Time Preserved

This wasn't a Hallmark day--no balloons, no roses, no chocolate, no gifts, no cards. Instead it was a family day. Maybe Hallmark should initiate an international family day. No, then it would be a "have-to" and would lose the wonder and the magic of un-scheduled, un-planned, spontaneous gatherings of people who are related. Just two days ago I posted a photo of Tristan, our great-grandson, so you'll wonder why I'm doing it again so soon.

This afternoon our family all had lunch alfresco at a local Mexican fast food place:

Mr. Fun
Rosie
Tristan
Tristan's mom, Desiree,
Desiree's dad, Shawn, our oldest child,
and our daughter,
Deidre and her family,
her hubby John, son Emerson, a high school senior.
Missing was Deidre & John's daughter Ashly, a college sophomore, and our oldest granddaughter (she was at work).

Sitting outside we enjoyed the sun and the lovely gentle breeze. In this photo our daughter is holding her nephew Tristan. Daughter Deidre loves babies and children of all ages. She should have had ten of her own. She's an excellent mom. The setting wasn't ideal to get the group together for a photo. That would have looked so posed, so as we were slowly gathering our things to make an exit, I clicked this.

Tristan is the newest addition in our family and ever so gradually--we hardly even notice the change--this youngest one is moving our family into the latest edition of who we are and what we are becoming. As a family we don't get together nearly enough--does anyone else relate?

So we were enjoying a rare moment. Days, months, years from now it won't matter that we ate Mexican food, that we sat at two outdoor patio tables, or that Mr. Fun picked-up the tab. It will matter that we all paused for a brief 90 minutes to celebrate that we are family. Because we've blipped the moment, we can revisit it again and again to gaze at this memory . . . out there in the future it may be sobering or it may be intoxicating: it will be "time preserved."

I wrote in yesterday's blip that we can't save time (like we can money), but today I'd like to revise that to say that we can preserve it.

It's not quite 6 p.m. here on the West Coast of America. Here's to a great rest of the evening and a fabulous second week of March for the Blip family.

Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol