Time For Hydrangeas

     It had been such a busy day.  After school I  ushered my little tribe outside for some much needed play time.  The oldest saw me raking up the leaves that peppered our lawn.  He asked if he could help, knowing he was saving his allowance for a special toy.  He worked diligently raking the leaves into a plush pile of red, gold, and brown.  When the pile was to his liking he would run and jump in them with an eruption of toothless giggles.
     Soon it was time to leave for soccer practice and I began issuing orders to my three sons.  “Get your shin guards on”, “Go use the potty”, “Where’s your sweatshirt?”  As he went to fulfill his mission, my oldest son stood up to grasp the hydrangea tree that was blooming in our yard just beyond where he had been raking moments earlier.  He marveled at the beautiful rosy blooms, when all around him everything else was dying and slipping into winter’s long sleep.  I urged him to hurry—the clock ever present upon my wrist.
     In a flurry of activity we set out to leave—water bottles packed, toys to occupy the little one, mail to read while I waited at the field.  The flurry did not stop when practice was over—bath time, supper time, homework time, story time…time…time..time.  It always seems so short.
     Later that night, everyone was tucked in soundly.  They were all clean and fed.  Backpacks all set for the coming day. Lunches packed and awaiting the morning rush.  Dinner dishes were being washed with the low hum of the dishwasher drumming away in the background. As I collapsed in a heap on my bed to read I wondered if when the busy flurry of raising children is over if I will miss it.  I wondered if I would have the energy to do this again tomorrow.  I wondered at what opportunities I had missed, what things I should have done differently, what my kids would remember about their childhood.
     As my glance moved upward I noticed a new addition to the room.  Upon the windowsill, stood a large plastic tumbler, nearly brimming with water.  Floating on the top were a few hydrangeas—rosy blooms—a reminder of the splendor that remains when all the impatient flowers in the yard have long since withered.  Sometime between, “Where’s your sweatshirt?”  And “Put your shin guards on!”  my eldest son had thought of me.  He had picked me some flowers, carefully preserved them, climbed upon the counter like a monkey to get the tumbler, filled it with water and snuck it into my bedroom upon my windowsill.
     I sat there in amazement, and in deep gratitude.  In the midst of the whirlwind, my oldest son reminded me to stop and treasure the flowers.  I walked into his bedroom to hug him and thank him—but there he was, exhausted—sleeping, with the face of an angel.
     It’s been 2 days now, and that big plastic tumbler still sits on my windowsill.  The hydrangeas have slumped a bit in their generous bog.  But, the mere sight of them fills me with joy—and when I walk by them I’m reminded not to let the clock around my wrist keep me from missing the hydrangeas on my sill.