Five Minute Friday - Beloved

On Fridays around these parts I like to join up with Lisa Jo over at The Gypsy Mama to write.  Not for comments or traffic or anyone else’s agenda. But for pure love of the written word. For joy at the sound of syllables, sentences and paragraphs all strung together by the voice of the speaker.

We love to just write without worrying if it’s just right or not. For five minutes flat.

Here’s how we do it:

1. Write for 5 minutes flat with no editing, tweaking or self critiquing.

2. Link back over at Lisa Jo's and invite others to join in 

3. Go and tell the person who linked up before you what their words meant to you. Every writer longs to feel heard.

OK, are you ready? Give me your best five minutes for the prompt:

Beloved…

START

In my memories, I still smell that sweet, soft, wonderful baby smell.  I still see the chubby little cheeks and the squishy necks.  I remember the warm breath nuzzling next to my skin.  Each baby imprinted in my heart, my mind and my memory.  I can close my eyes and think back to the downy softness of their hair, the luminescence of their skin.   I can hear their soft little mewing as they slowly and sleepily woke up.  

Yes, there were sleepless nights and difficult days.  They grew one minute, one day, one week, one month, one year at a time.  They went from infants, to toddlers, to children, to teens to adults.  Always, always loved.  Always beloved and needed and wanted and cared for.  If I have learned nothing else in all these years, I have learned to embrace the change that I see in them.  So many years have passed, yet I hold each child close in my heart and in my memory.  They are always in my prayers and always in my thoughts.  They are all older now, yet still a very real part of me.  They make their own choices and face their fears and sorrows as well as their joys and triumphs.  The circle of life moves on, in all it's promises and trials.  Through happiness and adversity.  It continues through time.  I see my once sweet babies grow to have children of their own, I watch those beautiful babies grow and look like their parents once did.  I see life continue on in their eyes and a love that never ends shines from their hearts and back into mine.  Beloved, each and everyone in my circle dearly, dearly, beloved.  

STOP