I wrote this post in May after spending time with my great-grandmother. I never posted. I don't remember why. Here it is:

Today, we spent a few hours with my 90 year old great-grandmother. She is so very precious. We sat with her laughing about the women in the nursing home who try to break out. We laughed about the woman wheeling past with a beeper on her wheelchair. We laughed a lot. And in the midst of the laughter, I saw the pain in her eyes. Here she sat, with the son, wife and daughter of her firstborn, years after she buried him. We talked about her son...my dad's dad. As we talked about his Eagle Scout belongings in the cedar chest, I remembered that I was sitting with a woman who buried her oldest son.

My dad's biological father died when my dad was only four years old. At the time, he had one other younger brother. A few years later, my grandmother remarried. She and Walter went on to have two more boys. My dad calls Walter his dad. It was an uncomfortable moment. I heard the hesitation in my dad's voice as he struggled with how to address his own father. Dad? Jody? How do you approach a situation like that?

Over the past few years, I've come to understand how absolutely precious pregnancy, birth, and motherhood is. Nothing is guarenteed. I've read more blogs than I can count in which women chronicle the lives and deaths of their infants. Sometimes they knew that their child would not live. Other times it was a shock. How do you deal with something like that? And then there are the blogs about the families who give birth to perfectly healthy babies. They treasure them and love them and then find that their precious babies have a tumor determined to take over their tiny body. And then there are the parents who get to raise their children for many many years before cancer or some kind of accident rips them from this world.

It's something parents take for granted- the birth of a healthy baby. I never even realized that the situation could be different until I stumbled upon Angie Smith's blog years ago. I cried with her as she carried her beautiful daughter, knowing full well that she would not stay long in this world. I remember vividly the night that I learned that sweet Tuesday had been healed in Heaven. I have cried so many nights for so many families that I have never met. And suddenly, my perception of parenthood is so very different. How can you take for granted holding and loving and kissing your perfect baby while down the hall, a woman could have just delivered her child and held them as they took their first breath and their last. How can you not think of your healthy infant as a miracle? I hope that I will never take for granted the miracles my children are.

I have two living great-grandmothers. One is 90 and the other is 92. Each has buried a child. And my grandmother held her newborn son until he breathed his last on this Earth. How can you look at a woman the same after you learn that about them? How can you hug them the same way? To have buried a child must be the greatest pain, and how many women are living with it? The woman checking out behind me in line at Target has two precious children in her cart. I smile at her. For a split second, I wonder about her story. Are those the only children she's carried? How many women lie when asked how many children they have? Even my sweet cousin suddenly lost her daughter after 14 months of life to congestive heart failure. I was at that funeral. And how do you move on from something like that? My heart aches just to think about it. Every Christmas, every birthday, another memory with an obvious hole.

I don't know yet why God has put this on my heart. I don't know if I'll lose a baby someday. I don't know if I'll know someone who does. I do know that I serve a God who is good all the time. I believe that God might be preparing me for something. I'm not sure yet what that may be. It is my prayer that I never lose this sense of urgency and compassion to reach out to women in pain. I pray that He would help me to remember that these women will never forget.

i really shouldn't get paid for this

Basically, I have the best job in the world. My alarm goes off at 6:45. I get up, shower, throw everything in the car, drive 3 minutes and pull up in front of the beautiful yellow house. As I walk up the stairs, Mr. F greets me at the door. He gives me the low down on the hooligans and leaves.

Z usually starts out the day on the computer while P prefers to begin his day by wrestling with me. Whatever. Then we eat breakfast, play some ridiculous game that P comes up with, and then eat lunch until 11:30 and walk to the pool. We usually stay for at least an hour and a half. The kids typically can find friends to play with, leaving me alone to read or tan or play with them and my other little munchkins there with camp. Sometimes we walk over to the library. They do the summer reading program while I find books that I loved in junior high. We make up our own games on the alphabet rug (on this particular day, we were playing Hullabaloo...seriously entertaining).
Sometimes we run errands. Sometimes we go on field trips. Like today. We went bowling. Last week, we went to the Botanic Gardens. On rainy days, we watch movies. On Tuesdays, we go see the $1 movie in Skokie. And I shouldn't get paid for my job.

