Pieces of Me

When my oldest child, a son, was a junior in high school, I unknowingly began a grieving process.  As he moved steadily towards the end of his senior year and, ultimately, leaving home for college, I knew in the deepest part of my mother’s heart, that life would never be the quite same for our family.  The dynamics of our Six, who would soon be Five, would leave a hole in our home that would transcend the empty spot at the dinner table or quiet (and CLEAN) bedroom. 

It seemed that every family vacation was our “last” and small moments of quiet togetherness were savored and tucked away for future treasure keeping.  There is something mysterious and beautiful about the role each family member plays in the family.  Every parent will read this with understanding and add their assent when I speak of one child being away from home for a sleep over or week away at camp.  The family dynamic changes drastically.  You don’t just go through that evening or week blissfully unaware that a family member is missing.  No, the mood is quieter and the banter a little less boisterous.  It just feels different somehow, as if by common consent every family member saves the best laughter and fun for when the missing link returns.

I don’t mean that life is melancholy or depressing when one is gone for a while.  While I miss that person, I also know that their opportunity to experience new things and meet new people is irreplaceable in a kid’s life.  I welcomed those opportunities for my children. 

We used to have chickens on our farm; Rhode Island Red hens and roosters.  I loved hearing the crow of the roosters first thing in the morning and watching mother hens chase after errant chicks, tucking them under their wings to keep them at her side.  I’m a bit like that.  I know my children want to and NEED to spread their wings and fly away, but I’m always happiest when they are all home for a visit.  On such occasions, my husband whispers to me last thing at night, “rest easy, your chicks are all home.”  And I smile, because that is exactly my sentiment.  I trust them when they are away and I trust my loving Heavenly Father to watch over them, but when they are within the safe confines of my roost, I am at most at rest. 

So as Trevor prepared to leave for college in Kansas, I wondered and worried if I had prepared him well enough to leave us.  Sure, he could balance a checkbook and do his own laundry, but would he enter a big, scary world with a solid foundation underneath him to guide him into good decision-making?  You can’t know ahead of time.  It must be proved as he is living out his journey.

And so, as the weeks turned into days, we shopped and packed and I cooked all his favorite meals and I wracked my brain for sage advice and nuggets of Truth he could take with him.  I had never sent a child off on their own before.  Was I doing it right?

The days screamed forward with incredible speed and before I knew it, it was time to say goodbye.  One last hug and one last “I love you” whispered in his ear. I had other children starting school at the same time, so Dad was the appointed chaperon to get him settled in.  As I watched the tail lights of Trevor’s car disappear over the hill, I asked myself again, “what more should I have said?”  The answer to my own question hit me with force.  I had spent the last 18 years of his life pouring my life and limited wisdom into my precious child.  I had done my best as a parent.  There was nothing left to say.  He would either succeed or fail on his own merits now.  He was ready to face life.

Fast forward to present day.  I have lived that same experience twice since then.  Two more sons have traveled great distances to attend out-of-state universities.  My roost has slowly grown still and quiet.  Only my sweet Hannah remains.  My lone daughter and the last of our Living Legacy.  Every parting since that fall day, I have said my goodbyes with the same confidence that I have done my best to prepare my children for Life After Mama.  Trevor has since graduated from college, as has Ryan.  They are each in graduate programs now in different states, and Son #3 attends college in yet another state.  Our family is far-flung and busy.  Our once-enjoyed family vacations and summers together are a thing of the past.  We get together for holidays and short trips home, but the leisure summers together are a faded, treasured memory. 

And then…

God gave me the summer of ’11.  Inexplicably, our lives were interwoven once again for a lengthy stretch that has been the absolute joy of this mama’s heart.  My men came home to work for the summer, live for free, and daily eat roughly their weight in food.

I have loved every minute of it.

Cooking, caring for, and enjoying my family together again has been a gift.  Think about the very best gift you ever received.  I have received many wonderful gifts from my husband and children, but I still have to go with my seventh birthday.  I was given my very own, very brand new, very shiny bicycle.  It was a feast for the eyes.  It was purple and had a white banana seat.  The chain guard had the words, “Miss America” written in groovy font.  I LOVED that bike with all my heart and soul.  I knew beyond doubt when I laid eyes on that beauty that I was the luckiest seven-year-old on the planet.

