Delaware Grammy

I am very, very sad.

Today we had Tatters put to sleep.

She’s been a part of our family for ten years.

An absolute mess for most of that time,

But we (at least the females of the household) loved her.

If anyone hears wailing coming from Shawnee Road,

It’s Our Girl Nettie, mourning like I’ve never seen her mourn before.

Would you say a prayer for Nettie? 

She feels like it’s her fault because Tatters started biting her and about a month ago, a bite on her foot got badly infected and she had to have medical care for it and antibiotics.  Although that was the pivotal incident that made us know it was time for Tatters to go, there were many, many other reasons. But all Nettie can think is that it was somehow, mostly her fault.
Nettie’s pain makes me even sadder.

Sunday School in the basement, at Laws Mennonite Church.  An extra kid this morning.  Kaleb — who has been one of my favorite people ever since he was born.  I remember teaching him back when he was in Kindergarten at Vacation Bible School (back in 2006, I think!).

Kaleb is the one in the middle — flanked by two more of the children who made that class not only memorable, but enjoyable.  I REALLY loved these kids!  We had a blast!  He brought life and laughter to our class, and in doing so, he made my job so much easier way back then.  It felt so good to have him in class again this morning.  He has matured, and his life is stretching him away from us.  If plans carry, he and his mom will be moving to Tennessee.  I hate to see it happen.  It feels like our church (and especially our class) needs Kaleb.

 And then we have Sarah.  She feels like one of my own grandkids, to be honest. Her Mama has been a part of a Thursday morning Bible study that met at our house pretty much ever since before Sarah was born.  I love this picture of her — taken a long time ago when the Bible Study Gals took their kids to a park for a picnic.

Okay, all you people that belong to our church family.  Don’t even try to tell me that this is Victoria instead of Sarah!!! Actually, I wouldn’t believe that it was Sarah if it weren’t for the fact that pictures taken that day have the following picture of Daniel (and a picture of that Victoria girlie in an infant seat)!  This really is SARAH!!!  Sarah is my student that knows all the answers, and is able to keep a step ahead of everyone else.  I can’t really do prizes for the one with the most answers right because she has an unfair advantage!!!  I’m about to make her my personal assistant.   She is an incredible asset to our class.  I am so glad to have her there.

And then there’s my little man, Daniel.  He has grown up so much over the last couple of years   He has a chuckle that makes the rest of the class laugh.  We love to hear him laugh.  He usually sits on my left, and when I have something for God to say to Jonah or whatever, it is so nice to lay my hand on his shoulder and get down on his level and say something really deep and serious and have him look first surprised and then break into his infamous laugh.  For some reason, whenever I use him as a story prop, he finds it funny!  I love it that he laughs instead of crying.

  Like he was doing here.  Probably because I was taking his picture.  Back then, getting his picture taken was one of his most unfavorite things to do.  Ah, my Daniel-boy!  He’s another one in my class that I would very much hate to be without.  We need him for the many insightful comments he makes and the quiet way he contributes to the discussions with the unexpected.

And then there is our Emmy-girl.  Emily really is one of those youngsters that belongs to the whole church family.  She loves to help, and she has keen eyes that never miss anything.  This morning in class, she was the first to volunteer to pray.  Her mama was sick, and she was so worried about her.  Her sister and brother in law have a new baby, and her sister has been having a rough time health wise since the baby’s birth.  Emmy worries and worries about the people she loves, and her prayer this morning was a fervent plea that God would help her mom and her sister, and it warmed my heart so much.  Emmy is the fourth one in the class that I have been privileged to know since she was very small, and I am so thankful for her presence in our class.  She is a willing helper and adds a dimension that is reality for this class when it comes to courage and love and acceptance.  Emily knows no strangers and she jumps in with both feet when other people would probably feel a sense of restraint.

Case in point:

There really aren’t very many of us who would take it upon ourselves to push Dave Hertzler around on one of these gizmoes.  We love Dave to death, and appreciate his contributions as part of our church’s Leadership team, but even when I was Emily’s age (at the time of this picture) and he was my highly regarded fifth grade teacher, I can promise you that I wouldn’t have been brave enough to push him down the hall of Greenwood Mennonite School on a “seater scooter” (or whatever it is that you call this thing!)  Emily lives every moment to the fullest, and in that living, she is granted  a whole lot of experiences the rest of us are too reserved to try.

