It’s Friday, which means it’s time for another Meet Me At This Moment for Five Minute Friday post! I spend the last hour of Thursday chatting it up with a group of authentic and inspiring Five Minute Friday bloggers on Twitter (#FiveMinuteFriday #fmfparty). One minute past midnight EST Friday, Lisa-Jo Baker gives us a single word prompt and we all write a blog post centered around that word. We write for five minutes, and five minutes only! In the wjords of Lisa, this is “unscripted. unedited. real.” You meet me at this moment in time…my thoughts and opinions, my joys and sorrows, my dilemmas and dreams. And I receive one of the greatest gifts ever…a regular outlet for processing and expressing my thoughts without constantly editing myself. This is my life, my perspective, unfiltered.

The word of the week is WHAT MAMA DID. 

Mama captured moments and put them in place to be treasured.

A lifetime of memories quietly tucked away in books.

Photo albums mama made for each of us. Her days more than busy. Too busy. But mama took time.

The baby days, little feet and piggy tails and buggies and bottles on feet. A golden birthday celebrated in a little white chair. Daddy and mama, and sister came along too.

In the early days, smiles shined brightly on the pages. The girl full of energy and spunk. The girl who didn’t care what anyone thought. She was there with all the grandmas and the grandpas and the special trips made to Disneyland and Disneyworld and all the great mountains and geysers of the states. And brother was born. So tiny in her big elementary arms.

The birthday parties, they passed one by one. Angel cakes with mountains high of frosting. Bear collections and 4-H projects and sweet girl memories with Sara and Claire and Abbey.

And as she grew, mama captured all that too. Grandma played her last piece on the piano, and the girl turned adolescent. Awkward stances turned into tennis matches and prom dances.

And she was growing into herself, she loved to dress up, even then. Some days she was curly, some days she was straight. She had life in her, but did what she was told. Concerts and recitals and musicals a plenty. The days were good and filled to the brim. Graduation in a gym with grandpa and auntie, and sweet buddy Charlie and tear-filled Jamie.

College days were here. Wisdom teeth were pulled, grandma celebrated her last birthday, and this girl-woman got engaged. Graduation and showers and a wedding in two months. A move for school, another two years, and a stadium with thousands marked the end for women who knew how hard they worked to earn that graduate degree.

Time passed, and passed some more. A baptism was on that last page. She had her first, a new chapter. A baptism meant it was time for mama to stop filling the pages. But mama? She continued to mark each day, each memory, each moment in her heart. And although pages were no longer filled by mama, a new mama had been birthed, and she did what mama did. She filled pages with a lifetime of love.

From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.  Ephesians 4:16

Amy