Through eyes of love, double chins and all.

I love this photo.

You may have missed it in the previous post, or perhaps looked and said to yourself, why on earth has she included this unflattering shot?

It was taken early in the morning, just inside the bedroom door where a cherished purple scarf (a Mother's Day gift from a few years back, given me by my husband) and a burnt orange cashmere one (given me by my friend Jo when her cancer prognosis seemed particularly grim and she was purging possessions) hang near a well thumbed copy of Whitman's Leaves of Grass -- from which a friend read at our wedding, and from which my husband read aloud as I labored at home with our son. Other favorite volumes fill the shelves, seen and unseen. Seen above my husband wears a uniform shirt from a job he lost a few years ago, an event that shifted the foundation of our world, and greatly altered the course of our young family's life; at the time of this loss, our son had celebrated his first birthday mere days before. And I am holding a very hot mug of French roast coffee in a mug (pilfered from mother's home some years back) that curves just right and despite a small chip is the one I reach for most mornings. Details that make up the small stories of our shared life.

The Mister and I are looking particularly puffy, unrested, bleary eyed, lined of face, double chinned.

And yet, as my friend Tracy -- mother to four amazing little boys -- remarked, this is the way our son sees us. With love. With admiration. With great forgiveness for what we might see as flaws.

This is how we are beheld by the four year old angel in our home, from four feet (or so) high.

And that, my friends, is beautiful.



(Speaking of which, please go read about love, learning and loss over here at Beverly's Circle Squared. Her perspective so often speaks to my condition, and I am grateful for her words and outlook from which I myself learn much.)