And then there is Bethany. 

Here she is, running a water relay at the church’s fourth of July picnic.

She is the one who is always making me feel like I am doing something really important.  She acts like she thinks I’m a good teacher.  She answers questions, and tries so hard to figure things out.  She wants to give the right answer, and she has a beautiful voice that gets hesitant when she wants so much to answer but isn’t quite sure of herself.  It has been a broken road that has led her to our church family, but she has hope and enthusiasm and a future. She has people who love her, and are making sure that she is safe.   She doesn’t know the Bible stories, and it is fun to tell the old, old stories and see them through the eyes of someone who isn’t dulled by their often telling.  She loves her fellow classmates, and is tender with them.  She was the one who did the “class report” for the congregation this morning without being coerced or begged.  She is willing to try almost anything.  At least once.  And she has a tender heart, even towards people who have wronged her.

This morning we had the second half of the story of Jonah.  We talked about caring for people who have been mean to us.  We talked about how God wants us to treat people who have mistreated us, or people we love.  We had a map of Iraq, and we looked up the city that is closest to the place where Ninevah was.  The lesson plan called for a snack that would have been “Middle Eastern” in nature, and even though I wasn’t sure that the class would be up to it, I decided to at least try.  The teacher’s book promised that if they could make their own snacks, they would be inclined to eat it.  I wondered about that, but plowed ahead.

I bought the flat bread.  I bought raisins.  I thought that maybe it would be better to have them in the little snack packs so everyone would get the same amount.  I had a package of cream cheese, and a honey bear full of honey.  Certain Man looked at my collection a little dubiously, but we got everything packed into the little playmate cooler, and off to church we went. 

When the lesson was winding down, I informed the kids that our snack today was just a little unusual.  They were immediately at attention while I began upacking the cooler.  I explained that they wouldn’t have bread quite like this if they were in the Middle East, and that the cheese would probably be made from goat’s milk, but the raisins and the honey were pretty authentic, and so we got to work.  We took the Pepperidge Farms whole wheat flat bread and cut each round disc in half.  The kids were interested and actually anxious to make this.  They each had a table knife to spread the cheese with, and they slathered the cream cheese on each side of the bread.  Then they drizzled honey over that, and then put raisins on top of that, and put the top layer on.  I tasted my own little sandwich that I had created while I was instructing them and was pleasantly surprised.  It was very, very good!  One by one they finished putting theirs together and began to tentatively taste their unusual snack.  They LOVED it!!!  All of them ate every morsel.  Kaleb went and fetched napkins for us, and I had apple juice to go with it, and they finished up just as the last bell rang.  We made a mad scramble to clean up our mess, but the kids had been exceptionally neat.  In fact, I had a bigger sticky spot than any of them where the honey had run down.  A damp rag from the kitchen and all was clean and back to normal. 

And then it was up the steps and back to the assembly of the Saints.  I listened to some of the reports from the various Sunday School classes, and considered the fact that, even though I miss that adult interaction so very much, the payoff is phenomenal. I’m so enriched by these little people.  And my heart is full.

Days of Joy, Days of Opportunity

One of the wonderful things about being a grammy is that I get to babysit my grandbaby once in a great while.  Today, I got to bring her home from breakfast, and we read stories and had ourselves a grand old time.

We took rides in the wagon, had a shoulder ride out to see Grandpa’s baby chickens.  We went into the garden and got little yellow tomatoes and she ate them as fast as I could give them to her.  We found ground cherries in their little parchment packages, and when I got them out for her, she ate those, too.  I am so surprised at her tastes.  Given the choice between a cherry tomato and a piece of candy, she will almost always choose the fruit. 

I have been thinking a lot about what makes for successful grandparenting, and I have to say that the grandparents I most admire are those who are willing to be inconvenienced for and by their grandchildren.  (The scary part is, I’m old enough to see how those relationships turned out over the long haul, and I am not talking out of my hat!).  The neat thing is that we have the opportunity to be able to be in a relationship with this younger generation, effectual, impacting relationships, even if it is costly.

