Last night I shared one of those dinners with my wild, disheveled teen offspring that set my heart in its rightful place.
There was nothing special or extraordinary about it. We hadn’t even planned on sharing dinner together.
In my kids’ busy schedules these days, we often eat separately.
I didn’t cook anything. We didn’t even try to set the table nicely.
We just circled around the dining table unceremoniously and dug into the to-go boxes from our favorite local groovy restaurant.
I did manage to light the candles, make my daughter her favorite salad dressing, and hand the kids some napkins and forks, which felt generous.
My children weren’t acting especially adorable, brilliant, or enlightened. I wasn’t feeling particularly sentimental or enthralled by them.
And yet something snuck up on my heart, as we all sat there, exchanging casual check-ins and insights from our day, these humans who know me and one another, like no one else.
Something snuck in; some kind of palpable heartening.
It was so subtle I might have missed it.
Some ordinary grace between the giggles and the smirks, loosening my heart from the grips of whatever funk it had been ensnared in for days.
Maybe it was the way my daughter looked at her little brother, in all his 13-year-old, bejeweled, studly glory, with knowing eyes of amused endearment.
Maybe it was the way she said to me, sweetly under her breath, once he was out of earshot, “When did he get so big?”
Maybe it was the way I noticed my son quietly appreciating his big sister, with predictable smudges of earth on her flushed cheeks, as she shared tales from her day of riding.
Maybe it was the intimate witty bossy banter between them intermingled with easy honesty and safety.
The body language of being completely ourselves together, the knowing shrugs alongside raised eyebrows of intrigue and scrunched noses of distaste.
The openness and the realness.
Maybe it was the blatant reminder that somehow all is well, even when so much has not seemed well in this wild ride of single parenting as of late.
The glances between them in tender, humored empathy towards me, this imperfect mother they share and completely adore.
Maybe it was the part of my heart that knows how fleeting this is; that knows how to cherish what’s temporary, no matter how messy and disillusioned.
These growing children, their spreading wings, their widening hearts, their inappropriate humor, and my laughter bursting out generously in spite of it all.
My capacity to enjoy them, and myself, exactly as we are: this is grace.
Maybe it was the wink of the wise witness, the perspective of Eagle far above, looking down and taking all of us in, blown away by the simple treasure of real, true love, alive within a family.
Whatever its source, thank you for this healing balm, Life. Thank you for this remembering.
Life as it is. My children as they are. My own, sobered, seasoned heart, just as it is.
Our world as it is, heartbreaking and heartbroken and precious.
I feel it still unfurling within me now, like a quiet Easter miracle, rising up as an ever-deepening willingness, courage, and surrender.
Perhaps resurrection is the possibility of continuous surrender in love for what is.
Perhaps our outrageous, courageous love—yours and mine—is all that’s ever needed. ✨
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