Remember When...

The annual list.  It begins as scribbled notes on a piece of paper torn carefully from the perforated edges of a spiral notebook.  At the cusp of the new year, we look back at the finished one and write its history.  Like pulling yarn from a skein, we carefully unwind the threads of our past days,  re-rolling them into this paper list. 

"What else?" I ask, and they remember.

"Remember when Benjamin got his first haircut?"  I put ink to paper and rewind to the day that baby wisps drifted to the floor, tuft by tuft. How joy and sorrow swirled together as my scissors snipped away strands of babyhood.

"Remember when Maddie lost her first tooth?"  I think of that March day, when I was eleven weeks pregnant and drowning in morning sickness.  Brian returned to work that day after the winter off, and that day, Maddie wiggled out her first tooth and brought me out of my pity into her delight.

"Remember last winter we had two snow storms in one week?"  "Remember this summer when it hit 100 degrees so many times?"  My pen flies over paper, remembering stretches of days snowed in the house, snowed ...and stretches of days out of the house when the simplest of summer activities was exhausting in the oppressive heat (and seven months pregnant!).

Yes, it begins as scribbles on paper.  The tears and giggles come together. Calendar pages act as cheat sheet when minds ache with the effort of recollection.  We remember the mundane and the fascinating, the good with the bad.

"Remember when Aunt Kati spent the summer away?"  I jot words again, thinking of missing her quiet smile and counting the days to her return..  How when she departed, a babe rested under my skin and when she returned, Alaine was seven days out of my belly.  

"Remember when Owen moved into a booster seat in the car?"  Remember when Gavin and Daddy went to three baseball games?"  "Remember when Aunt Sarah had her baby in Thanksgiving Day?"  "Remember..."

The voices slow and the list feels complete.  I begin to scratch numbers in the margin, organizing and ordering this jumble of dates and thoughts.

"Oh!  Remember when Maddie went to horse camp?"  I squeeze words into a strip of open white space. There is always room for more on the list.

I move to computer, transferring  handwritten scratchings to letters on the screen.  "Anything else?" I ask.  Nothing more.

I push a button and our year prints out in black and white.  A year of God's faithfulness condensed onto one single sheet.  I punch holes, preparing it for a notebook. I remember the holes placed in His hands, allowing us the grace for the past year and more for the coming one. 

Remember.