When Youngest Son was going through probably the most difficult time of his life when it came to matters of faith and practice, he came home from Discipleship training for Thanksgiving (and early Christmas) before leaving on assignment.  My Daddy was ill, (though we didn’t realize that he had less than a month left to live).  My Precious Daddy and My Sweet Mama always joined our family for Christmas Eve supper of Shrimp chowder and so we invited them for what was to be our Christmas eve supper that year in 2005.  We had a memorable evening together, but Daddy wasn’t feeling very well, plus Mama was still recovering from her esophageal cancer, so shortly after our gift exchange, they decided to leave.

Lem followed him out, and they stood together in the laundry room for what would be their last good-bye.  There was a hug–something my daddy was famous for, and then Daddy turned to leave.  At the door, he hesitated, then turned back.  Six words:  “Be a man.  Do what’s right,” he said with his gentle but intense way.  And then he was gone.  It was the last time that Lem saw him alive.  But if you were to ask Lem what has impacted his life for responsible, Godly behavior, those six words will be one of the first things he recounts.

My Daddy bought the right to say that to Lem with nineteen years of consistent, loving interest.  And I will go to my grave thankful for those six words and the man who loved his grandchildren with all the inconvenienced love a man could possibly have, not only in his heart, but in his very life.

For the past two Sundays, I’ve taught the older children’s class at church, and it has been a lot of fun.  I really do enjoy it so much, though I must say that I feel my age quite muchly.  The four children are interesting and I find them participant and eager to please.  They’ve had the best of the best teachers in the years just prior to this, and I have big shoes to fill.

So yesterday morning, we had the old, old story of Jonah, and the teacher’s book suggests that you duck under a blanket to pretend you are in the boat.  I got most of my stuff together that I wanted for the story in the morning before leaving home, but forgot the blanket.  I did think briefly on the way to church that it may have been for the best.  I don’t want things to get too out of hand, here.  I’ve been taking the class to the basement, because there is more room, and I don’t need to be careful about noise or bumps or distractions.  Wouldn’t you know, when I got down there yesterday morning, there was this big blanket all folded up, just waiting to be used. 

I told the kids, “Our story today suggests we duck under a blanket for part of it.  Do you all want to try it?”

Being eager to try anything, they all enthusiastically assented, and I decided to go ahead and give it a try.  So we fetched the blanket and when Jonah got into the boat to go to Tarsish, we threw this blanket over our heads and we were off to the high seas.  Of course, then the storm came up and the kids really got into that, rolling and bouncing in their seats under this blanket, making wind noises and having a good old time. 

What a sight we were, and there wasn’t much protection against dishevelment!  Just about then, Emily remembered that her hair was (probably) getting really messed up and started to make some noises to the effect that it might not look very good to have hair all messed up.  Bethany looked a little thoughtful, but then said that she thought it wouldn’t matter too much, they can fix it after the story was over.  But then Emily looked over and saw that Bethany has this big piece of hair down over her face, and ever the helpful one, she reached over in the middle of all the rocking and rolling to try to push it back and stabbed Bethany smack in the eye. 

Suddenly there was great indignant outcry, and a whole lot of hollering, and Bethany was grabbing her eye and wailing and Emily was all concerned and almost crying herself because she didn’t mean to do it, of course.  My poor boat almost sunk with all my Jonah’s in it!  I finally got the crisis resolved (by then everyone was all out from under the blanket) and thought maybe I would just go on without the props.  Oh, no.  Everyone wanted back under, so up went the blanket again and under it we stayed until we threw Jonah overboard and the storm stopped immediately.  And the blanket got dumped on an unceremonious heap upon the floor.

Whew!  Was I relieved!!!  (It was getting hot under there, anyhow.)

And then I thought about Jonah, in that wild ride in the fish’s stomach.  I might be in for a wild ride myself!  I just hope that instead of my wild ride being “away from God” like Jonah’s was, that it will be a wild ride with Jesus in my boat, that there will be peace in this storm, and that I and all my little Jonahs will come safely home.

