A few years ago I heard a man say, "You don’t recognize a moment until it’s gone.” He then went on to say that it takes a great deal of awareness to be present in the moments that shape our lives…

I woke up Sunday morning at dawn feeling slightly dejected. It was still within the 6 o’clock hour and I had made my way out to the kitchen. The Great Room with its 12-foot ceiling always felt a little colder than the rest of the house, as heat likes to rise.

I went over to the coffee pot to brew some coffee - to realize that my husband had already beat me to it. The drawer where the coffee beans and filters are normally kept was empty, and the countertop was overflowing with its contents. Puzzled, I noticed that there was a soaked towel in the sink, soiled with wet grounds and some loose grounds still on the kitchen floor. It was mostly all cleaned up, but there was undoubtedly a coffee-making mishap that I would learn about later.

I poured what was left from the coffee pot into one of my favorite mugs and sarcastically thought to myself Great! as I realized that there was less than half a cup - with a large percentage of it being grounds.

My normal rhythm is to wake up early - before my family stirs - to spend time in my Bible and prayer. And all winter long, I had been sitting in our Great Room, enjoying the view from our large picture-windows of our frozen, timbered backyard. But this morning I chose to sit at the dining room table - on the opposite side of the house. I slowly sipped on what little bit of coffee I had in my mug - doing my best not to swallow the grounds.

They say that a change of scenery can give you a change of perspective, but my change was rather discouraging. I had full view of two loads of laundry on the table right next to me - the loads that I hadn’t gotten around to folding the day before.

I also noticed that the kitchen sink was overflowing with dirty dishes, not to mention the full dishwasher in need of being unloaded.

Sighing, I turned my gaze back to look out the dining room window. Everything was very much brown and bare - bleak like I felt. Even the bird feeders were empty and I added that to the list of my “to do’s.”

The avocados are brown. Too brown, I thought to myself. And Josiah never got to eat them.

I sighed again.

All five avocados that I had just bought from the grocery store last week were going to have to be tossed. And it wasn’t for the waste of money that I was upset. It was the fact that I had bought them all for my second son who loved them so much. He always requested that I pick up “guacamole” when I hit up the grocery store.

“You mean avocados, sweetheart. Guacamole is the dip, avocados are the vegetable,” I’d tell him.

And now the avocados had turned before Josiah had had the chance to enjoy them. But that wasn’t entirely true. He had asked for them a few days before, but I was in such a hurry to eat a quick lunch with the children so we could get right back to the school room and finish up school. He had asked, and I had said, “No, not now.”

Well, now had turned into later, and I was realizing that later was now too late.

And now I’m throwing them all away, I scolded myself. And for what?! All because I had put a stop to Josiah wanting to make guacamole to go with our pizza… All because I was in such a hurry to get school done so I could switch gears.

I took the last drink of my coffee. Distracted from all the discouragement that seemed to be stacking up against me, I came to my senses when an unfortunate amount of grounds entered my mouth. The gritty taste brought me back to the reality that I needed to get into the shower. I set my mug on the table and sighed again. I’ll get to the laundry maybe later today - if not tomorrow. I’m sure it’ll be waiting for me - as will the dishes and the bird feeders and the avocados that need to be thrown away.

My heart felt heavy and sad.

Walking quietly down the hallway to my bathroom I happened to notice the fingernail polish right inside my daughter’s bedroom door. It felt like the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Oh no! The fingernail polish! We never painted Lydia’s nails like I told her we would! My heart winced.

Lydia, who had just turned eight, had received a new fingernail polish set for her birthday from a friend and had asked to paint her nails the day before.

“I can, Mom! Now that I’m eight I can do a lot of things all by myself,” she had informed me so matter-of-factly. I chuckled and told her that I still wanted to sit with her and watch her do it. I told her that it would have to wait though, because I was tied up with the boys and school.

First the avocados and now the fingernail polish! I chastised myself with.

It could have been the gloomy weather, the early morning, not enough sleep the night before, or even the “cup” of coffee full of grounds…but feeling like I had let both Josiah and Lydia down sucked the “happy” right out of my heart that morning.

I hopped into the shower and quickly got ready for church. My sad accompanied the morning drive and walked with me into our building that day. I did my best to be as present as possible, but I shared with a close friend in the lobby that I just felt a little “lost” and couldn’t quite place it.

That night with a heavy heart I pulled the covers up to my chin and willed for tomorrow to be better. The birds always sing in the morning, I whispered to myself as I closed my tired, teary eyes.

The next morning, I was thankful to be right. The birds were indeed singing, and the way the sunshine peeked through the trees and streamed into my bedroom window lifted my spirits. Blinking my eyes a few times - allowing them to adjust - I spotted something that made my heart swell.

It was a letter M that I had made out of Legos with Titus on Saturday! The same day that I said Josiah couldn’t have his guacamole and Lydia couldn’t paint her nails “all by herself.”

The boys were both set up in the school room, each working on a subject, when I had left the room to switch a load of laundry - the same load that never got folded and awaited me on that early Sunday morning.

I was walking back down the hallway to return to the school room when I heard Titus call for me from his brother’s bedroom. “Mom! Come in here!” he said.

I walked to the end of the hall and peeked my head in the doorway. Titus, my six-year old, was sitting in the corner with several Lego totes opened all around him and was working on a creation.

“Do you want to play Lego’s with me?” he asked in his most sweetest voice.

I walked over to him and responded that I was doing school with the boys and didn’t think that I would have time. I sat down next to him anyway to see what he was building and exclaimed how cool it looked when he showed me. Titus, pouncing on the opportunity that his Mommy was sitting next to him, started handing me pieces. I distractedly started putting them together, not fully realizing that I was doing the very thing that he had invited me to do.

“What are you building, Mommy?” he asked me, peeking out from under his curly, golden-brown hair that hung over his dark brown eyes.

“I think it looks like a letter,” I answered, as I examined what was distractedly taking shape in my hands.

“It looks like the letter M. Are you building M for ‘Mom’?” he wondered.

“I guess I am,” I responded with a small smile. I dug a little more purposefully through the tote of grey pieces for just the right-sized blocks.

“Here, Mommy. Use this one,” Titus said as he handed me the exact Lego I was looking for.

“Thanks, Titus,” I said and continued to build. With a few more pieces I showed Titus what I had made and he smiled.

“It’s M for Mom!”

Right about that time I was beckoned from the school room. One of the boys was ready for me to help them start on their next subject. I told Titus that I had to get back to school but thanked him for asking me to build Legos with him.

Before returning to the school room, I walked into my bedroom to set the letter M on my nightstand.

And that was what I woke up to on that sunny Monday morning - a kind reminder that I was present in that moment. Yes, it was short-lived, but it was a sweet, meaningful few minutes with my youngest. I was present, and I had proof of it.

(To be continued…)