Seasons

The girls have been eagerly peering out their windows each morning, checking to see if there are enough leaves in the yard for a pile. Miss Mouse has said she plans to take Ken's "machine" (it's a push-raker on wheels with a bag attached) and gather "all the leaves in the neighborhood".

Sunny asked me today on our way home from an errand if we could pick up some more milkweed. Understandable, because who could resist trying to recreate this, just one more time:

Sadly, I explained that the time had passed for these moments

And that the raking and crunching of leaves would need to take place of the awe of God's marvelous process of metamorphosis.

It's the changing of a season around here. Within the span of two years,

these little feet don't fit in these boots anymore.....but another little pair of feet do.

This little family has turned into this little family:

And I'm in love with that, and in awe of that, and in terror of how fast these seasons of our lives are flying by.

Many, many years ago, it became apparent that I am not one for whom change comes easily. My parents discovered it first; my poor husband slogged with me through several major life changes that piled up at once a few years ago. Something in me has always rebelled against change and clung tightly to the feeling that it is wrong and frightening and that the unknown is not exciting as much as it is to be feared. I love security and familiarity and comfort. Love those feelings. Perhaps too often I unintentionally worship those feelings.

Last week, we said a final goodbye to the hardest-worked pair of hands in this photo.

Beyond the changing of the weather seasons around here, this is what got me thinking about seasonal changes. Saying our final goodbye to my Grandma, this was the changing of a major life season. As I walked Manly Mouse to sleep in the basement at my Grandma's house, it was hard to believe the "season" of my learning to dance to a Charlie Pride record on my Grandpa Don's feet in that same basement family room is over. The season of making what we called "mud pies" in Grandma's kitchen (they consisted of anything I wanted to grab out of the refrigerator, combined with any spice I chose, combined with an egg and then baked into a pie form) and then waiting for Grandpa to take a taste and compliment my stellar cooking - that season is gone. It's been gone for a long time, of course, but now, with both my Mom's parents relocated permanently to their Heavenly home, now that season of even having grandparents is finished. It was a wonderful season with so many memories.

I didn't share any memories at Grandma's funeral. My sister, my braver, more outgoing sister, did. The girls asked why I hadn't, and all I could explain was that if I once started to share, I'd never have been able to stop (they giggled at the thought of their Mama taking up the entire funeral time with stories of mud pies). Plus, I can write it out a lot better than I can say it, I told them.

My Grandma thought - or portrayed that she did - that I was more perfect than anyone else will ever think I am. No one will ever think - or pretend to think - that I am as perfect as my Grandma thought I was. When it came to decisions in my life on whether to go down one road or another road, it mattered to me to be the person my Grandma thought I was. She knew me well, too (which means I know she knew my imperfections and just refused to dwell on them!). When we were expecting Hope, she asked me about my professional plans after the baby arrived. I gave her - the woman who lived her life focusing on caring for others in her home -  a very educated answer about how important it is for women to be in the working world and model a professional life for their children and how it would make the baby far more well-adjusted to be cared for by a daycare than for me to stay home with the baby - and so on and so forth. She didn't argue with me; she didn't get defensive even though I'd subtly insulted her entire life's work. She just said, "I wonder if you'll still think that when you look into that baby's eyes."  Here I am, ten years later, still staring with wonder into the eyes of my children for whom I happily committed career suicide.*  And she and Grandpa and my Papa - all the grandparents I knew - loved me and my sister. So to be entering now into a season where their love, though it still exists, is removed to a different realm entirely - that's a huge season to be bidding farewell to.

So while I've been reflecting on the ending of the season of grandparents in my life, I've been reflecting, also, on the other seasons that have come and gone. I remember with fondness a season where Mike and I walked Hubert together every night after I got home from grad school and he from work. There was the summer that the girls and I spent many, many days at the splash pad, squealing at the touch of the freezing water on 90 degree days. There was the next summer, expecting Mighty Mouse, reading snuggled together with the girls for hours in our central air conditioned house most afternoons to beat the summer heat.  There was the season of Mike's sabbatical where the girls and I attended almost every library program offered because Daddy was home to have Mighty Mouse during naptime. There was that first season of dance for the girls where I got to spend time with one girl while the other danced, and I and whichever girl was not dancing walked the halls humming tiny-baby-Mighty Mouse to sleep and then quietly enjoying each other's company. There was the season of the daily, morning, jogging stroller runs when I learned to enjoy running more with company to point out flowers and birds to than alone. None of these seasons have been perfect; none without some amount of painful memories to accompany them. But they've all been good. There is love and joy embroidered into the memories of all of these seasons.

Maybe that's what has struck me the most in my reflecting. All these years, as the seasons of my life change, I've been focused on the ache for the season that was. Far too often I've missed the season that is.