But on this day, she made the decision to do as suggested by Eldest Daughter.  It seemed right to, somehow.  So she pulled up to the unusually empty gasoline pumps and waited.  A fresh‑faced young man of Middle Eastern descent came out to pump her gas.  He made no conversation and did not clean her windshield, but dutifully stuck the nozzle into her tank and then disappeared.  The gas totaled up and stopped at $18.78 or some such odd number.  CMW took a twenty dollar bill from her wallet and waited. 

“Mom,” said Eldest Daughter, “aren’t you going to give a tip?” 

“A tip?  No, I’m not going to give a tip.  You don’t tip when you’re buying gasoline.” 

“Yes, Mom.  You need to give a tip.  When it is full service, it is nice if you give a tip.  I think you should.”

Now CMW does not agree with this.  She never has, and still doesn’t.  But it seemed as if the Lord spoke to her heart and said, “No Change, Mary Ann.  Just give the twenty and don’t take change.”  And so she agreed in her heart that she would take no change. 

But the fresh‑faced young attendant was nowhere to be seen.  Turbaned Man walked back and forth in front of his gas station.  He did not swagger.  He walked old and tired.  His shoulders spoke of burdens.  He finally walked over to the car, and topped off the tank at $19.00.  He came up to the window, and his face was guarded. CMW smiled into his bearded, brown face and handed him the twenty. 

“No change.” she said, and began to close the window.  He didn’t understand and began to fumble with his roll of money. 

She smiled her best at him and said again, “No change.  Just keep the change.” and averted her eyes and closed the window and left.

Now Turbaned Man did not dance a jig or swagger.  He did not thank CMW and he did not act grateful.  (It was, after all, just a dollar.)   But the incident has rolled around all day in her heart and she has come to realize something very important in the hours since then. 

It has nothing to do with dollars or tips or even gasoline.  It wasn’t for Turbaned Man that she needed to do this.  It was for her own heart.  To delineate where the allegiance really lies. To clarify what obedience to the Father truly means in (yes!) Slower Lower Delaware.  You see, it is all well and good for us to debate what should be done to the terrorists.  We can argue the abilities of our government to make good decisions or bad decisions.  We have the intelligence to see where given choices might lead us, and to determine whether they are worth the risk or not.  We have the right to chose our opinions and responses to the situation.  But any of these things will be just that‑‑ our determinations, our opinions, our choices.  The chances of that affecting how this tragedy is played out in the rest of the world are minimal.

But before God, the thing all of us should do is to figure out how we can live fearlessly and lovingly in a world that has gone so wrong.  We need to determine what we can do to stop conflict and injustices that occur under our noses every day.  We need to watch for opportunities to exercise our hearts in ways that go beyond the hurts and fears and agony of these days and brings healing and restoration in our corner of the world.  We need to seek to be Jesus with skin on to those who see us every day.  That’s a lot harder to do than to have an opinion on what the Government should do about terrorism (at least it is for CMW).  But something hard is no less right.

And that is the news from Shady Acres, where CM’s job has brought him face to face with this crisis in ways he never had to think of before,  where CMW needs to get off her soapbox and practice instead of preach, and where all the children will someday wake up and realize that they have lived in times that will be forever stamped in history.

Our Girl, Nettie

Yesterday was an incredibly busy day — with grapes to pick and can into concentrate, butternut squash to pick, and my patch of pole limas to pick.  I was so pleased with Our Girl Nettie.  She volunteered all day down at Stockley Center, came home, watered her birds, and then started shelling lima beans.  She shelled a five gallon bucket (that was filled to overflowing) all by herself!

Nettie has had some health issues over these last months,
and sometimes lives with back pain that is debilitating.
But she loves nothing better than helping, and is happiest when she does.
My “Best Helper Award” for shelling lima beans goes to Nettie!

Thank-you, Nettie-girl!

You were a big help!

We love you!

Picking Grammy’s Grapes

Grammy’s Flowers

This morning, my daddy’s brother, Amos, went home to Heaven.  He went peacefully.  My cousin, Velma, was with him when he slipped away around 4:30.

