This is Deputy Digby Pancake.  Hours and days and weeks and months can go by without even blinking an eye, it seems like.  Then a year goes by, or two.  And you wonder where it went.  Like when I look at that plate of pancakes that was right in front of me two minutes before.  Then, where did it go?

 

When we first got here to the beach in Florida at the end of January, it was so exciting.  We didn’t know how long we were going to be here, so every night, Girl Person would pick up a shell to remember every single day that we spent on the beach.  It might be a colorful shell, or just a white shell, or a gray shell, a big shell or a little shell.  But every shell on every day was different and special.  And the days kept going by.  And our collection of shells grew.  Oh, it’s a pretty collection.

But lately, I noticed that Girl Person would forget to pick up a shell.  I saw that she no longer was looking for shells as much because she was thinking too much.  She was thinking about life and worries and where we were going to go after this.  And I knew that every day she forgot to pick up a shell, she was going to be sorry.  We were taking them for granted.  And not in a good, Amy Grant sort of way.

You see, all of the shells out here were for our enjoyment, and should have been something that we were admiring and appreciating everyday.  And I felt like every shell that I stepped on, or peed on, was just waiting to be picked up.  And we weren’t even giving them that chance.

How many times in your life has something been new and you saw every good thing about it?  How many times has a person been in your life that at first you adored, but then noticed all of their imperfections, and the adoration wore off?  Was it because they changed, or was it because you changed?  Was it because you no longer thought they were important enough to notice their beauty?  For every beat of our heart, we have a chance not to take something or someone for granted.

You see, just like the thousand million and five shells that I have looked at the past few months, there may be a lot of people in our life.  But do we take the time to pick out their good qualities each and every day?  I can’t pick up every shell, I know that.  But I certainly can remember each and every day that we have been here by having the same amount of shells.

Because no matter if we have to leave here, or what we do after this, I say thank you, shells. Thank you for your beauty that each of you holds differently.  Thank you for being a house for who lived inside you for awhile. Because you were our house too.  Our house of peace and reflection and fun. Also, thank you for washing up here on our beach so that we could pick you up.  Just. Thank you.

Remember that we collect something each day that we are alive.  We collect memories that we carry with us all of the rest of the days in our life.  Make them worth picking up.

-Deputy Digby Pancake

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