At First Light

The sun rises each day.  An intense beam of light spreads warmth and color onto the somber landscape.  Birds awaken as they chatter "hey, it's morning, wake up, wake up!"   Did I ever really notice before?  I can't recall the last time I had taken pause long enough to truly appreciate. 
 
Maybe on occasion I'd snap a few pictures especially if the hues were vibrant...or if the light folded in casting shadows "just so" throughout the great forest of life.  In that moment of awareness I might have brushed on a deeper gratitude at being connected...or maybe not.  Often I am content sleeping in, surrendering to the exhaustion from navigating a hectic schedule the day before.  My emotions are softened by the dream of an alternate reality.  Sometimes the pleasantness keeps me away longer than it should and I push snooze until the lettering on the button is unreadable.
 
...but then the eye doctor informs me that I'm losing my vision and in that moment I realize how magnificent the sunrise is each morning.  I think about how many times I missed seeing what was right before me all along.  Such a reckoning is how I feel this week.  Last Thursday, my mom suffered a small stroke and it has been a very emotional up-down-all around experience.
 
Mom is rather fortunate that the stroke was "small" and that she maintains a razor sharp memory...that she still recognizes us with an awareness to the present.  Her speech, however, has been effected.  There is a slur and her vocal pace has gone from speeding down the expressway to using the local lanes with flashers on while traveling in the far right lane.
 
My mother has been my blog-person ever since I began this endeavor.  She has always been tremendously supportive of my writing and still treasures my first book.  I wrote "The Magic Cat" when I was in the second grade.  Mom has even complimented me on the primitive illustrations with a fondness that only a doting mother is known to have.   
 
Mom would lug out her memory box every once in a while during our visit.  "Remember when..." she had often said. 
 
Now so as to engage her in speaking, I am on the "remember when" side of our conversations.  "Yes," she says, "I do..." and then she does her absolute best to form words and sentences with a remarkable line drawn from past to present.
 
The sunrise is there, it always has been...but I perceive it in greater detail now and with a whole new level of appreciation.  There is a conscious effort to see and carry each moment of the experience as a remarkable gift for it is...in the now with my mom a week after her stroke. 

~Trixie Archer