterary twelve-year-old’s first book (begun today, to be finished tomorrow) with its dedication to–wonder of wonders–his parents; our eight-year-old and her friend playing dress-up, painted and perfumed, scarved and veiled, clattering through the kitchen in spike heels and innocence.

It was sobering and frightening in some ways—Mom’s waning health and increasing discouragement; the big blow-up after dinner about homework and learning to accept responsibility, and the guilt that followed my hasty words; the vague, huge uncertainties that draped themselves over us, cobweb-like, with the ten o’clock news from a tense and shadowed world.

It was blessed with love throughout—in a pig-shaped bead board made, and presented to me by my son; in the wave of feeling as I watched our little daughter sleeping in soft moonlight, her long lashes shadowing her cheek; in an hour alone with my husband at the end of the day.

Just a normal day. A normal day! It is a jewel! In time of war, in peril of death, people have dug their hands and faces into the earth and remembered this. In time of sickness and pain, people have stretched themselves taut and waited for this. In time of loneliness and separation, people have buried their faces in pillows and wept for this. In times of hunger, homelessness and separation, people have raised bony hands to the skies and stayed alive for this.

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it will not always be so. One day, I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want more than all the world your return.”

Be well my friend.

Love,