“Good Morning!” my friend sang out when I answered my cell phone. “Want to have a long distance cup of coffee?”
“Sure,” I say.
“Ooooh! Good! I’m sitting here in a lawn chair on the sandy beach. The Gulf air is so warm,” she beamed. “People all around me are playing and swimming. I’m wearing a sweatshirt, though, because I’m a little chilly.”
Hmm. Nice.
“What a coincidence,” I say, without a hint of sarcasm. “We are also at the beach.”
We chit chat for a just a few minutes.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Then my friend returns to the sunshine and her cup of plain, weak black coffee, just how she likes it. I turn back to our frozen beach, longing for the thick, caffeine-jacked coffee awaiting me at home.
Here at our beach, it’s minus 2 degrees with a strong north wind, which cuts through my jacket like a knife and makes my ears pulse. My fingers hurt and my toes are numb, but someone has plowed a rink, and my five year old is learning how to ice skate… And she is smiling. Her too-big boots do a shuffle-shuffle-glide across the frozen lake. Powdery snow blusters away on the wind with every step. Some years the ice is bumpy and pock-marked, but this year it is smooth as glass, reflecting the morning sun like a three-mile diamond.
And I am rich.
Not because I possess this three mile diamond.
Not because someone is on a balmy vacation, and I am not.
But because we are here, skating across the public beach on a winter morning, freezing our extremities off. And we are together.
Because we can say “I love you” and mean it.
“Hey, Small One!” I yell over the icy blasting wind. “Want some hot chocolate?”
I hold her hand as we make our way to shore.
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too.”
And I am rich, indeed.
“Sure,” I say.
“Ooooh! Good! I’m sitting here in a lawn chair on the sandy beach. The Gulf air is so warm,” she beamed. “People all around me are playing and swimming. I’m wearing a sweatshirt, though, because I’m a little chilly.”
Hmm. Nice.
“What a coincidence,” I say, without a hint of sarcasm. “We are also at the beach.”
We chit chat for a just a few minutes.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Then my friend returns to the sunshine and her cup of plain, weak black coffee, just how she likes it. I turn back to our frozen beach, longing for the thick, caffeine-jacked coffee awaiting me at home.
Here at our beach, it’s minus 2 degrees with a strong north wind, which cuts through my jacket like a knife and makes my ears pulse. My fingers hurt and my toes are numb, but someone has plowed a rink, and my five year old is learning how to ice skate… And she is smiling. Her too-big boots do a shuffle-shuffle-glide across the frozen lake. Powdery snow blusters away on the wind with every step. Some years the ice is bumpy and pock-marked, but this year it is smooth as glass, reflecting the morning sun like a three-mile diamond.
And I am rich.
Not because I possess this three mile diamond.
Not because someone is on a balmy vacation, and I am not.
But because we are here, skating across the public beach on a winter morning, freezing our extremities off. And we are together.
Because we can say “I love you” and mean it.
“Hey, Small One!” I yell over the icy blasting wind. “Want some hot chocolate?”
I hold her hand as we make our way to shore.
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too.”
And I am rich, indeed.
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