When the fall light hits the front door window just right, I can see his little handprints shining through.
It’s October now, and it seems like it was just a blink backwards to the July long weekend when my little grandson was here to visit with his darling baby sister and parents. The most glorious week of exhausting family fun and adventures, as we made the most of all our moments together. Then, they made the long drive home after our tearful goodbyes.
On this crisp fall day I can also look out the front window from my office and I see more little fingerprints reflecting in the auburn-tinted sunshine from my sweet granddaughter, who lived here all summer with her parents while they waited for their new home to be ready. Two of the loudest and loveliest months. Then, they made the short drive down the mountain, and still my eyes welled with tears.
It’s quiet here again.
But the fingerprints.
I can’t let them go.
I used to be a Windex ninja, going after all the smudges and smears, complaining under my breath that everyone had sticky hands and needed to wash up. “All I do is clean up after you,” is what I know I said more than once during those peak childhood (and teenage) years.
Wishing that everything would all stay in place, and that I could gain control over the chaos.
Now we sit here alone most evenings, the two of us at our long family table, yearning for the next time all the seats are filled, and I glance over at those windows at least a couple of times a week and I see those little fingerprints still there. I will clean them, probably soon since fall is officially here and I don’t want them frozen onto the windows like ancient relics. But all summer I couldn’t bear to wipe them away, my over-sentimental self not wanting to erase those moments, as if DNA stuck on glass would make them last forever.
Our favourite little guy running to the front door to greet whoever was coming home with his juicy, half-eaten apple.
Turning my chair around, hearing our sweet baby girl tapping on the window with drooly fingers, squealing to get my attention as I worked in my office.
It’s quiet here again.
I like it.
And I don’t.
Everything looks perfect, in its place. You could drop in anytime these days and I’m ready for you. I won’t hide if the doorbell rings. The dishes are done, the floors are clean, and my anti-clutter self feels pretty satisfied when I walk out each morning and survey the spotless surfaces.
But then I see those fingerprints, and all I want is the chaos back—this year’s and all the years before.
But I know life moves forward, not backward, so I hold the joy of the present with the memories of the past like a delicate little string with me in the middle clinging on. Realizing that the fingerprints and crumbs and mess that tested patience and often stole joy now evoke a silent wish for it all to come back again. Sometimes we think the best days are ahead without realizing even in the imperfection that they are ever-present.
I do love now.
I still miss then.
I will live in that tension forever, I think.
And the future, will always welcome, little fingerprints on the walls.