Shhhh.....

It's been a bit since I shared a landmine. Do not take that to mean that I've ceased to run across them; the busyness of the last few weeks has meant less time to feel the weight of them, to allow myself to fall fully into the gift they inevitably bring, and certainly, to write about them when they happen.

But here I am on a quiet Sunday morning. We will be getting our granddaughter in a little bit for the day, something we've not had an opportunity to do for too long, and we've an afternoon of just soaking her up planned. We aren't even heading to church today -- she has a mild viral infection to which we don't wish to expose other people's children.

So, I'm here at my computer. I opened Spotify, that wonderful, eclectic music sharing site, and typed in the keyword "strings," and just let it find music for me as I continued to work away at the computer here on the things I've not been able to find time for during the rest of an overscheduled week.

I was hardly listening to any of it, at least up to the moment I heard the opening strains of Barber's "Adagio for Strings, Opus 11."  Surely this is one of the loveliest, most evocative pieces of music ever written.

And in my heart, I heard Mama say -- as she always did, when something particularly lovely fell on her ear and we weren't paying due attention -- SHHHHH -- listen to this!  Her face would light up, and she would close her eyes or just get this dreamy look on her face, and nothing would annoy her more than for you not to listen with her just as intently.

Since Mama died, a hundred things have caused me to think "Mama would love this," and then have felt tremendous emptiness because there really isn't anyone else in my life with whom sharing those things would mean anything. This morning, though, it was almost as if she wanted to share something with me.


So, when the first strains of this magnificent piece fell on my ear, I listened to the urging that is so impressed on my psyche that it found a voice I could hear. I stopped everything I was doing, closed my eyes, shhhh'ed, and listened.  The gift of stopping, just for a few moments, and then allowing myself to weep just for missing her, and to weep for the beauty of that -- and for the beauty of the music -- was another precious landmine.