Today is my grandson’s 3rd birthday. We will FaceTime with him this evening and sing Happy Birthday, but it is not the same thing as being there and watching as he blows out candles or giving him a hug. And so I trust and believe that my love for him and for his parents stretches the hundreds of miles between him and me and somehow wraps itself around his life.
Several hundred miles in a different direction my mother is probably in the final months of her life. When I saw her yesterday before heading home, between the pain she was experiencing and the medication she had been given she could barely hold her styrofoam cup of ginger ale to sip it out of the straw. When we talked on Sunday night, when she was feeling a bit stronger, she wanted to make sure that I knew she loved me. I told her I never doubted her love. Now, home again, all I have is my love which reaches to be at her bedside and to fill her room.
Years ago, I went through a very challenging time. I doubted myself and my ability. Everything I thought I knew or thought I could do well seemed to vanish. In those moments when I could not hold on for myself others held on for me. I don’t know how that all works, but in those dark days there were times when the only strength I had was the strength others were sending my way.
Is that what prayer is?
The love which stretches hundreds of miles to hug my grandson?
The love which sits at my mother’s bedside?
The holding on and not letting go which we do for one another?
Maybe it is all just wishful thinking.
But nevertheless…
My love reaches out across the miles.
Leave a Reply