Love Is STILL In The Air

I witnessed the most incredible thing tonight.

I'm here in Utah taking care of my mom who underwent knee replacement surgery 10 days ago.

She is amazing. It's really difficult for her to be the patient. She has been waiting on her 9 children for a thousand years (it seems).

I'm lying on the bed next to her watching TV and she apologizes a hundred times for getting in my way as she turns this way and that way trying to get more comfortable. I unwind the tangled sheets from her legs and laugh and tell her it's easier for me to move around her.

She asks me in a dry cracked voice if I want some tea. I say that I do, and she tells me that she'll get it for me. I laugh imagining her balancing a tea cup on her walker, and tell her that I will get it. While I'm getting myself some tea, I get this brilliant idea to text her and ask her if she would like me to bring her some too. She texts me back and says, "that would be delightful, how about strawberry."

. . . the lessons of charity I have learned from my mother . . .

So earlier in the day, she hobbled--old person style-- to the living room with her walker; rolling the wheels and sliding the tennis balls along.

Dad was in and out of the room nursing is own ailment: shingles-- the news of which bringing Mom to tears just days before.

I was passing time sewing scripture bags at the dining room table.

Suze Orman was on TV deciding some one's financial fate: should a man spend $40,000 on a 10-year anniversary ring for his wife, or not?

Of course we were commenting. Dad asked if Mom would like a $40K ring. Mom scoffed and said Dad wouldn't get her a $100 ring.

{Mom's ring lost it's diamond many, many years ago. It has never been replaced}

Between snips of thread, I yell out, "Dad--you need to get your wife a new ring!"

Dad moseys out of the room as Mom and I continue to chatter about this $40K ring. Dad comes around into the kitchen to ask me about the rings with three diamonds. Oh! I tell him how much

I love those Past Present and Future rings.

Dad gets a far away look in his eye as he repeats, "Past, Present, Future."

The sewing machine is really humming now.

I look up and Dad is kneeling beside Mom.

He asks her if she would like a new ring and pulls out a box.

I jump up and run over there in awe and disbelief.

Dad pulls out this BE U Tiful 3 diamond, platinum, Past, Present, and Future ring!

He had been mighty illusive this morning when I asked him why he needed to go to Salt Lake. Being self absorbed, like I am, I assumed it was to buy my kids something for their birthdays.

It was amazingly, brilliantly baffling. I have never seem him so romantic before!

The timing couldn't have been more coincidental, yet it was as though time and space had aligned for this very moment!

.

It was a beautiful moment. One that I will treasure being a part of always.

Congratulations Mom and Dad on your Love enduring the Past, Present, and Future!