My thoughts have been so much with Velma today. I wonder if the vigil held Glory for her.  I wonder if she felt the extreme privilege of handing off the hand that she was holding into the very hand of God.  I wonder if the ground felt Holy.  So very much I pray that it was so for her.  Somehow this business of keeping watch over Godly parents who are making the crossing is truly a privilege like none other.  It is so true that it is a time of incredible joy, even while it is a sense of loss.

Uncle Amos has been “missing” for a long time.  There were days when his children would report that it was a good day, and maybe he recognized someone, but most of it has been so clouded for so long, that this day of being “absent from the body and present with the LORD” is one of great rejoicing.  We know so little about the other side and how it will be, but the promise of health and peace and everlasting LIFE is something that rings into our hearts with such a glorious hope that it is hard to think of anything except the fact that he is “Home, Free” and there is no more Alzheimer’s to contend with.

The morning here was busy — 19 for brunch and now we are trying to finish up loose ends before Middle Daughter flies to Ireland for ten days (leaving this evening).  And in between all the physical activity was the sad, sad “God appointment” of talking with young friends who just learned this week that the baby she is carrying is no longer living.  It has been a long time since something has sat on my heart with such a sympathetic sorrow.  I heard the news on Thursday evening, and wondered if they would make the trip here from Ohio as planned, but Youngest Son said they felt the need to be “loved on” and prayed for — something that people at home could certainly do, but maybe they needed the diversion.  They were going to come.

All day yesterday, they were on my mind.  I felt sad and slow and almost sick all day.  I cried alot!  The overcast day with the thread of storm was reminiscent of another September day, 34 years ago, when the rain was slapping against the hospital windows of Mt. Carmel Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.  I had just lost my third pregnancy, a little boy, who died at 18 weeks and was stillborn two weeks later. 

My doctor sat on a chair in the corner and gave me the details of what had been the cataclysmic ending of so many prayers and hopes and dreams.  He hated the whole business, and he was trying hard to be as honest as he could be.  He said, “I really do not think that you will ever carry a pregnancy to term.  You have a really bad track record and the chances are very slim.”  I huddled on the bed and his words slid somewhere into the pit of my stomach and felt like Muriatic Acid, eating away somewhere inside.  The hospital had given me a private room, but it was on the maternity ward and around me were the cries of newborns, and passing in the hall were people pushing clear sided carts with exquisite little bundles of squirming, healthy babies.  I could feel my heart breaking into a zillion pieces.  He was compassionate.  And I knew he really did care, but he couldn’t begin to understand what those words were doing to my soul.  There was silence and then he said, “What do you want to do?”

“I just want to go home,” I whispered. 

He looked relieved.  “We can do that,” he said briskly.  “You can go today.  I’ll write the orders now.”  And he took his sheaf of papers and was gone.  The Man that I Love Most came and gently loaded me into our car took me home. We went back to our little house on West Avenue in Plain City, and we grieved and people loved us and prayed for us and we healed.  I look back to that day and can trace God’s hand, and the picture is so good and so much more complete than I ever dreamed possible.  God had a PLAN!!!

But when someone is in the same boat that we were in that long ago day, I remember, and I think about how I felt that day, and I remember all the ways that people cared and how, even when they said something that maybe wasn’t helpful (and people do — they don’t mean to, but they do!) they were trying to help, trying to comfort us.  They let us know they cared; that they believed in us, and they (I truly believe) prayed for us.  Best, best gifts at such a difficult time.

I prayed a lot yesterday for this young couple, and wondered what I could do to help.  Some years ago, I purchased a gift book, I’ll Hold you in Heaven, by Debbie Heydrick, for such a time as this.  I slipped into the local Christian bookstore to pick up a small willow tree figurine to go with it, and thought and thought about what I could possibly say that would be helpful. Really, there isn’t much that I could think of.

I worked late last night, partly because I had been so slow all day that I just didn’t get done, partly so that I would be so tired that I would sleep soundly when I went to bed, partly so I wouldn’t have anything much to do this morning when time always gets away from me. 

