The Best Days of Your Life

OK… think.

And you won’t even have to think too hard.

In fact, don’t think hard at all.

Just tell me some of the best moments of your life…

And I’m gonna bet a couple of things.

First you will remember big events. Weddings, Births, Graduations, Funerals. Those are important, of course. But do they really make your heart sing? Upon closer inspection… maybe not.

For me, yesterday was one of the best days of my life. And the amazing thing is that I knew it even while it was happening. In this life, short as it is, that is progress I’m proud of. Check yesterday’s post for the Fun Fun Family Day at My House. It really was special (and ordinary) enough to go in the top ten memories of my entire life.

The whole family sat out in the yard with the kids playing, the older ones chatting and loads of food groaning on the tables nearby. The littlest ones may never remember it all. But I will treasure it always. The most fabulous thing in the world is that it was an ordinary day that exemplifies your life as you know it.

So here we sat… shoes kicked off… moving our tables and chairs into the shade as the sun shifted… while the littlest girls ran willy-nilly all over the yard. They are our future, you know.

So they chased each other, ran under the trees and occasionally just fell to the ground in delight. Then someone would shout “Everybody HIDE!!!” And off the little girls would go.

Do I have to remind you what it is like to be 5 years old and under? I think not. So that’s where the fun starts… Little ones think if they aren’t looking right at you – you can’t see them! And when you actually see them doing it, you remember that time long ago when you did the very same thing!

The 5 year old ran into the trees. She knew she needed shelter.

The 3 year old found a dip in the yard and laid down in it. We could see her but she felt totally underground so it was a perfect hiding place.

The littlest one went on the far side of a big flower pot and crouched low. She shut her eyes just to be sure no one would be looking.

AJ and Josey, the older grands, went on the search for them. Naturally they knew the game and respected how each little girl had hid. They were kind enough to call ahead and say they couldn’t see them. All of us adults were laughing like crazy as the game played out.

Honestly, what is more fun than a day like that? You’ve got a group of special loved ones gathered together, everyone is just hanging out and it’s a most extraordinary ordinary day. Exactly what I love the most! It’s the kind of day a soldier thinks of when he’s far from home. Or a child who has rebelled and wants that family contact once again. It’s the very thing that was so ordinary you barely noticed when it happened – and now it is the most important thing in the world. Diamonds and rubies can’t buy it – you just had to be there. And we all have been if we think back…

And you know what made me realize that? An old article in Reader’s Digest originally published in 1949. It’s called “The Day We Flew the Kites” and I’m going to reprint it for you here. It takes just a few minutes to read and it says it all.

The Day We Flew the Kites

by Frances Fowler

“String!” shouted Brother, bursting into the kitchen. “We need lots more string.”

It was Saturday. As always, it was a busy one, for “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work” was taken seriously then. Outside, Father and Mr. Patrick next door were doing chores.

Inside the two houses, Mother and Mrs. Patrick were engaged in spring cleaning. Such a windy March day was ideal for “turning out” clothes closets. Already woolens flapped on backyard clotheslines.

Somehow the boys had slipped away to the back lot with their kites. Now, even at the risk of having Brother impounded to beat carpets, they had sent him for more string. Apparently there was no limit to the heights to which kites would soar today.

My mother looked out the window. They sky was piercingly blue: the breeze fresh and exciting. Up in all that blueness sailed puffy billows of clouds. It had been a long, hard winter, but today was Spring.

Mother looked at the sitting room, its furniture disordered for a Spartan sweeping. Again her eyes wavered toward the window. “Come on, girls! Let’s take string to the boys and watch them fly the kites a minute.” On the way we met Mrs. Patrick, laughing guiltily, escorted by her girls.

