Remember the windows down and flying down the interstate coastline; hair flying, music on 11, shout-singing your youth to the open road. Remember the freedom and the joy. Remember life, its motion and wonder and how your heart jumped chasing the horizon.
Remember to remember when the morning brings bad news; how grace fills time, every time.
Remember to mark the day when you remembered all the rivers you’ve crossed, the crosses you’ve bore, the mountains you’ve overcome. Remember to build a mound of stones, next to the trail you call life. And remember to write something on your heart, so you never forget, so you always remember.
Remember to celebrate and to do so with vigor. Jump, run, leap into tomorrow.
Remember to grab the hand of your loved ones, your lover, and your loves. Remember to take them along, to lift them up, to make them a part of it all.
But remember your brother, your sister who woke up to the bad news. Remember them in your joy; to tell them how you overcame, about your mound of stones, and how you crossed that river you never thought you could. Remember to include them in the joy, and to sit with them, and pray with them, be quiet with them, and sing with; together, with them, in joy.
Remember to keep quiet your pride and the moments you want to shout to everyone. For silence draws us closer, not farther, to one another and to God, to wisdom and to grace. The quiet gives us room to grow, to let our roots stretch deep. Quiet keeps us — it is the great keeper of our souls.
Remember to work in the quiet, when no one is looking or posting or shouting. Remember that beauty doesn’t blare, it cascades from the quiet places, the wild places, the places that take years to find.
Remember to eat breakfast under a tree.
Remember to eat lunch with a friend.
Remember to leave your phone behind.
Remember how great it feels to ride your bike.
Remember the feeling of pencil rolling across paper.