I got up this morning, and brought up my google account, and one of the first things I saw was a message from my cousin, Judi Nafziger, and on the subject line, three words: Amos is Home.  The family has been waiting for this transition for a good while, as the man they knew as their father slipped farther and farther away from them, until the things that were familiar were so obscured that it was hard to find their Daddy.  Was he really there?

All of this has made me think a great deal about Death today.  From our vantage point, one of these deaths is so regrettably untimely.   It just doesn’t feel like the way we would do it if we were choosing the big plan of God’s love for these young people.  The other death has been longed for, prayed for, and is the gentle “going out” of an unpretentious man who did the best he could for as long as he could for God and the people he loved.  Even when Alzheimer’s stole his abilities to cope with everyday living, his servant heart kept on showing him ways to help those around him, long after a lesser man would have retreated into useless solitude.  Uncle Amos.  He is safely Home today.

And when I had a quick moment to hug the two clearly grieving young people and to cry with them a little, and to try to give inadequate words of understanding, I knew again that it’s not by might, not by power, not even by carefully chosen words that come from the best of intentions, but rather by His Spirit that any real comfort is given.  And I remember that more clearly than anything else: the sweet, sweet comfort of the Holy Spirit in our darkest hours.  The Holy Spirit was called “The Comforter” by our Lord Jesus, and I have found it so.  These two know the Father.  They are His children.  I believe it will be so for them, too.

And I don’t envy them the pain.  It’s real.  It’s cutting.  It’s lonely.  But I do remember that there is nothing like being held in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, and the knowledge that sat in my heart and comforted me that said a pain like this would not be wasted in our lives if we would only trust Him.

And I do envy them the excitement of knowing that God Himself is walking these sad days with them and that He has a plan..

We stood in the bedroom that would be hers, the bunk beds creating a feeling of being penned in, and the blanket hanging lopsided on the bunk above hers.  I knew it was going to bother her.  Her blueberry eyes were clouded, and her face a guarded study.  I hugged her tightly and prayed that I wouldn’t blubber, even though it was what I wanted to do.  No, wait — what I really wanted to do was wail.  Loudly.  My baby girl.  Going away for a year.

I had watched the night before as the daddy of one of her teammates, his face a mask of unreadable emotion sat at a table with a group of parents and held his daughter like she was three years old.  We parents just don’t do this good-by thing very well.   Especially with youngest daughters.   This dad had been incredibly quiet all evening, and I wondered what he was thinking.  But he sat there, his bright eyed teen on his knee, and I caught a look at his face,  I knew that he, also was trying hard not to let his heart out where people could see what was really going on inside.

And now we were standing in her room, saying our good-byes, and I thought my heart was going to break.  The memories were dripping off the edges of my mind faster than the tears that I was trying so hard to hold back.  I felt her athletic build inside my hug and she put her head down on my shoulder where it has always fit.  This was the time that,when the boys were leaving, I would try hard to say something important and impacting and strengthening and Godly.  Something they could remember when they were alone or afraid or discouraged. 

My mind was scrambling for something profound.  Suddenly, before I knew what was happening, I heard myself say to her, “If I‘m ever going to have any fun, I’m going to have to go someplace without my mommy!”  She laughed, then, her low, delightful chuckle, while the Man I Love Most looked at me like I had taken leave of my senses.

“What is that about?”  He asked, astounded to see us both half laughing, half crying.  “Who said that?”

“I did,” said Youngest Daughter, ruefully.  “When I was three years old!”

She was right.  She had said it. 

Youngest Daughter was the biggest “Mama’s Baby” we had of our five.  She was the one who would camp out on our bedroom floor so much that I finally made a pallet down there for her on my side of the bed in the two foot space between our bed and the wall.  I can’t tell you how many nights I would hang my arm down over the side so she could hold my hand while she went to sleep.  I had to hang it down far enough that her forearm was against the floor because if she fell asleep and released her hold on my hand, she would wake up when her hand hit the floor.  Sometimes I thought my arm would be permanently paralyzed until she was enough asleep that I could bring it back to the plane of my mattress and the safely of the covers.  I know, I know.  I can almost hear the general indignant outcry.  I would never have put up with such shenanigans with the older four.  But I was older and way more tired than I had been with the others, and I got more sleep this way than if I put her in her own bed across the landing. 