These last eight weeks have been like my seventh birthday; my soul swells with the sheer joy of togetherness.  My men work late, so timing supper just right is a gamble at best.  But when they do finally arrive, we do not hurry through our meal.  We linger at the table after stomachs are full and talk about anything and everything.  Our nights run late with such a haphazard approach to schedule, but I don’t want to waste one precious moment of this summer.  It is waning so quickly!  I look in disbelief at my calendar and wonder how I can be thinking already about teacher in-service days and that magical first day of school.  It cannot really be time to look backwards and realize summer is nearly gone!

And yet…

I am thankful beyond description for the privilege of having my summer to myself.  What other profession lets you take one quarter of the year off to do whatever you wish?  This teaching gig is unbelievably perfect for me.  I get to work with children (the most honest and transparent creatures on earth), and my job not only gives me days off during the school year, but also gives me the entire summer to renew myself and enjoy family.  I must remind the reader who has never visited my fair state, that warm weather is a luxurious commodity that must have every bit of pleasure sucked from it while it is available.  Fall winds will soon begin to blow and temperatures will drop steadily beginning very SOON.  I have often seen snow in October (yeah, you read it right… OCTOBER!!)

So being able to step away from my job to do just that is intoxicating. I am blissfully, naively, sickeningly content.  I LOVE BEING A TEACHER!  What if I worked year-round?  This amazing, beautiful, perfect summer would have been handed to me, but I would not have enjoyed it with the intensity I have.  Supper would be hurried, and evenings short.

My adult sons will often suggest a night fire in our fire pit.  There is something incredibly mesmerizing about sitting in a circle with a blazing flame in the center.  It relaxes inhibitions and pulls conversation out of people.  We six have lingered around the dying embers unwilling to break the spell of its magic.  When we do finally tear ourselves away and come back into the house smelling of smoke and sticky from S’mores, we are always satisfied that another brick in the wall of Happy Memories has been laid.

And so…

I unwilling glance at the calendar and grudgingly count down the days until this beautiful bubble I am living in bursts.  It is only days, really.  Trevor is off to Grand Forks to take a summer course, Hannah has church youth camp next week, and Ryan must register for dental school in Denver the week after that.  The peaceful coexistence that we have lulled ourselves into is coming to an abrupt halt. 

It is really so wicked of me to whine.  I never thought we would get another entire summer together, just we six.  I had resigned myself to that inevitability. 

And yet, it was handed to me anyhow…

Knowing that this was a fluke of sorts helps me accept that we really will probably never share this experience again.  Internship opportunities, and summer classes, and future relationships will change forever how and when we can come together.  Those things will be wonderful changes in my children's lives.  We will celebrate and cheer each one.

But deep in this mother’s heart, there will be a wellspring of gratitude for one last summer of splendor and a private cherishing of precious memories made.

Thank you, God, for hearing a prayer I didn’t even know I had prayed and answering in perfection. 

The pieces of me that are my children came home for one last perfect summer.

I am blessed beyond measure….

Ode to America

The fourth day of July is just another day in most parts of the world, but in America, it’s a day really unlike any other.  We Americans LOVE Independence Day.  Basically, it is all about eating our food outside and igniting incendiary devices.  We throw enough charcoal and lighter fluid on the grill to power the grid of a mid-sized city, and then we spend the night either blowing things up, or watching others do it. 

I grew up in St. Louis, so finding a spectacular fireworks display was not difficult. Sometimes my family would venture to the Arch downtown and watch the brilliant colors cast over the Mississippi River.  But most of my adult life, I have lived in small, rural towns, and believe it or not, I much prefer the small town display over the million dollar glitzy blitz.  This year was no exception.

Son #3 (Cody) had to work the evening shift at our local truck stop (one of the few employers in our tiny town), so when the relatives were gone and the sun had set, the rest of us headed to nearby Driscoll to see what they had to offer in the KABOOM department.  We had often seen their display from our porch, but had never actually watched their fireworks show in town.  If we took the time to attend a fireworks display at all, we usually threaded our way through the clogged streets of Bismarck to watch colors light up the sky over the capital building.  And Bismarck never failed to disappoint.  For a mid-range sized city, they do a bang-up (pardon the pun) job. 

The 2010 census lists Driscoll’s population at a whopping 82.  Local businesses include a tiny grocery store, a diner, and the obligatory bar.  The public school closed years ago and town kids are now bused to either neighboring Steele or Sterling.  For some odd reason they have managed to hang on to their post office.  Small Town America and Driscoll mean one and the same.