part 1

My best friend Emily came to visit me back in May. Shortly after she left my house, she left for Africa for six weeks. She's been serving the Lord in Burkina Faso, living with missionaries, meeting Christians and experiencing African culture firsthand. She is a beautiful person inside and out. She's also going to be my roommate next year, which I can't wait for!! She's an RA, which means we'll have our OWN bathroom (which is a good enough reason for me to want to be roommates with her ;)). I haven't heard her voice in six weeks. She'll be home on Tuesday. I can't wait to talk to her!! I know she has such incredible stories to tell. Her birthday was the day she landed in Africa. I should have been a good friend and sent her present before she left, but I'm not that organized, so it didn't quite happen......

So I sent my bff her birthday present yesterday. There were 3 envelopes. The third had a photo collage. Here's picture number 1:

Stay tuned for the rest of the cards! ;)

because He can...

still good

it still amazes me how great God is.

isn't that sad?

after everything that's happened, He

still manages to surprise me.

how?

and then other times...

other times i can't imagine

that the things that happened really did.

i watched the video of zac smith.

watch it.

i made it through the whole thing

with tears in my eyes and none on my cheeks...

until the very end.

"if God chooses to heal

me, then God is God, and God

is good.

if God chooses not

to heal me,

then God is

still God, and God is

still good."

and then i lost it.

so beautiful, those words.

but do i believe them? if God

chooses to point me in the right direction, chooses

to send me a letter spelling out

exactly what my life should look like for the next

few years, the God is God, and God

is good.

but what if He doesn't? is

God still God? is God still

good?

i'm in a place of uncertainty right now.

it scares me more than

i would care to admit.

because i do believe that God is God

and that God is good regardless of whether or not He

paints me His answer in the sky. so

where is this fear

coming from?

i am so scared. i am so

stressed.

i don't like to make decisions like this because i

don't trust myself to make them.

what if i make the wrong decision?

it's easily fixable...after

a whole semester.

i just don't know

what to expect. i don't know

what it's going to be like. i don't know

how i am going to be able to merge my old life with

my new one...my past with my

present...my semester the way that it was "supposed

to be" and my semester the way that

i wouldn't trade for anything.

i've learned

so much

and changed

so much.

how am i going to fit back in

to my old life as

the new me?

friendships are going to change. i

know that. and it scares me.

i am so thankful for the ways that God

provides, though.

He's provided a new group of women at home

that support me and hug me

and pray with and

for me.

He's provided a vacation at the

most perfect time (which felt like the worst

possible time about a month ago).

and here i am.

hawaii.

breathtaking.

i'm still unsure.

so very unsure.

i'm angry and frustrated after the

conversation i tried

to have the other

day.

sometimes i'm struck by this incredible

feeling of disbelief over everything that's happened over

the past

three

months.

and last night.

i fell asleep

on the couch

with tears in my eyes

as the sounds of my friends' voices echoed

in the room...so thankful

that i thought to record some

of our laughter and

precious moments

together.

i'm still hurt by so much.

and i'm still in this place

of uncertainty

where i feel so overwhelmed and

incapable of making

any semblance of a decision.

but the beauty of it all is that

God is still God

and

God is still good.

geneva

ETA: PICTURES!!!!!!!!! Only a few months late :)

Carla (my mom) and I went to Geneva for the day today and OH. MY. WORD. I'm in love with it. It's the cutest little town with these precious little shops. I found all kinds of ADORABLE things and in every single store that we went into, I found at least something that I'm going to want in my house someday. Seriously. Obsessed. Anyway, I got some really great pictures. I'm too lazy to go get my camera cord right now (...because I'm house sitting and my camera cord is at home...not that I would get it even if I were at home right now...) but get ready. You'll be obsessed with it too!

