Be Specific

Using specific descriptions when writing is akin to being specific when asking for what you want, or visualizing what you want and it is funny how everything comes full circle and lines up exactly when you want it to.  I am learning how to ask for what I want and the results are usually good so tonight my request is for everyone in my family to always say “goodnight.”

The days are gone when my husband, my daughters and I inhabited the same home and could yell goodnight from room to room (remember The Waltons?) but the need is still there for me.  I want to sleep well knowing that everyone in my family is safe and sound and in this age of technology this can be done without too much difficulty so at the risk of becoming an annoying mom, I will happily accept a text message, an email or Facebook message but my sleep is much more relaxed after I receive these messages of nightly good wishes.  Of course the telephone call is the best, hearing the voices from far off, sometimes equally exhausted, sometimes wide awake and in the midst of studying, but always welcome.  This is our tradition, our family tradition started by my mother.  I rarely missed a good night phone call to my mother in my later teen years, early adulthood and the calls continued after I was married, sometimes to the puzzled look of my husband, who didn’t quite get my need for nightly closure.  When my mother moved in our home with us, I could go to kiss her goodnight, which was the best way to end the day and begin my dreams.  I can’t wait for the holidays to do that with my girls.  Sometimes I just need to hold them for a few minutes taking them in with my senses, these girls who are part of me and of me.  It doesn’t quite seem fair that we bring children into this world and spend so much of ourselves raising them and then lose them at 18 when they go off to college.  In the grand scheme of things, 18 years of a life that can last into the 80s is just a small slice of time and we are so busy raising our children that we don’t realize that every day we move closer to losing them.  That is why sometimes we need to see them in person, smell their sweet hair fresh from the shower, hear their voices-excited, happy, sad, and hold them in our arms.

It is just a small moment in time, to send a message or dial a phone, but it is a gift that is worth more than any other, and the only request I have.