Twilight with Tracy

    On the drive home from a day trip to Missoula, after being with Reed's sister's family, whose loss is so much newer than my own, my thoughts were swirling as I looked out the window at the night sky. Just then God brought to mind the memory of when Tracy and I hitched a ride on a Semitool jet to Phoenix.

    Trace was 14. We must have been doing home school by then or he wouldn't have been able to come with me that January. I redeemed our Marriott points for a hotel room that was only a couple blocks from where the pilot was staying. We weren't going to be there long enough to need a rental car, so that location would make it convenient for him to pick us up when it was time to return to Montana. Tracy brought his skateboard to do tricks in some available parking lot. It was over 60 degrees there and I remember the two of us walking in the bright blue twilight to a Red Lobster near our hotel. There were date palms lining the street and dates lying on the sidewalk. At Red Lobster, our waiter approached from behind Tracy, who had long hair at the time. He asked what we ladies would like tonight before he saw Tracy's face and realized his mistake. I smiled, not being fan of his long, unkempt hair. 

    I don't remember what we ate. That was not important to the atmosphere I was trying to capture. There are times I deliberately try to impress in my mind as if I was making a video. I call them memorized moments--Bavarian themed Leavenworth, WA with Christmas lights and music playing, three year old Brie at Snappy's fish pond, the warm sand and the sound of the ocean on our last trip to Gleneden beach, and others. After we got back to the hotel, I watched Tracy swim in the much-too-cold-for-me outdoor pool. It is a vivid memory, despite the two decades that have passed since then. God's timely gift to steady my thoughts. A treasured time kept safe for me by the One who keeps my treasured son. We should savor our special blue twilights, for we do not know when our nights may come.