2011 Retro # 3: Of Saturday Afternoons and Sisters

I wrote this a little more then a  year ago and just never published it...thought I would now! Hope you have a beautiful day!
~AGM

If you had climbed up in one of the tall pine trees that circle around a small, open grassy space, on an unusually beautiful Saturday afternoon here in south Georgia, you would have looked down, over there, and seen that there were two girls on a quilt in the grass, with an odd assortment of things piled around them......a basket of various junk food retrieved from the bread drawer, a thermos of hot water, various teas, a jar of honey, a shotgun, ammunition, journals, pens, camera, blankets, pillows and books. Having arranged themselves thusly, the two could have lived comfortably for several days.


They begin to sip their tea in the planned afternoon of quiet thoughts and contemplation. They talk, then fall silent. Then an outburst of laughter.... the indistinguishable sound that comes from the shuffling or moving of something they're holding or looking at that you can't quite see.

The sky is the brightest of blues, the air has the refreshing nip of early spring, and the little birds are singing out their tiny hearts in beautiful praise to their Creator. As you are looking through the long, spikey clusters of fragrant needles, you see that they are situated on a knoll leading down to what they call a beautiful creek, but what in actuality is really a little trickle (but they love it, so that was all that matters). The cows drink out of it when they are thirsty on a hot Georgia days, and are a ways off from the trough.

They read for a while, and then, as sisters often do, end up holding their books while they talk, and then eventually abandoning them as their conversation continues...One of them fixes herself a cup of hot, steamy tea. She is using her shoe as a cup holder. She takes a picture of her amusing invention, and then one of her sister, reading.

They are talking now. Everything is beautiful...the gentle wind, the bird's song...except, in the midst of the blue sky and perfect weather, they miss their sister, an older one who's just been married, very much. As they sit and enjoy each other, they feel at the same time incomplete and strange. Like they want to jump up, leave their picnic, and run give her a hard hug and tell her they miss her, and that they wish she were here-but at the same time, they don't wish that she were with them, because they're so happy she's happy and married. Ah, she is in a beautiful season. Yet they are, too. Just a different one.

Sometimes you miss her in your home and in your everyday life so very much that all you can do is go to the bathroom and cry real hard for a minute and then laugh at yourself because the thing you're crying over is really the happiest thing in the world. But you do miss her, and feel strange without her.

But they know that, as time goes on, they won't feel strange anymore, and they'll learn how to be two instead of three. Yet that very knowledge of getting used to the new normal puts a lump in your throat sometimes. But, oh, Lord, thank You for such beautiful seasons of being three together. That was really fun. And thank You for this new season. Marth and I are really enjoying it and learning allot of new things. Thank You for helping us to feel better and get used to change. We're not quite there, but we're doing better...thank You...

That's what they talked about, the two girls, huddled on the blanket, talking their hearts out, feeling less strange than they had been. Knowing that we can learn new things and make new memories, and knowing, too, that we can hardly wait to see her again. To all pile on the bed and eat ginger snaps and milk and be so happy to see each other we all start crying, and then, as always, laugh at each other for being so silly...