Perspective is Everything

Perspective is everything, I thought as I drove through the dark.  The thought didn’t really coalesce fully until I sat at a red light and noticed how beautiful that red light looked through thousands of rain drops falling on my windshield.  The feelings that gave birth to those thoughts began a few moments before when my daughter Samantha and I walked out of the store.  It was dark and crispy cold out and the rain began to fall…a beautiful and gentle rain.  I looked at her and she looked at me and we started laughing together dodging rain drops as we made our way through the parking lot to my truck.  I watched in awe at how much this baby child has grown.  I was thinking this was one of the last times I’d be giggling with an 8 year old child of mine.  This was my youngest and she’s almost 9 (she reminds me now often).   We had only one more stop to make and she was searching for her little red umbrella in the back seat.  She had on these little polka dot leggings and a black pea coat she swiped from her older sister earlier in the week.  She said she liked it because it reminded her of my coat.  She was just adorable dodging rain drops while holding her umbrella.  I don’t think I ever noticed the rain before as I did in that moment or her, my beautiful little girl who is growing up so fast.

Time rippled again in front of my eyes as it has so many times these past many months and I went about my tasks but was weirdly disconnected and yet reconnected at the same time.  I kept getting lost in the scenery like I was seeing it for the first time.  We finished our business and headed back out into the rain.  The bare naked trees glistening in the parking lot lights held my attention for what seemed like an eternity.  “Come on mommy.  You’re getting all wet,” Samantha said.  I looked at her and laughed feeling very much like a child myself.  All around us was a cacophony of angry and impatient holiday shoppers trying to park, honking horns and even shouting.  But that didn’t matter in the slightest to me.  No commentary had I on the negative events transpiring around us.  For me, the entire world went away when I looked into my little girl’s beautiful blue eyes.  We both looked up at the rain again commenting on how amazing the drops looked when they caught the light on their way down.   We giggled on the way home as she told me that if rain was God crying, then snow must be angel poop.  There is just nothing sacred to an eight year old.  I’m still laughing at her logic.  Yes, perspective IS everything.

(c) 2011 (photo from mylot.com, copyright holder unknown)