I dream often of the beauty of childhood. The tenderness of those memories bring joy to my heart and a smile to my face without failure. Now, as a mother, I realize fully the work my parents put into making our childhood so joyful. A true labor of love…a love we do not fully understand as children.
Every day after school, Abby and I would run back into our woods for that day’s adventure. And, as the evening shadows crept in, we made the most beautiful tales come alive. I smile at the amount of times we got stuck in a tree, swore we found the most beautiful treasure known to man, built a new fort in the sheltered shade of the pines, or scraped up our shins on the many picker bushes we ran through.
Oh, the smell of those pines on a warm night. The sounds of our beautiful expanse of nature poured out before us. We lived in a world of never ending bliss. Before the darkness fully overtook the day’s tale, our mom would beep the car horn to let us know it was dinnertime. We ran through the familiar trails and through the field of whatever was growing that year with excitement as our minds ran wild with the new chapters we had just written.
As I watch my babies play, I know that my goal as a mother is to make their childhood beautiful, to help surround them with enough love to help them write their adventures in a forever expanding book of chapters.
And that…parenthood…that is true love. They are the beginning and the end of my thoughts each day, and I smile at the beautiful truth. I am lucky enough to be their mommy and to watch the words of their stories spill onto the pages of time.
A Country Mother's Heart 