Her Daddy would smile and say, “It’s alright, Hon.  She won’t be sleeping there when she’s ten!”  Sometimes I wondered!!!

Youngest Daughter started to say words at ten months.  She was using sentences by the time she was eighteen months.  I sometimes would look at her and say, “I always wondered what a toddler thought, and it is so nice to know!”  She was a sober baby, and often appeared to be thinking and thinking about stuff, and would sometimes come off with some pretty interesting concepts.  She began to understand relationships, and discovered that she had cousins and friends that were outside the walls of the house that held the people with whom she felt the most comfortable.  She liked them best when they would come to the big old house at Shady Acres that she still calls home.
 
I left her one day with her Aunt Alma while I was going somewhere, and by the time I got back, her Auntie wasn’t so sure that she ever wanted to watch her again.  “You need to do something about that child,” she informed me.  “She pretty much cried the whole time for her Mama.  Nothing I did to distract her helped for very long.  There’s no sense in that!”  She was right, of course, and I hated it that she was so attached to me that it made problems for other people.  I also knew that homeschooling the four older children, while we also cared for mentally retarded adults, caused me want to have all the time with her that I could — and sometimes, the dependency made certain that I had time with my youngest child.  Otherwise, it would have been extremely easy to allow the older kids, particularly Eldest Daughter, to do the fun things of having a little one in the house, and I felt like that really belonged to me.  Furthermore, I believed that the time would come when she wouldn’t need me so much, and that she would grow up and be strong and independent and courageous and okay.  I just didn’t want to hurry it along!

One day, when she was still very young (though I don’t know exactly how old) she had been asked to go on some sort of an outing with either cousins or friends or Sunday School teacher or someone that was not in the immediate household.  Her anxiety was high, but the desire to go was also rearing its mighty head.  I could tell that she was pondering and pondering what she should do, and that she was thinking big thoughts in that little head.

Finally, almost to herself, I heard her say, “If I’m ever going to have any fun, I’m going to have to go someplace without my Mommy!”  That phrase was destined to become part of the verbal history of our family!

That was the beginning of the march that led her to this weekend and this day that I had refused to think about in the last few months since we knew that she had planned to take a year long assignment with Rosedale Mennonite Missions.  “I’m not going to think about it,” I would remind myself fiercely.  “I will think about it when we make that long, long ride to Ohio to take her out to training.”  And so, I busied myself with a myriad of things, stopping now and then to watch her as she worked and planned and savored the days.  Sometimes I’d wait until she was out the door to cry some tears and beg the Lord for strength and then remember that I “wasn’t going to think about it now” and would mop up the face and smile for her sake when she came breezing back in.  She isn’t a person who is given to tears.  She claims to wish that she could cry, but she probably has seen her old Mama cry so much over these last few years that she decided somewhere along the way that it doesn’t help a whole lot.  She would feel a lot better (in my humble opinion) if she would just cry sometimes.  “Tears wash the windows of your soul,” I tell her on occasion. “It really does help to cry!”

I never have felt that she feels contemptuous of my tears, but maybe uncomfortable.  That is one reason why I try hard not to do a lot of crying around her.  Over these last months, while I’ve put off thinking about it, I’ve also put off the tears a great deal of the time.  And choosing to quote her childhood saying made the last good-by a lot less messy.  Laughing can a great deal of pathos out of a situation.

I’ve certainly made up for it on the way home.  Sitting here beside this Man that I Love Most, fishing for tissues, grabbing napkins because they are more available, trying to not be too unpleasant of company, I’ve had to think that this might be a good thing.  If I cry as much in the next weeks as I’ve cried on the way home from Ohio, I just might not have any tears left for that last weekend in November. 

But in my heart, what I’m really saying is, “I don’t have to think about this too much until Thanksgiving when she’ll be home for about a week before flying out to Thailand.”  I suspect that when we get to there, she’s really going to get wet.  I’ll probably blubber.  I might even wail.