"The Perfect Day"

I hope you all had a great Independence Day.  I'm proud to live in America where such things are celebrated! 

My husband and I went to visit our son in La Crosse, Wisconsin and took in a baseball game where he works for the team, and also got in on the Riverfest which was on the banks of the Mississippi River.  The temperature was in the low 80's, and it was a perfect day.  It seemed all around me people were having fun for the day.  Families, and singles and couples were enjoying the festivities and games and it seemed for a day that we all forgot about our problems.

My husband walked slowly with me and opened car doors and retrieved drinks when I needed to sit.  My son had tickets waiting for us for the best seats in the stadium, and his beautiful, pleasant girlfriend sat beside us with a golden halo of being in love encircling her.  To make the day even more perfect, the team we came to watch won and the crowd was delirious. 

I have to admit that I've learned some good lessons from having Fibromyalgia.  I've learned to enjoy the smallest of pleasantries, and the simple acts of kindness from people who really care.  I've learned that when God gives me a perfect day, I need to take advantage of it because the weather affects me in extreme heat and cold.  When I can walk slow instead of being rushed, I can see the little things and take beautiful pictures so that I can retain these memories on the not-so-perfect days.  I've learned to be grateful that I am able to sit through an entire baseball game because my compassionate son thought ahead to get seats with backs on rather than regular bleachers. 

I watched a little girl on a giant bouncy thing that looked like a combination swing and catapult.  She simply gave up any fear and made herself go as high as she possibly could.  I took pictures as she went higher than the treetops, her long hair loosely going wherever, and her body adjusting to the swing.  I knew I was physically too far for this experience, but I pretended just for a moment it was me, unafraid, not stiffly protective, trusting in things I never would as an adult.  Though this little girl will never know what she did for me, I thank God for the flight of this little angel.

Then I saw two older girls-maybe sisters, maybe cousins, or best friends-ignoring the unspoken rules of proper adults, and jumped into the large water fountain.  They started out holding their pant legs up, and then just laughed and gave up as if they had found their own private swimming pool.  As the water exploded up like a volcano, they positioned themselves under the liquid lava so it was like a natural shower, washing their hair and bodies with delightful, gentle force.  Again, I thought of myself, maybe with my own sisters, forgetting that in our family we would never do such a thing, but just for the moment, maybe we wouldn't have to be so perfect. 

It's true, you can't go back to your childhood and do things differently, but we probably wouldn't realize it when we were kids anyway.  We had a different kind of fun when I was a kid, a little more isolated, but we found it where we could.  I do believe everything has it's reasons, and that God has a perfect purpose for each of us, no matter how we are raised or what our life is like today. 

Today, I go back to my life, back to the reality of normal stuff, but I will smile every time I think of that perfect day.  Was it just a dream?  No, I have pictures!  Thank you God for angels we encounter, and the silent love that surrounds us.

'The greatness of a man's power is in the measure of his surrender.'   William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army,