A Perfect Day
- Time – Late 70s
- Players…Lee (wife)…Kim (daughter)…Traci (daughter)…Buffet (dog…sort of)
We have all had them…right “a perfect day”? But it is hard to pick…and hard to remember. Well while my memory is good it is not good enough to reach back decades and remember just that one day. Instead, I can remember things that made my days very good…excellent even. I can piece those together as if they happened on the same day. Sort of a reverse Groundhog Day.
Morning sunlight, hot coffee and a newspaper. The sound of Kim & Traci bouncing around to get ready for school. How they can skip when only going from one room to another is beyond me…and at this time of the morning. Lee, of course, has been ready for some time and is feeding the rest of us and making sure we all have lunch money and know what needs to happen next in our day. I sit for a minute and wonder if I am the only one who has noticed that young mothers are the most focused people in the world.
The girls wanted a dog and now he is part of the morning chaos. He alternates between chasing one of the “skippers” and begging me for food. I had told them they could have a dog if it were a larger breed I could train and something that would be worthy of the name Prince. What Lee found and brought home was a 20 lb Pekinese…white…and who’s name was Buffet. You don’t ever show your children a playful fluffy dog and expect them to allow you to say no. They amended his name and he was for the next 14 years known as Buffet Prince.
This day we lived in Lake Highlands two blocks from the kids elementary school. Each dry morning they would walk…uphill both ways…and every afternoon would walk the return trip. On more than one occasion Buffet would make the trip with them and they would have to return him to the back yard and leave him yelping as if he would die. On this “Perfect Day” Buffet appeared in the classroom and had to be taken back home after causing quite a scene with all the kids wanting to pet him and him perfectly willing to allow it.
This day being before we started our business…Lee worked at Baylor Hospital and I for an industrial sales company. The schedule was, the girls walked home and Lee showed up an hour later followed by me around 6:00. We would sit and eat together and each recount our day. Some stories were calm while others were louder, funnier and required jumping up to demonstrate the action. These were Buffet’s favorite from his place under the table.
After the table was cleaned and dishes done…we go to the backyard where the trampoline lived. Lee telling them not to bounce for 30 minutes after eating and them exclaiming that was for swimming…followed by hilarious laughter. We would work for an hour or so on a project boat I had sat on blocks in the back yard. An 17′ aluminum V-hull that we took down to bright metal and (as if I knew what I was doing) built back into a magical water skiing, swim platform we would use for about 5 years.
Dusk would bring the fireflies and there would be some chasing and then the suggestion that it was bath time…which was the signal to scatter in all directions to milk just 5 more minutes from this day. But like I said, moms are a focused bunch and we soon found ourselves back inside with wet towels scattered around and very little modesty on display…the telling of stories…asking of questions…the slow dissolving into their nights sleep.
Lee and I sit on the couch and just breath for a bit. Then her focus kicks in and its time for our bedtime rituals and making preparations for tomorrow. In the quiet time just before I fall asleep I wonder what I did to deserve what I have. I realize that I did nothing but that this is God’s grace for my life. And I am grateful.
While I am not prone to worry I do wonder how long will this charmed life last…Now 40 plus years later there are still perfect days. Ones that include my children, grandchildren, sister and friends. Ones that I don’t deserve but still gladly claim. The telling of these days reminds me of the the ending of the musical Camelot…
Don’t let it be forgot That once there was a spot For one brief shining moment that was known As Camelot.
But unlike King Arthur I am not at the end of my perfect days but only the beginning. For as my faith tells me…to be absent from this life is to be firmly in the next.