Right now, it seems like I'm in the season of chaos. Our trip to my Grandma's funeral was chaotic. It would have been utterly impossible without the wholehearted assistance of my mother-in-law, who rode 840 miles with the five of us, and signed herself on for free as my nanny for three days. Our trip two weeks ago to my sister-in-law's wedding was equally chaotic and would have been equally impossible without the nanny service of my own mama. We've had screaming tantrums in the middle of a mall (and believe me the acoustics in a mall are grrrr-eat!), a toddler jumping down flights of stairs, sleepless nights galore, a gassy baby, cranky schoolgirls, and.... I could go on and on. Or.....I could remember the fun we had on the boat where I got to see my husband perform the ceremony where my sister-in-law married my new brother-in-law, the lump in my throat as I watched my two sweet girls walk down the aisle looking like princess-flower-girls, and the happiness I felt, yet again, getting together with my husband's cousins, who are all just spectacular people raising spectacular children, and the beauty of the pink and white flowers on my Grandma's casket (they were perfect and they were just sparkling in the sunshine), and how special it was to hear other people (who were apparently braver and more outgoing than I) talk about their memories of my Grandma, and how ridiculous it was to have a toddler and schoolgirl in the backseat screaming in pain because they couldn't get the setting sun out of their eyes (which necessitated a quilt being hung across the front window - which I then peeked through to drive....in oil country....), and my mother-in-law's hairstyle in a 45 mph wind on the way home, and bursting into tears when I accidentally called my Mom "honey", just like my Grandma would have accidentally done when Laura and I were both talking to her at once and then Mom joined in.

And, really, if I think of those things, then I know this is not just a season of chaos. It is a season of being crazily in love with tiny, little people who depend on me for just about everything. It is a season of squeezing in a shower on the days I can at the times I can around feedings and changings and math problems and reading lessons and science projects and history stories and dishes and suppers and dishes and dishes and snacks and snacks and snacks (because these tiny people seem to be so very, very hungry all.the.time!).

Someday, no doubt, this season, too, will turn. And in some ways the new season will be easier because there won't be four people so incredibly dependent on me; I can already see that with the girls as they step away in independence more and more. But then that new season will bring changes with it that won't be easy; there's no doubt in that. And I know myself well enough to know I'll somewhat dread the change and will long for this season back.

So for now, I'm watching these leaves fall, reminding myself to cherish the memories of seasons past, to give thanks for them and for the people who made those seasons special, but also reminding myself to ride the wind of the Holy Spirit into the next season, to trust that God who can count each leaf swirling in the wind on this planet is also watching me, carrying me from season to season, encouraging me to share His love and share in His love right in the season that is.


*This statement was not made as an attack or criticism of working mamas. My intent is to show how well my grandmother knew me and somehow could tell that I was being called to be a stay-at-home mom.

Going Home

How often do I say that phrase - going home? I say it to the kids when we've been on a long grocery trip or, less often, out to a big box store. I say it when we're at the park and need to leave, or when we've completed our fourth trip in four days down to the flooring store.

This week, though, that phrase has taken on a heavier meaning. Last week, Mike and I bravely took four children on a 420 mile journey. Being wimps, we split it into two days, but, to our credit, that also gave us a chance to spend a leisurely evening with Mike's Grandma. That was really nice. Our "plan" was to end that evening with a great swim at the hotel, but Mighty Mouse falling and smacking his head on the concrete near the pool put a quick end to that delightful escapade. Manly Mouse thought it was fine thing to be done, though, since he took one look at the pool and burst into tears for the rest of the "fun swimming time". Oy.  The zoo the next day was a by far more popular event. Regardless of the circumstances, though, we were going home.

Maybe it's being a farm girl that makes my roots so very important to me. I'm not sure. In high school I spent evenings out on my parents' steps staring at the stars, petting our dog, pouting about being dateless. Last week I spent evenings out on the deck, staring at the stars, thinking about two friends who really, truly went home, to their final resting place, one early in the week, one later in the week. Against that backdrop, my high school musings seem silly all these years later. All these funerals later. So there I sat, missing my friends, crying for those they left behind, homesick for a time now gone.

It was good to be home. It was good to get back to this home. It was special today to go back to yet another place I got to call home for awhile.

It was hard to leave home on Monday. It was hard to leave that other home behind this afternoon after our visit there. I even went to our actual, physical, former, now-empty house and picked some plums from a tree planted in 2005. It was a good home.

Maybe all these tears that seem to keep dripping are evidence that our home really isn't anywhere around here after all. I know my two friends are both in their eternal home - Heaven - and I don't think they have to feel this homesickness for places and people and times they've loved and lost anymore.

"Perfect submission. All is at rest. I in my Savior am happy and blest. Watching and waiting, looking above, filled with His goodness, lost in His love"....How could one feel homesick when we really are totally filled with His goodness and lost in His love?! Perhaps that's what really going home feels like.