The chocolate cream of melted vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup. . . I think I enjoyed it more than the ice cream itself. I can taste still. I can see myself scraping off the bottom of a shallow white bowl. A shallow white bowl with yellow flowers printed around the sides. That 70’s yellow style flower print. I don’t know if I knew the bowls were 70’s bowls then, but I can see them now.
Just as I can see myself sitting at that dining room table, late on a summer’s eve – scraping the melted chocolate cream. Sitting in a world I thought would never change. A world I thought would exist forever. Just like I thought she would never change. Just like I believed she would last forever.
We must have exhausted her, us three girls. Full of energy and mischief. But she never showed it. She patiently and lovingly fed us ice cream and chocolate syrup at the end of each summer evening. I can see the room, kitchen light off. Only the dining room light and lamp by her chair illuminating the paneled walls.
We ate ice cream and laughed. We didn’t know we should savor these moments but we devoured them because they consumed us with joy and love. That world I didn’t know would change. That world I didn’t know I’d grow older and miss so much. As a child it seemed as though it had always been and would always be. Sweet moments – sweet as that ice cream treat before bed. Summers spent with my Grandma, sister and cousin.
Now I know nothing stays the same, everything changes. But I don’t know of to stop it, how to savor it, how to embrace it the way I did as a child. The innocent way I did before I knew. The simple way it happened before the years took her to heaven and made our lives so busy we rarely speak.
Some say stop and smell the roses. Maybe I should stop and have some ice cream. Stop and remember the magical world I thought would never change. And be grateful it is a part of me today.
Spiritual Imperfection 