the auction

Morning comes too soon. I’m yanked from my slumber by a knock on the glass door 15 feet from the couch where I sleep. The army of men are there, ready to work. As we struggle to get ready for the day, they carry out The Memory Pieces and lay them in the yard. The cabinet from the doll room, hearts cut from door, where fabric used to lie in wait. Many times, we opened those doors, searching for the perfect piece of fabric for whatever project we were working on with our sweet Memaw. They speak to us in broken English and each other in Spanish, using words so casual for the things they’re carrying out. “La mesa, tambien”, they call. The table around which we ate so many dinners, celebrated so many holidays. The table that held the centerpieces of dead leaves and acorns that we worked so hard to create. Yeah, la mesa tambien. The man of this house sits frozen in his chair, watching as his life is being carried out. I squat next to the chair that reminds me of him. “Are you ready for this?” I ask. The movement is barely detectable. A shake. I pretend not to see the tear in his eye that never moves from the doorway through which his life is being removed, one piece at a time. “Neither am I,” I promise. None of us are. “It means my time is almost up, you know?” He whispers. And I shake my head. It can’t mean that. “It just means it’s time to go to Michigan” I manage, with a smile on my face. He looks at me for the first time this morning and smiles. I plant a kiss on his bald head. “You’re a sweet girl, you know that?” He asks. I nod, and leave through the same door that his eyes have been on all morning. He watches me go and knows I’ll return.

We’re quiet as we watch. We have no words. How could there be words? He holds up his cup when he’s ready for more coffee. I pour and return. I lean down for my “tip”, a precious kiss on my cheek. I return the favor. There will never be enough of these sweet moments with my grandfather. The kisses I give him in passing. The hugs. The “I love you”’s. Never enough. As hard as I try to convince myself that what he said to me this morning isn’t true, I know that it is. And all day I will try to keep the tears away. I have to stay strong. If I break down, we all will. And so I watch The Memory Pieces be carted off by someone else, loaded into cars. I can’t picture these things in anyone else’s home. I shouldn’t have to. I want them to stay. She tried not to cry last night when she told us that his time is short. We know it. So does she. The reality of it is too much to bear. I was kicked out of the room. I sat on the couch, eyes on the tv, mind on something totally different. My precious Poppy. What comes next?

The man that spends more of his day asleep in his chair than awake manages to stay outside all day. We know the strength he had today was a gift from God. While Danny sits up in his trailer, auctioning off the house that holds so many memories, I sit between them, holding each of their hands. As they reach a new price, I shout it out so that my grandfather can hear. I kiss their hands over and over. They’re okay. I’m not. As soon as the house is sold, I leave. I return to the house that is no longer ours and break down in the empty dining room. Moments later, mom comes in. We hold each other and cry. How can this be happening? It becomes my job to watch the house. I lock the door and turn on the television. I turn it up loud to drown out the hundreds of strangers that have come to pay too little for the things that mean so much to us. They’re loud on the yard. I want them to leave. But I can’t make them go.

Both Memaw and Poppy spend the whole day in the yard, sitting in lawn chairs, making comments about how much these people were paying for their belongings. I check on them often. I’m in charge of bringing water and coffee. I make sure they eat and are warm enough. First thing this morning it was cold. He said he didn’t need a blanket. I brought his out anyway, told him not to argue, and covered him up. I find her sun hat when she asks mid-afternoon. I follow her around and make sure she doesn’t pick up too many things to return to the house.

At 7:15, it is winding down. The dolls are the hardest to let go. We knew they would be. By the time we get to the doll table, everyone is tired. Few people are left on the lawn. We return most of them to the garage. She says she can't watch them be sold for only a few dollars. I know it is an act of defiance. She has watched too many of her precious belongings go for so little. We help her carry them back in. Everyone has a tear in their eye and no one argues when she refuses to let them go.

We order pizzas for dinner. Sarah and I go to pick them up. We eat in the nearly-empty house. Homemade chocolate pie for dessert. Sarah rose early to bake it. It was a small piece of sunshine on an otherwise dark day.

I thought about taking pictures, but when it came down to it, I didn't want to document the day. Instead, I'll share the last picture I took of my Poppy on his tractor. He will never ride that tractor again. It's been a rough day, but it's over. We made it. And by this time next week, they'll be in Michigan, which is where they need to be.