I was on top of my Dad's grain drying facility, wet bin, dry bin, dryer, etc. all connected with ladders and rails and the ultimate jungle gym....
I was there last night with Dad, Mom, Ted and the boys. I immediately got out of the car and headed up the bin. I can't help myself. Dad, Mom and the boys fiddled around in the mud and dirt on the ground while I watch them as I climbed higher and higher. They began to look as small as ants from the top and I started to feel like I was in the perfect seclusion. Ted followed me up. He took more breaks, went a bit slower and headed back down much quicker than I. I went from the top of the dryer over to the ledge and back to the wet bin. I didn't have a camera, I just had my camera phone. My childhood came rushing back. The breeze that was blowing through my hair felt like a time warp back in time to a time where I always seek out for memories of comfort. No one's rear end has been shaped by the lid of a grain bin like mine. The number of sunsets I watched from on top of a grain bin is and will always be a mystery to me. Was it hundreds? Or did those 50+ times feel like double the magnificence?
Last night was so calm and the straight rows of green fields went for miles. I could see so much more than I ever thought you would be able to see from up there. The sun was setting so slow. The boys were wondering why I wasn't coming down, yet they were also making their own memories with their Grandpa and Grandma so I felt no hurry in waiting. I just kept thinking over and over the amazement of the moment. I have always had the ability to cherish what I need to cherish. I remember times when I was glad that ability has always flashed into my mind when it should have.:
When I was 11 years old- almost 12- "Kenny" (now my Dad because he adopted me- he chose me and I was born of his heart) and Mom got married in a beautiful Christmas Eve ceremony- I remember saying to myself- "remember this; cherish this"
When I had my first kiss- I remember saying first- "that was not like what I thought it was going to be...weird"- and then I said "remember this moment; cherish this."
When I our youth group went on our youth group trips to all of those wonderful places and bonded and grew in our faith- I said in my head "remember this always; cherish this."
One school day in the middle of a snow storm school was let out way too late, and Dan gave tons of people rides home in his Skylark. It was like a snowplow at one point with the snow coming up to the windows! As I was laughing I reminded myself to remember and cherish that moment.
When we first went to the mountains of Colorado and skied- I said to myself to "remember this and cherish this".
When I was 16, I was sliding down the gravel road on a sheet of ice in a pure panic with no control of our car, Dan was sitting in the passenger seat. As I looked at him and begged for advice on what to do, he slowly lifted his root beer up to his lips, took a drink, pulled it down, swallowed slowly and then said, "nothing you can do about it now...just ride it out". We came to a stop as we hit the mailbox in front of the house and then shot backwards into the ditch across the road. He laughed, probably called me something I can't write...and in that moment I said to myself during the amazement at my brothers levelheadedness, "remember this; cherish this."
When I laughed so hard with Sarah when we went to the Youth Triennium at Penn State and she recreated our favorite Saturday Night Live characters I remembered to say "cherish this; remember this always."
When I came home, and found out that my boyfriend had been cheating on me, lying to me, being someone that I thought I knew for the last three years of my high school career I grieved for loss for the very first time in my life and I said oddly enough to myself- "you need to remember this and cherish this...you will learn from this."
I became Prom Queen after feeling like an odd duck out all of my school years, and heard my childhood friend, Myah, yell "GO TURTLE!" as they put the crown on my head as I ironically stood next to my first boyfriend, and wonderful friend Jeff. I looked out to see my Grandfather in the crowd holding a rose with a tear in his eye and I said in my head, "Oh I am going to remember this I am going to cherish this!"
When my Grandfather and I drove to college on move-in day in the red F-150 filled with all my things and we stopped to get doughnuts, just as we always had since I was a toddler, I thought with tear filled eyes, "cherish this moment, remember this."
Ted and I ended our first date talking by my car in a parking lot, I said in my head: "remember this, cherish this."
The night Ted proposed at the gazebo covered in lights with music playing in the background: I said in my head: "remember this moment, cherish this."
When Dad and Grandpa gave me away at our perfect wedding, that night Ted and I sat in our hotel room staring at all of the cards and gifts and feeling overwhelmed at all of the moments and people we wanted to remember and cherish forever.
When Grandpa put his arm around Brenda, my cousin, and I on Christmas to tell us how much he loved us, we knew. He said this may be my last Christmas so I want it to be special for Grandma. We told him to be quiet and to stop talking like that. We knew. I remember thinking that night as he excused himself to go lie down, remember this Christmas with him and all of us together, cherish it.
When I was able to be with Grandpa as he grew weaker and cancer took him from us all, I was thankful for every moment I had. Every moment we shared I cherished, I never left without giving him three squeezes on his hand, he did it back. We looked at each other in the eyes and he knew I was saying, "I will always remember you, I will always cherish you."
I held his hand and listened as his heart stopped. As odd as it sounds, I was so glad I was there. If I hadn't been given the chance to see him off to heaven I would have been much worse off than I was. As his pain ended and ours intensified, I breathed all of my air out to almost a suffocating blow, I stood by Darren, my childhood protector and cousin, and remember thinking that I wanted to remember these last moments with Grandpa and I was going to cherish them forever.
In the first moments right after we finally had a healthy and beautiful child after losing our first it was the best moment of my life. I prayed and cried out loud as I held my little baby wookie with his giant crazy eyes all alone in the room, "remember this moment, cherish it forever, nothing could ever be as wonderful as this."
When we got blessed enough to deliver another healthy child two and a half years later we named him after Grandpa Jake, he made it though a terrible storm and for the first time in my life I said to myself, I never want to remember that again, I want to forget that forever. I looked down at Jake and looked into his eyes, "I promise you everything I have done, everything I will do and all I give to you in my life will be because I endured the impossible knowing you would be my reward." In
that moment I was ready to cherish and remember his birth into this word as living proof that God gives his strength when we finally know what it means to be fighting for something. If you have lost it, you know how to pray with all of your soul to not lose it again. If you have fallen, you know how to pray to with all of your soul to not fall again. If we know what we are losing, we know how hard to fight.
I have left out thousands, so many more have made me cherish my moments so much more by habit and learned response.
And tonight, thinking about all of the things that I cherish being beside me, below me and inside me. It surrounded me all on top of this grain bin. All because of a man who chose me to be his daughter. I was able to be up on top of these bins I have never been on top of anything like them, they are simply taller than any regular gain facility I have seen. So there they were..... all those memory makers, Dad, Mom, Ted, Grant and Jake these wonderful grain bins and these spectacular sunsets. Ohhhhh, how I was in heaven and I stopped and thought to myself....
remember this, cherish this.
