. . . and then my life flashed before my eyes

I'm a little slow to jump on board, but I loved the posts by Emily and Jenna on ". . . and then my life flashed before my eyes" and so, without further ado, or too much thought (it is supposed to be a flash after all), here's my own list:

• doing the Cotten Eyed Joe (with Emily and others) up on stage at the President's Inaugural Ball in front of the entire extended Westmont community
• washing students' feet when I was a Westmont staff member
• nursing Sofia in the middle of the night when she was about a week old and seeing her eyes look into mine for the very first time
• standing by my Dad at 2am when he was on the phone with the hospital who was about to tell us whether my sister had survived a tragic bus accident in Colorado
• running in the rain with Manny one night during college when the power went out and the entire town of Montecito was in total darkness
• dinner at the Nadlers' with the entire Spring Break in the City crew, standing in their driveway with Manny with a huge rush of wind swirling around us. 
• standing in the back of the Fairmont Ballroom on my last night working for Breakthrough, watching Cory Booker invest genuine interest and enthusiastic high fives into our students before receiving a bouquet of flowers from my beloved CEO, Mialisa, on the center stage. 
• wearing the hugest, goofiest grin of my life while my jaw was dropped throughout the entirety of Cirque-du-Soleil, next to my dear friend Charity
• jumping up and down in my driveway in 5th grade when I got a piece of writing published for the first time, and feeling so excited to tell my great-uncle, my pen-pal, who was also a poet
• sobbing on the very very hard floor in our Berkeley apartment after a very long day that bled into the wee hours of the morning of loading up our moving truck the last night we lived there, grieving the separation from a place where we'd started our lives together.
• Manny rolling around on the floor/ground, tickling Sofia, the both of them laughing up a storm

• the candle-light vigil for my sister and the other victims of the bus accident, held in the art gallery where my photo series of crosses was on display
• walking along the beach at Renwali in Sri Lanka before dawn, watching the huge waves of the Indian Ocean crash alongside me
• sitting with a 4th grade client during a time of fear for him, hearing him tell me about how God was bigger than anything he could be afraid of
• K playing with water in the sink at his school
• Manny requesting "our song" during the dinner portion of a Westmont formal, standing up beside our table, and dancing with me while everyone else was still eating
• driving around Houston, windows down, praise music blaring, and singing with my sister at the top of our lungs, while some unsuspecting passenger(s) sat awkwardly in the back seat
• walking across felled trees that served as make-shift-bridges across the water and through the woods at Little Creek Hollow
• tending to my transplanted potted trees I'd grown from seeds on our little front porch in Houston
• climbing up the steps to the graveyard where Van Gogh was buried with my grandparents, passing the church he famously painted, and surveying the fields and view out over the town of Auvers Sur Oise
• walking through the headstones for the tenement yard in Trenchtown with a Rastafarian friend who pointed to all the friends and even the brothers he'd lost in local gang fights
• worshipping around some picnic tables, surrounded by grapefruit orchards in Texas, during a mission trip to Mexico.
• sitting on a couch all alone on my wedding day while everyone else rehearsed, journaling about how perfectly happy I was right at that moment 
• Sofia falling asleep on my shoulder in the plane, during a hard day of travel

• kneeling in the mud, weeding the lavender fields with my dad, in the rain
• getting drive-through for dinner with my cottage-mates, wearing our PJ's and bathrobes, when the rain knocked out our power
• Sofia dancing vigorously to the ABC's with a giant one legged stomp and arm flail

• twirling with Sofia
• sitting on a porch, watching the world go by with Sofia and Manny

photo by: Manny Reyes

. . . and if I think about this any more, it'll be a meditation, not a flash.

Any others have some flashes to share? 

and then my [sister's] life flashed before [her] eyes.

I asked my sister to write out her life flashing before her eyes, and she delivered! You can see this post and other life observations on her blog here. You'll notice that I added a couple extra pictures, and that I picked the ones with my daughter in them. 

The other day, my sister blogged about what she hoped/thought she would see if her life flashed before her eyes, then instructed me to do the same after I commented on it. I'm going to try to do the same now.

- Waiting all day at the hospital for Eiley to be born and then finally getting to hold her.

- My wedding day. I just started to list way too many things from it, so I think I'll put those in another blog.

