“How simple it is to see that we can only be happy now, and there will never be a time when it is not now.” Gerald Jampolsky
Last weekend as I was planting some new strawberry plants in a planter next to some well-established ones, the 8-year-old girl from next door reached out to gently finger the leaves. “I am going to move before these strawberries come” she said a little wistfully but not too sadly.
As I wrote about in the post The Long Good-bye, our neighbors and my daughter’s best friend are moving to a city 1,200 miles away in 3 months. Every time I see the girl, she says something about moving.
“I want to ride bikes to school again before we move.”
“I think we are going to start packing soon.”
“Eighty-seven days until we move.”
I asked my daughter how her friend feels about moving she says disappointed to be leaving but excited to have a bigger house. Watching this happy and social child talk about her family’s plans, I recall that before this move came to be, the farthest forward time I ever heard her mention was dinner that night.
I know leaving now to imagine what the future might be like is pointless. More than that, every time I give in to worry over the specifics of how it might come to be I feel the drain of energy and faith that pulls at me.
But there is nothing like watching a child leave right now to visit some fuzzy future to illustrate the point. I see her eyes get a little unfocused as she tries to imagine what her days will hold in this vision she has no control over. Then she gives an almost imperceptible shake and returns.
This little girl calls my daughter her soul sister and me her soul mother. Trying not to mother too much, I mentioned that we don’t even know if the strawberries will bear fruit this year but there were some inside right then if they wanted to taste the present.
Surprised By Joy 