Today is Wednesday, July 23rd, 2003; Karen's Korner #98

For those of you who get weekday "Chicken Soup for the Soul" stories via email, sorry for the duplication. This was yesterday's. I thought it was good:

 

A Moment Can Last Forever

By Graham Porter

Loading the car with the paraphernalia of our
youngsters, ages three to nine, was hardly my idea of fun.
But precisely on schedule - and at a very early hour - I
had performed that miracle. With our vacation stay on Lake
Michigan now over, I hurried back into the cottage to find
my wife Evie sweeping the last of the sand from the floor.
"It's six-thirty - time to leave," I said. "Where are
the kids?"

Evie put away the broom. "I let them run down to the
beach for one last look."

I shook my head, annoyed by this encroachment on my
carefully planned schedule. Why had we bothered to rise at
dawn if we weren't to get rolling before the worst of the
traffic hit? After all, the children had already spent two
carefree weeks building sand castles and ambling for miles
along the lakeside in search of magic rocks. And today
they had only to relax in the car - sleep if they liked -
while I alone fought the long road home.

I strode across the porch and out the screen door.
There, down past the rolling dunes, I spotted my four
youngsters on the beach. They had discarded their shoes
and were tiptoeing into the water, laughing and leaping
each time a wave broke over their legs, the point obviously
being to see how far into the lake they could wade without
drenching their clothes. It only riled me more to realize
that all their dry garments were locked, heaven knew where,
in the overstuffed car trunk.

With the firmness of a master sergeant, I cupped my
hands to my mouth to order my children up to the car at
once. But somehow the scolding words stopped short of my
lips. The sun, still low in the morning sky, etched a gold
silhouette around each of the four young figures at play.

For them there was left only this tiny fragment of time for
draining the last drop of joy from the sun and the water
and the sky.

The longer I watched, the more the scene before me
assumed a magic aura, for it would never be duplicated
again. What changes might we expect in our lives after the
passing of another year, another ten years? The only
reality was this moment, this glistening beach and these
children - my children - with the sunlight trapped in their
hair and the sound of their laughter mixing with the wind
and the waves.

'Why,' I asked myself, 'had I been so intent on
leaving at six-thirty that I had rushed from the cottage to
scold them?' Did I have constructive discipline in mind,
or was I simply in the mood to nag because a long day's
drive lay ahead? After all, no prizes were to be won by
leaving precisely on the dot. If we arrived at our motel
an hour later than planned, no forty-piece band was going
to be kept waiting. And how could I hope to maintain
communication with my children, now and in later years, if
I failed to keep my own youthful memory alive?

At the water's edge far below, my oldest daughter was
motioning for me to join them. Then the others began
waving, too, calling for Evie and me to share their fun. I
hesitated for only a moment, then ran to the cottage to
grab my wife's hand. Half running, half sliding down the
dunes, we were soon at the beach, kicking off our shoes.
With gleeful bravado, we waded far out past our youngsters,
Evie holding up her skirt and I my trouser cuffs, until
Evie's foot slipped and she plunged squealing into the
water, purposely dragging me with her.

Today, years later, my heart still warms to recall our
young children's laughter that day - how full-bellied and
gloriously companionable it was. And not infrequently,
when they air their fondest memories, those few long-ago
moments - all but denied them - are among their most
precious.

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