Family Moab

Family Moab
In Arches National Park

Monday, November 4, 2013

Mama Love

"You can take no credit for beauty at sixteen.  But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be your soul's own doing.  ~Marie Stopes"

Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty - they merely move it from their faces into their hearts.  ~Martin Buxbaum

Everywhere we went on vacation we were surrounded by families. Families from England, for the most part; it seemed as if all of England primary was on fall break in Florida. Also families from Spain, South America, and other states; young children teased their cousins, teenagers flirted with boyfriends or girlfriends, grandparents pushed strollers and held hands. All ages and stages of life were represented, and I noticed something. First, I am definitely getting older. Rob and I are now middle-aged and there is no getting around the wrinkles, gray hairs, and slightly more rounded profiles that go with it. Second, I can't possibly foresee the day I will bring a boyfriend or girlfriend on a family vacation. Third, that connection and love between families and friends that makes a mama or a papa beautiful.

The paunchy Englishman with a receding hairline who held his daughter in the dolphin pool? He simply glowed with good looks as he gave up his dolphin ride to stay with the little girl, who seemed petrified of the whole dolphin experience. The rounded English lady with pink lipstick who stood in line next to her excited girls and listened patiently and happily to their endless questions? A true beauty. The grandfather patiently holding a screaming baby (one of twins) in the airport as new parents got all of their paraphernalia together? He looked like Clark Gable.

People always say that personality makes one attractive, or not, but it's a truism that can be hard to really believe. Just like the expression that "days take forever (with young children) but the years fly by."  I absolutely did not believe that the years would get up off the ground and fly anywhere . . . until suddenly my guitar teacher is playing "Shady Grove" at my last lesson and I started to cry because Aden and William had that song on their "Music Together" CD, which was tedious at the time but in hindsight so precious and fleeting. I see that my elders were right about years flying, and they are right about affection and love creating beauty. I should worry less about my sun spots and thin hair than about my demeanor with Daniel, less about maintaining a certain size and more about expanding the size of my heart and the scope of my patience. I could always spout that statement at you, but I'm finally believing it.

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