Love You Forever

Did you ever notice that during the holidays, everything speeds up?  The month of December whirls by…We count the days…  configuring how much time we have left to get everything bought, wrapped and ready.

 

With the influx of new clothes and gadgets we will accumulate this year, I decide to root through our existing bins of forgotten paraphernalia in the basement.  Knee deep in old sweaters, I rescue one of my son’s books called Love You Forever.  It’s about a woman who sings to her son a lullaby…

I’ll love you forever

I’ll like you for always

As long as I’m living

My baby you’ll be. 

As her son grows up into a teenager and then adult, she still finds time to hold him and sing him this song.       

As the mother grows older, she needs to be held.  Her son is there.  He holds her, rocks her and sings her the same song he heard in his dreams.

He carries this tradition on with his child and the story begins again. 

This book reveals a central theme that we all need in life… to have and to hold.  We all need to be held.

But, in the times where we have the best opportunity to hold each other and share life’s cherished moments, we let the speed of the season take them away.  

Gifts get frantically unwrapped… Food gets gulped down… families rush off to church services or another family gathering.  And this cycle repeats itself!      

It is the day where we hold more new things in our hands than any other day.  We stack things on the ground by our feet because we cannot hold them all.  I have countless pictures of my son holding things… new toys… many of which I found in the bins in the basement.  But, do we hold each other?

I read my son this book, Love You Forever.  He wants to "snuggle,"  his excuse for not going to his own bed, and I am glad I conceded.  It's nice to hold him when he is asleep. 

This year, I want to celebrate a holiday of moments… not a holiday of momentum.  I am looking forward to time with family and friends… giving, sharing, and holding moments of life together.  Moments to have and to hold.