My Girls

Easter Sunday evening. The sky cracked open. Rain tumbled down. Under my breath, I cursed the weather. Husband yanked the canopy over our tiny creature's car seat. But they? My big girls? They squealed and frolicked and danced. They twirled and threw their hands up as their faces and hair and bodies grew soaked. "Rain!" they chanted, in unison, between infectious giggles.

And I hung back watching them. As they skipped together and celebrated the storm. I couldn't help but smile.

We had one extra umbrella and I offered it to them to share. I popped it open and handed it over. And they didn't fight over it, or poke themselves with the spokes like I feared. They each held it with one hand. And, together, they walked.

And I followed. Amazed. Proud. There they were. My big girls huddled together, trouping through sidewalks and time and life, weathering the storm.

In those moments, those transitional moments of another Easter Sunday, I watched them, my girls, and was flooded with thoughts.

They are my big girls but they are also little people. Little people who won't be little for long.

They are sisters and they will always have each other. In rain or shine, in youth or age.

They might not remember this rain-soaked night or this stage of their lives, but I will remember for them. For all three of them. When they are older, when rain no longer delights them, we will sit around the kitchen island, the four of us girls, and I will tell them about this tiny slice of their childhood. A night when it rained hard and they got drenched and were so happy.

They will look at me, my big girls, pinning me with matching blue eyes and sweet smiles and say, "Mom, What's the big deal? It rained and we shared an umbrella?!"

And I will say to them, "It wasn't really a big deal but also it was."

And I will look at my littlest girl and say, "You were only eleven pounds. Can you believe you were once that tiny?"

And because she has learned from her big sisters, she will say, "Mom, yes, once upon a time I was a newborn. What's the big deal?"

I will try to explain to them that sometimes, often, the biggest deals, the most piercing realizations and most potent emotions and most exquisite life, are really the littlest deals, the tiny moments. Still, they will not quite understand. And then I will say it, something terribly cliched that embarrasses them, "One day you might. You will just be going about your day, an average day, and then you will glimpse the creatures you love, and everything else will melt away. You will feel something profound, something that borders on spiritual. You might not even have the words to describe it. And so, you will take a picture. And so, you will do anything you can to remember this."

And the three of them, my girls, wanting their mother's cryptic monologue to end, will smile. They will look at me and say it, even though they don't really need to, even though I know. Before they scatter to do their homework and text their friends and live their lives, they will say words that never get old.

"We love you too, Mom."

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Have you ever experienced moments like this where you are just living your life and going about existence and you are slammed with a profound image or realization? Do you remember a time when you celebrated being caught in the rain?