In a Blink of an Eye

I am honored to be a woman. I am blessed to have been able to have a child. If you are a woman who has been given these unbelievable gifts, I can imagine you empathize greatly.

In a blink of an eye we were given the news that we were pregnant. In another blink, our children were born. A few more blinks…our babies became toddlers… preschoolers… kindergarteners. We blink back tears of joy as we watch them grow before our very eyes – those ever-blinking eyes. They are like flashing yellow lights on a nonstop highway starting at Birth, USA to Anywhere. As we travel as onlooking passengers, we force our eyelids to stay open, trying to stop the forward motion, the motion of time. Our eyelids are like blinds rolled up all the way, as tears pour like rain hitting windowpanes. Straining not to blink, we hope to savor each day, each joyous moment, but the force of our biological makeup, that which we were blessed to give birth with, pulls the shades closed. A blink of an eye passes by once again and we find ourselves further down the highway.

Our eyes seem to blink faster and faster. Blink… childhood. Blink… adolescence. Blink… young adulthood. This is where my eyes focus now, trying to catch each moment, making it last, trying to elongate the timespan between each blink.

Looking back on these twenty-plus years, pictures run through my mind, like an old picture movie reel, flickering with each blink. I fast forward to today, grateful that the motion picture is still running. The movie has not come to an end. I am trying to relish each glimpse, each grin, every detail, as my child reaches her own age of womanhood.

Today, I am especially thankful to be blessed that things continue to change in the blink of an eye. For those mothers whose eyes can only view the movie reel by dropping their blinds and watching their child through their mind’s motion picture theater, I hold you in my heart. I send you love and peace.