There never was such a day for flying kites! God doesn’t make two such days in a century. We played all our fresh twine into the boys’ kites and still they soared. We could hardly distinguish the tiny, orange-colored specks. Now and then we slowly reeled it on in, finally bringing it dipping and tugging to earth, for the sheer joy of sending it up again. What a thrill to run with them, to the right, to the left, and see our poor, earth-bound movements reflected minutes later in the majestic sky-dance of the kites! We wrote wishes on slips of paper and slipped them over the string. Slowly, irresistibly, they climbed up until they reached the kites. Surely all such wishes would be granted!

Even our fathers dropped hoe and hammer and joined us. Our mothers took their turn, laughing like school girls. Their hair blew out of their pompadours and curled loose about their cheeks; their gingham aprons whipped about their legs. Mingled with our fun was something akin to awe. The grown-ups were really playing with us! Once I looked at Mother and thought she looked actually pretty. And her over forty!

We never knew where the hours went on that hilltop day. There were no hours, just a golden breezy Now. I think we were all a little beyond ourselves. Parents forgot their duty and their dignity; children forgot their combativeness and small spites. “Perhaps it’s like this in the Kingdom of Heaven,” I thought confusedly.

It was growing dark before, drunk with sun and air, we all stumbled sleepily back to the houses. I suppose we had some sort of supper. I suppose there must have been a surface tidying-up, for the house on Sunday looked decorous enough.

The strange thing was, we didn’t mention that day afterward. I felt a little embarrassed, Surely none of the others had thrilled to it as deeply as I. I locked the memory up in that deepest part of me where we keep “the things that cannot be and yet are.”

The years went on, then one day I was scurrying about my own kitchen in a city apartment, trying to get some work out of the way while my three-year-old insistently cried her desire to “go park and see ducks.”

“I can’t go!,” I said. “I have this and this to do and when I’m through I’ll be too tired to walk that far.”

My mother, who was visiting us, looked up from the peas she was shelling. “It’s a wonderful day,” she offered; “really warm, yet there’s a fine, fresh breeze. It reminds me of that day we flew the kites.”

I stopped in my dash between stove and sink. The locked door flew open, and with it a gush of memories. I pulled off my apron. “Come on,” I told my little girl. “You’re right, it’s too good a day to miss.”

Another decade passed. We were in the aftermath of a great war. All evening we had been asking our returned soldier, the youngest Patrick boy, about his experiences as a prisoner of war. He had talked freely, but now for a long time he had been silent. What was he thinking of–what dark and dreadful things?

“Say!” A smile twitched his lips. “Do you remember… no, of course you wouldn’t. It probably didn’t make the impression on you it did on me.”

I hardly dared speak. “Remember what?”

“I used to think of that day a lot in PW camp, when things weren’t too good. Do you remember the day we flew the kites?”

Winter came, and the sad duty of a call of condolence on Mrs. Patrick, recently widowed. I dreaded the call. I couldn’t imagine how Mrs. Patrick would face life alone.

We talked a little of my family and her grandchildren and the changes in the town. Then she was silent, looking down at her lap. I cleared my throat. Now I must say something about her loss, and she would begin to cry.

When she looked up, Mrs. Patrick was smiling. “I was just sitting here thinking,” she said. “Henry had such fun that day. Frances, do you remember the day we flew the kites?”

by Frances Fowler
Copyright 1949 by the Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.

I originally read this article many years ago and was touched by the beauty and simplicity of it. And I wasn’t nearly the age I am now. I am not ancient by any means, but I’m sure getting old enough to be aware of my own mortality. I know when one of those very special days comes along. I treasure them and store them up in my memory bank for later because who can know what will happen as we go along the older path of life? I want every fond memory at my beck and call and yesterday was a treasure trove of them.

By the way…

I usually put a link to these sketch blog posts on FaceBook so my friends and family will see them and read them. And all my contacts are kind enough to make a FB comment or two along the way. But this time… if you will humor me, please comment right here on the blog. (And if you want to “follow” me, there is a link on the right side of the blog here – which just means you will get an email whenever I make a new post.) What are your favorite memories?

We all really need to know. It is our gold mine to draw on when we have little else left. I know what mine are… do you? Tell me now!!!

 

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