Everyday memories

Life is punctuated with very specific memories – the images of people and places that commemorate an event that was meaningful in some way, for better or worse.  The family vacation where I saw mountains for the first time.  The time an unfortunate encounter with my birthday candles singed the edges of my hair.  The day my husband and I flipped over a jetski on our honeymoon.  The way each of my brand new babies looked in the first moment they were placed on my chest.  These moments slide into our lives like a happy pause or a dramatic exclamation point, and we remember them with very specific parameters.  We can point to a day and location and say, “this happened then.” 

But filling in the narrative of our lives aside from the noise of this punctuation is the every day.  There are people and experiences that enrich us over time and weave themselves seamlessly into who we are.  I grew up attending church with my family and my grandparents.  It was a traditional service where we sang hymns accompanied by the powerful tones of a pipe organ.  As a result, I have many of those songs committed to memory, and when I sing them today I cannot separate my own voice from that of my grandparents.  As the congregation sings, I can still hear the unique quality of each of their voices dancing through the verses – my grandpa’s syncopated baritone, and grandma moving in and out of soprano and alto as the range of the song requires. 

I don’t need to conjure a up a specific event to recall this or bring it back to the front of my mind; it appears automatically when we sing a classic hymn at the church I now attend with my own little family.  I don’t “remember a time,” really.  I feel those experiences enriching my current moments because they are so deep that they’re part of me.  This morning I had such a moment when we were singing “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty” during our church service.  In my head, my voice joined with my grandparents' to raise up the lyrics, “All ye who hear, now to his temple draw near; Praise him in glad adoration.” 

As I was enjoying this moment – this deep memory – I became aware that my daughter, propped up on my hip as she usually is, was staring intently into my face and watching my mouth form the words.  At the beginning of the next verse, she enthusiastically joined in.  She opened her mouth wide, making perfect O’s – one after another – as we continued with, “Praise to the Lord, who o’er all things so wondrously reigneth.”  At her age of approximately a year and a half, she was mimicking what she was seeing, and while no sound actually left her lips she became part of the throng.  I immediately smiled and got my husband’s attention so he could see what was unfolding, and this resulted in giggles on the part of our little performer. 

As simple and brief as that moment was, it struck me with a profound sense of joy.  I was simultaneously feeling a sense of closeness to a generation that came before me, and to the next one I’m preparing for the world.  I’ll cop to that sounding corny, but God puts together wonderful things if we only stop to notice. 

It occurred to me during the remainder of the service that moments like these, repeated throughout a childhood, could become part of the narrative of our children’s lives.  I watched my daughter wave to the people in the pew behind us, and my son step shyly through the rows to collect coins in a tin can for the noisy offering.  This church, these people, it all just made my heart so full.  This is the stuff memories are made of – slowly over time these moments will intertwine themselves into these little humans.  I am so privileged to contribute to who they will be, and for today, darn it, we’re doing a good job.