The sun was now fully set and with few streetlights, it was dark along the main drag into town.  We quickly spotted cars parking in a rough cut mowed field and pulled in to claim our parking place.  We had been told that the fireworks would be set off from the spot where the old lumberyard had sat.  Well, that would be just across the road from where we were now.  Didn’t look like much was happening there.  Must be further back, behind Norm’s Groceries.

We pulled out our folding nylon chairs from the back of the Chrysler and started trudging through the prickly prairie grass to find the perfect spot for viewing the display.  Around us others were beginning to do the same and the street dance being held in front of the bar just a block away filled the sultry night with music. 

We wandered across Main Street and found a patch of grass not far from the railroad tracks, but far enough away from the glare of the solitary streetlight so as to not spoil our night vision.

Having located The Spot, we pulled our well-used camping chairs from dusty pouches and snapped them open so that we could lower our well-fed bodies into them.  I heard Hannah pronounce in disgust, “Great.  I got a table instead of chair.”  I scootched over and offered to share mine, but she chose to sit on the ground instead.  Seems we had no sooner settled ourselves in when the first volley went off.  Wow, that was close! 

I tried to peer into the dark distance to discover where the fireworks were actually being shot from and realized with alarm they weren’t more than about 200 yards away.  Holy cow, they were coming in close!  The next one was now raining little burning bits of paper around us as it descended back to earth.  I was focusing on the fire and brimstone rain when round number three was launched.  Incoming!  We were so close that we simultaneously craned our necks all the way back in order to gaze at the spectacle directly above us.  It was beautiful.  It was like sitting under a shimmery shower of crystals.  That is, until more burning paper lost its battle with gravity.  This time a flaming chunk landed in tall grass to our left and started a small brush fire.  Out of nowhere, a posse of boys racing on bikes careened towards the small flame, like Keystone Cops headed to save the day.  Before they could establish their hero status, however, a set of size 12 cowboy boots at the end of a pair Wranglers did the job for them in no time flat. 

We tore our attention away from this excitement to watch another burst of “rockets red glare,” and oohed and ahhhed appreciatively.  This is what we came to see!  The only thing that would have made it any better would be if we had had the good sense to strap a couple of Lazy Boy’s to the top of the van in order to save the strain on our poor necks.  Well, no matter.  We’d just have to work the kinks out later.

The show lasted far longer than we had anticipated and it was very well done.  When the finale arrived with lob after lob of brilliant color and impressive boom, we clapped our thanks, and the street dance paused its rotation of Country Western melodies in order to play the National Anthem.  This was Americana at its finest. 

We stood up and began to fold our chairs back into their dusty wrappings when another burst of color exploded overhead. What?  There’s MORE??  In unison, we sat back down and waited to see what would happen.  Did someone discover an unused canister and decide to give an impromptu encore, or was the show really not over?  To our delight, the bombs kept coming.  THUNK. (Ooohhh).  THUNK, THUNK, THUNK.  (Aaahhhhh).  THUNK, (Beautiful)!!  I don’t know for sure how much longer it lasted, but we felt we had been given a lovely bonus.

As the smoke and sulfur hung heavy in the air and silence reined, we waited a moment to see if it was another fake-out ending, but this time, only silence remained.  The street dance had resumed and couples were dancing close and slow up the block. Our prairie neighbors were trudging back to the dark field where cars sat like black bubbles.  We threw our chairs into the back of the van and pointed the nose for home.  Another perfect birthday bash for the U.S. of A.

I love America.  You wanna’ know why?  Because all that is good and noble is embodied in this great nation.  No matter what the naysayers and pundits spout on the evening cable shows, this nation still ROCKS!  Both sides of the aisle may keep flinging mud at each other and spending money we really don’t have (when I was a kid, an empty bank account meant we ate Campbell’s soup until the next paycheck.  I think our government leaders should give that some thought).  But at our core, I’m just optimistic enough to believe that we are still a united nation.  We are a great and noble nation, even when we take a sucker punch to the gut.  We may stagger a bit, but we will not fall.

So why do I love America?  Because America is resilient.  And I love my country because at the end of the day, we stand together.  We may bicker like school-age siblings in the top echelons of government, and crowds of angry people may protest laws and ideology, but if someone outside our borders comes after us, we link arms and stand side-by-side.  On some level, we know that we live in a place like non other on earth.  We are free and proud and blessed beyond measure.  