- That perfect summer day when we went to the beach, rode bikes, got frozen yogurt, and barbecued.
- That random summer night when we tried to pass out sandwiches to homeless people in the Back Bay and got pulled over briefly by a cop because he thought the sandwiches were drug paraphernalia.
- That perfect winter day in Kentucky where we had a snowball fight, drank hot chocolate, watched Faerie Tale theater, and played Scrabble.
- That perfect winter day in Virginia when school was canceled, so Andrew came over for watching HIMYM, kissing, going to the mall, and dinner at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront.
- Andrew and I sitting on the couch at my old apartment and him telling me that he'd had dreams where we were getting married and I was holding our daughter.
- Late night talks with Robyn Boyd (not any specific ones, but there have been so many that I'm sure I'd have a picture of it in my mind).
- Emmy punching me in the stomach when she was 5 and I was 8 because she was mad at Tiffany (this isn't a happy memory, but it's always been so vivid that I'm sure it would come up at the end of my life).
- Experiencing a huge summer storm while camping in Lake Havasu and watching people try to take pictures of the lightning... then watching them realize how it's next to impossible to take pictures of lightning (this was before digital cameras existed).
- Watching one of the counselors and 2 of the little girl campers at Royal Family Kids' Camp dance to "In Your Presence" by Charity Von. 
- I'm sure that I would picture at least one of my fancy birthday dinners with my dad. I think this year will be our 21st year of doing that, so there would be tons of memories to choose from.
- Watching the sunset in Mexico while doing devotions with Andrew.
- Going with Eiley and Emmy to take pictures during Eiley's mini-monthly photo shoots.

- One of those days when Andrew and I go to Busch Gardens and Zaxby's. Those are always wonderful!
- Seeing my dad walk my sister up the aisle and watching Jeff openly weep upon her entrance.
- Vahdan giving me a toast and singing to me on my 28th birthday.
- Going to Haiti with my mom and getting to hold babies at an orphanage there.
- Watching Disneyland fireworks.
- Taking long walks in Newport Beach with various friends.
- Having a HIMYM party on Monday nights at the Canal House and crowding my green couch with a bunch of my favorite people.
- Having a Bachelor/Bachelorette/Bachelor Pad party every Monday with Andrew.
- I'm certain that I would see something random that Emmy had instigated (Scrabble at Downtown Disney, Tabitha's birthday scavenger hunt, various theme parties, etc.).
- The April Fool's Day when my mom almost convinced me that there was an ejector seat in the car or the one where our parents surprised us with a night at the Disneyland Hotel.

That seems to be a lot and I'm sure I wouldn't see all of those things, but it would be great if I did.

and then my life flashed before my eyes.

Last week, my mom and I were pondering what our lives flashing before our eyes would look like. What scenes would appear, what moments would be plucked from our memories. I immediately began listing the happy stuff. I think I'd see:

• Jeff smiling and weeping profusely at the end of the aisle on our wedding day.
• A group of about eight people crowded around a long table in the camp dining hall at midnight, playing a vicious game of Rat Slap.
• Running around with Tabitha in a parking lot in the pouring rain during a hurricane.

• Slow dancing with Jeff next to a waterfall by Disneyland and sharing our first kiss.
• Reading High Fidelity aloud to Zoe and replacing the f-bombs with the word monkey our sophomore year of college.
• Hanging out at Denny's with my sister and our friends from camp and realizing that my sister and I were becoming - gasp - friends.
• Slamming down one perfect kill in volleyball my junior year of high school.
• Singing and dancing with a group of women in Tanzania.

• Mikkele randomly bringing over a cake, insisting that Jeff serve it, then crying laughing as we realized she'd baked in the clock.
• Gazing into Eiley's eyes the minute she was born, while trying not to look at all her gooey yuckiness.
• My parents surprising my sister and I with a night at the Disneyland Hotel when we were very young.
• Eating chicken nuggets and swimming all day when my Grandma would housesit for her friends each summer.
• Watching Derek Fisher sink a game winning 3 pointer with .4 seconds on the clock. I realize this didn't happen to me, but the amount of joy I felt watching that at Lamppost Pizza amongst a bunch of sports bar dudes was immense.
• Dancing the night away with Jeff at his senior year theatre banquet, aware that we were lanky and silly and not caring a whit.

• Tiffany and I playing with a cheap little toy after kid's church one evening and finding it hilarious to yell at it. 
• Making Eiley belly laugh.
• Hearing the distinctive thunk of an arrow hitting the target on the archery range at camp.
• Reverse trick-or-treating with Chad, Mikkele, and Jenna. Specifically, shouting "HALLOWEEN HAPPINESS!" in a terrible old lady voice. 

• My eighth grade Algebra teacher telling me to pack up my bag and go to the office because my parents were there to take me to Disneyland and the subsequent writhing jealousy that emanated from my classmates.
• And, of course, this:

My mom mentioned that it probably wouldn't all be happy memories flooding into one's brain. I agree, but I hope we're wrong.

What would you see?