Sad....but joyful

One of the saddest trips you can make is coming back from the airport alone after spending a week with someone who helped formed your heart and continues to be one of the chief encouragers of it. I drove my mom there this morning, and didn't even realize how much she had filled my soul with joy and help until I drove away and just felt bereft. It was such an incredible gift, her week here with us, but of course, it went all too fast. The kids had so much fun with their Grammy, and again my mothers example of truly loving and caring for people was such an inspiration to me. She has a gift for meeting people where they're at, whatever their ages or stages and finding what would bless and help them most. She made crossword puzzles for the kids, complicated ones for George and simpler ones with letters Ian knew for him to fill in. Ian was so proud of himself for doing it. The one for Grace was just suited to her little girly, frilly, tough and silly personality. Then she made a big one for the kids and I to fill out together all about our day together at Callaway Gardens on Wednesday. She pretended to be surprised at the decorations and birthday cake the kids helped me with on Tuesday and acted as if she were being given the moon over the little presents the kids got her and wrapped themselves. She danced to "the Clara music" (Nutcracker) with Grace, wanted to hear all about the boys Lego creations, played in the sandbox with Claire, read story after story, and even wrote a special story for "Princess Grace" about her royal family who lived in the land of Newnan and the Great King of all Who watched over them. She brought books and taught the kids how to draw pictures and made things with them, including collars for the little puppy toys they got from a meal she treated us out to. She bought them special books and toys and treats. She washed and folded and swept and cooked and fixed and helped me, despite my insisting she was on vacation and should be putting her feet up. We played Speed Scrabble and watched movies and exercised together and talked and soaked in the hot tub and drank coffee and looked at pictures and planned for the future. She listened and encouraged and gave me ideas and prayed and helped and just made me feel like a useful, valuable person. Of course she has known me all my life, and anything worthwhile in me is because of her example and instruction and help and continual encouragement to look to the Lord to make all things right. Having lived it herself in much harder circumstances, she was such an encouragement to Nate and I about waiting on the Lord for the job He has for Nathan. "It will come at just the right time, and you'll be ready for it when it does" she said. His (and to a lesser degree, my) stress and discouragement over his job, along with a certain amount of trepidation about the future just seem less insurmountable in the face of joyful hope in the Lord's provision for us. I know my father can hardly do without his dear wife, and after being with her for the week, I miss her so much more now than I did before she came. I can see why he sounded like Eeyore every time she talked to him on the phone. In a purely self centered sense, it was such complete balm to my soul to have her here, with me every minute, completely involved in and validating all the "inconsequential" little patterns and routines that make up my days of childcare and home making and trying to live healthfully. I felt like what I was doing was important and interesting and that I was doing a decent job of it because she was here doing it with me. And now my heart is breaking because she is gone. We are hoping to go up North in the fall, so Lord willing we will see her again in October. Her flight was very early this morning, so she said Goodbye to the kids last night before bed. I fear George was the only one who understood, though, that she wasn't going to be here when they woke up in the morning and I will be joined in my tears of missing her today. She said Goodbye to Nathan last night, and cried some tears of her own, encouraging him to keep his faith in the Lord and His will and path, and that it will be revealed soon. She has a full day of travel ahead of her, with a four hour layover in Philadelphia, then on to Boston where she will take the bus to New Hampshire, where my dad will pick her up, then an hour drive home where she will be greeted by dirty dishes and a full hamper and a cat the size of a compact car who will be put out that she hasn't been picking up his hairballs all week. Then she'll have three church services tomorrow and back to work Monday, where she teaches disabled special education high school students. I can't help but daydream about how wonderful it would be if we could live closer together. My father seems to be brewing again on his "secret invention" (his attitude is "If I told you, I'd have to kill you") and wanting to get that off the ground. Who knows, maybe Nathan getting done with his job would coincide somehow with my dad needing his help for the start of his business. In a perfect world, that would all work out beautifully. Of course, in a perfect world, everyone that I loved I would actually be able to hug every day, and would never have to feel the wrenching in my heart that I do now. It just makes me long for Heaven all that much more after my mother has given me a taste of it for a week.