On a rainy, overcast day in October of 2002, John and I wandered around Manhattan one year and one month after the incomprehensible terrorists’ attacks on America.  We had one delicious day to ride the train into Union Station and absorb as much touristy stuff as one day could afford.  As we ascended the stairs of that iconic train station, the partitions still carrying the haunting images of missing World Trade Center victims stopped us cold in our tracks.  We pored over posters jockeying for space to blare the faces and information of loved ones that had yet to be accounted for.  Husbands and brothers and girlfriends all tragically unaccounted for. 

By this time the city had been swept clear of its debris and was doing its best to right itself, but one year later, an entire major world city, and indeed, the entire nation, were still trying to make sense of it all.  How could the most advanced civilization on earth have allowed this to happen?  An even more fundamental question hounded us.  How could someone hate us this much? 

As my husband and I waited for our matinee showing of Les Miserable to begin, we worked our way toward Ground Zero to gawk at the gaping hole in the ground where the Twin Towers had stood proudly until that fateful day.  As we got closer to the tip of Manhattan an amazing phenomena began to unfold.  New York City is notoriously busy and noisy (the city that never sleeps), but the closer we got to our morbid destination the more we became aware that noises were becoming muted and voices hushed.  The throngs of people heading in the same direction and for the same purpose as us were aware that we were about to step foot on a burial ground and place of unspeakable horror.  It had a sobering effect on all of us.  Without instruction we were all following some unwritten rule of conduct that directed our behavior. 

John and I had noticed all day that we were surrounded by firefighters in dress uniforms.  Groups of three, or seven, or ten seemed to appear everywhere we went.  What was going on?  As we came closer to our Destination of Death, the sight of hundreds of firefighters joining us in our journey became a story within a story.  I learned later that firefighters from all over the country had chosen that day to gather at the sight of the worst firefighting disaster in American history to honor those comrades fallen in action.  They were meeting later in an auditorium to hold a ceremony honoring those precious lives.  But first, they needed to see for themselves the place that had demanded the lives of their brave brothers.  These men and women, like us, wanted, no NEEDED, to stand close to the place where the Ultimate Sacrifice had taken place for so many just like them.

The massive hole that stood before us was an ugly scar on some of the most prized real estate in the world.  It was fittingly shrouded in job site fencing to protect the buildings and people surrounding it.  But holes in the solid fencing were scattered here and there, enabling a glimpse for our curiosity.  The sheer amount of people coming to see for themselves had caused the city to erect a walkway for safety and for convenience.  We stepped into line with others and waited patiently for our turn to see all that we could from this vantage point.  I looked around as I waited and saw scenes familiar to me from the countless hours I, and the rest of the nation, had spent glued to the television coverage.  I instantly recognized the giant flag painted on the side of the high rise facing the destruction.  St. Peter’s Parish had been eyewitness on that awful day and its roof had even been struck by one of the plane’s landing gear.  The church stood old but undefeated on the corner.  It had become a makeshift memorial of sorts and the lawn and fence were covered with plastic flowers, cards, and pictures of the still missing.  The Port Authority headquarters was likewise covered with memorial paraphernalia. 

I was now acutely aware that it was nearly silent around us.  We were on hollowed ground.  The place where we stood had been sad witness to unspeakable horror and suffering.  Two planes had cast their evil shadow over this very spot and plowed full bore into unsuspecting office employees and business executives, and had forever changed how we all would live our lives.  Thousands died that day, along with Innocence itself.

I want you to know, America, that I believe in you more than ever.  You are still a bright beacon of hope the world over.  So stand proud and stay strong.  The ideals you were founded on are not obsolete.  Freedom from tyranny and the genius of free enterprise are your crowing jewels.  You have an iron core but a soft heart.  I love that about you.  Be true to your roots and heritage. 

Are you perfect?  No. Therefore, where I see a need for change, I will practice my right and responsibility to vote for it.  I will not allow myself to slide into apathy or despair.  No, the future of my country is far too important for that.

So as I sat in a dark field on the fourth day of July, sharing in the celebration of the birth of my nation, I was also aware that a sad anniversary looms just two months from today.  The events of September 11th, 2001 will be commemorated on its tenth anniversary.   As that sorrowful day approaches, I will mourn your pain, America, with as much passion as I just celebrated your birthday.  That day lies burned in my memory.  I will never forget.

We survived that day and we will rise now above our choking debt and shocking unemployment rates and our angry political parties.  We have too much at stake.  We will keep working until we get it right.  We are, after all, still a bastion of hope and light in a confused, dark, and ever-changing world.

I love you, America.

I am proud to be your daughter.