The Good Ol' Days

There’s a nudging in the heart for the good ol’ days. Those times we spent together as children, when the world was bright and innocent. The memories that remain from those early years have a softer glow about them, like film from an 8mm camera. Grainy at the edges. Yellowed with time. Sweetened with age.

I remember how I used to crawl into my sister’s bed when the night closed in too dark around me. When the dreams haunted me. When monsters threatened to bite. My little feet would creep across the hall and lift me up beside her; hide me beneath her coverlet. There I would fall asleep, dreamless. Safe beside her.
Those were the good ol’ days.

We used to play in that cabin at the edge of our yard. Daddy had built it with boards and shingles the summer I grew in my mother’s belly. We’d imagine ourselves as Mary and Laura Ingles, growing up on the vast prairie of our imaginations. On warm nights I’d have a sleepover in the loft with my closest friend from down the street. We’d prop open the cabin door and watch the stars, talking through the night. Innocence rang out in our bubbling laughter.
Those were the good ol’days.

Christmases around a sparkling tree.
Dinners around a small, laminate kitchen table.
School mornings waiting on the front steps for the bus.
Mommy in her fuzzy slippers with a steaming cup of coffee.
A ditch that imagined itself a grand creek, full of summer adventures for a small child.
A black and white dog playing fetch in the yard.

Those were the good ol’ days.

They were.

But it occurs to me whenever I am watching five little pairs of bare feet traipsing across the yard, on an adventure of their own, that these are the good ol’ days too.
Every time I’ve had the gift of looking down into a newborn baby’s wondering eyes. Or nestled a sleeping toddler into his bed. Or played a game of kickball in the backyard with a small tribe of laughing children. Or kissed the man I love at the end of a full day.

These are the good ol’ days.
The days rich with memory, golden with beauty.

I don’t want to miss a moment. I want to store it all away – precious treasures – for later. I want to look back when I am old in my bed and know that I did not waste a single minute; I did not wish any of it away or long for other days. Though many days the work is hard, and though grief may creep in from time to time, one day I want to look down at wrinkled hands and know that they worked hard, and loved well, and cherished every gift.