Time...Pieces

When Joshua and I got married I gave him a watch for a wedding gift. We aren't clock people - we don't like to live by the clock, and it's hard to find one in our home - but it was so handsome on him and looked professional for a sales guy and I liked it. So doggone it, I bought it. On our honeymoon we visited a shop where every item was handmade by local artisans (fancy word alert!), and Joshua bought a fun clock for me - the numbers were all jumbled in a heap at the bottom of the clock and the words at the top stated our feelings about clocks quite appropriately: "Who Cares". Later, we ha-ha'ed at the thought that we gave each other time pieces as wedding gifts.

Fast forward a few years and you'll find us celebrating our anniversary with a long weekend trip to Chicago. Just for fun, Joshua surprised me with a new watch. I hadn't needed one or asked for one; he saw it in a store and thought it was nice and purchased it for me. Sweet husband.

Continue on and notice that I had to stop wearing the aforementioned wristwatch...our newest son was born three months early and we spent a lot of time in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit where visitors were discouraged from wearing watches, bracelets, rings, etc., as they harbor dirt and bacteria. My anniversary gift found a new home in the back of my jewelry box.

Although there are clocks in the NICU, my mind often fell upon thoughts about how slow, yet how fast, time goes by. Sometimes it seemes as if each minute, each hour, would drag by, as I sat and simply stared at Caleb. And then we would stop and realize we'd been living this strange, new life with a preemie for an entire month, then two, then three, then four months... I often remark that I've never stared more at a person's face than I have stared at Caleb. Just looking. Watching. Waiting. Time was a new sort of friend and enemy all in one. Meanwhile the rest of the world just kept moving on, bustling about without us, while we stood stuck still, like one of those cool photographs you see where the photographer has skillfully left the shutter open and the focused object appears to be frozen in time while the rest of the picture is swirling about.

Now I find myself married to Joshua for almost eight years, with beautiful boys Isaiah and Caleb, and living the preemie parent life for days shy of a year. Last weekend I had a special Mother's Day. I got roses and breakfast in bed and cards and lovely gifts...and a new watch from my three guys.

I told Joshua last night about my thoughts on the timepieces in our life together. He chuckled and said he didn't even think of the symbolism when he bought this newest watch. He said he saw it at the store and thought it was pretty for me and that my old one must have been falling apart or something. No, it was just stuck in the drawer. Standing still, waiting patiently to move again.

So now I wear my new watch with thankfulness and a positive outlook, hope, for our future. I remind myself when I look at it that we are not stuck, standing still, any longer. We are free to enjoy each and every minute of the blessed days we are given. I will try my best.
-Jennie