"Ah-ha!" she says...

You know, there's a reason why books are filled with those wonderful "Ah-ha!" moments, why we love those moments in the story when a character finally 'gets it'. It's because those same moments happen in our very own lives.

Have you had one of those moments? Of course you have. It may have been just a small thing at the time, then you looked back and realized how monumental it really was. It may have even taken you a bit to see how big that moment was. But you've had them. I know *I* have.

I've had so may of those moments in my life. They haven't always seemed like a big deal, but looking back, I can see how big they were.

Like the last time I saw my mom. She'd walked out of my house and gotten in her car. I stood in my front room, staring out the window, seething with anger and hurt, and a thousand words I wanted to hurl at her back. My tongue was bloody from the force of my teeth, keeping those words inside my body, because you really can't just utter those words to your mother, even if she might deserve them. Then that moment happened. That moment that I will always feel certain was sent by God. The moment that I looked out that window and saw her put her hands on the wheel, and glance up into her mirror. I remember her eyes. And I knew, I just knew, that I couldn't let her drive away without saying a few words. I ran out the front door and into the yard, up to her car door and pulled it open. She came out of the car with fire in her eyes and a battle waiting just beyond her lips, but she said nothing. I put my arms around her and held her tight, and said the words that I knew she had to hear. "I love you, momma." Then I let her go and turned back to my house and went back inside and watched her drive away.

That was my "ah-ha" moment. The moment when everything changed for me. I had so much anger, so much resentment, so much pain, swirling around inside of me. It had been there, building and growing, for so long, so many years. I'd go months sometimes without speaking to her, angry over some slight, imagined or real. Then one of us would pick up the phone and start talking, like we'd been speaking to each other four times a day all along. No apology given, none accepted. Just the silent dance we did with our words. But in that moment, when I walked out my door and pulled her into my arms and held her and whispered those words of love instead of those other words that were on my tongue, in my heart, I crossed a line. I didn't see the line when I crossed it. I didn't see it for almost two days, until I saw the phone fall from my fingers and could still hear the echo of that voice tell me that my momma was gone. I crossed a line and set aside the hurt, the fear, the anger, and just shared the love. And for that moment, for that one single moment, I just loved my momma, without all of the years of everything that had come between us for so long. I set aside all of the disappointments and the rage, and just shared the love. And I felt peace.

That peace lasted me through that first night of her being gone. It lasted me through the second night, while I was driving through Knoxville with a car full of sleeping children, crying because of a song I heard on the radio that I know was played just for me. It sustained me through walking into her house and not hearing her voice. It held me up through her funeral, with so many people that never knew her, never loved her, the same way that I did.

Love can do that. Sharing the love can do that. So can letting of the pain. It wasn't an easy thing to do. But when I did it, and I felt that peace, that simple peace of holding my momma in my arms, it was like hearing my soul say "Ah-ha! This is it. This is what I've been searching for, all these years."

Ah-ha. I've had my moments. Care to share yours?