Cole Cook

You wake up Your husband looks young, the same mustache he used to have over twenty years ago There are voices in the kitchen You sit and listen, you can make out one, two… three, three little voices all the way in the kitchen There is the smell of pancakes in the air, along with some bacon, you are hungry You look down, your hands, so young As soon as you walk into the kitchen little voices all cry out your name “mama, mama!!” Hugs filled the air along with sticky syrup hands, but you do not care By the sink there he stands, your husband Tall, full head of blonde hair, and you cannot help but hug him. His body feels so strong, filled with youth, you take his smell in, and you stand there taking in the warmth, listening to the children arguing over who gets the last piece of bacon, watching their little feet run across the kitchen floor, memorizing everything, because this ordinary so unimportant Saturday is what you wish you could go back to the most And then you wake up, life has gone by, you are old, the house is empty, the children are grown, your body aches And you finally know, you finally understand that at the end of life you will not wish to have had more promotions, to have gone back for one more day of work, to of had more time to clean the house, for one more day of school, for errands, for anything else besides a slow Saturday morning where the air smells like pancakes, and the house is filled with little voices, and you are woken up to the small bodies and the smell of the little heads you love most in the entire world. An extraordinary life is made up of ordinary days. Of a summer breeze, and small hands, of cold cheeks you kiss in the autumn afternoons, of a steady hand that holds yours, of the wonderful miracle that is having everyone you love, all with you under the same roof.