Pass the Kleenex

Well, the wedding happened. Everything went off without a hitch. The bride was radiant, the groom was handsome, and tears were shed. They are off honeymooning and I can hardly wait to see them again.

I look back on that momentous day and realize a certain terribleness in it all. I'd better explain fast. It was terribly happy, terribly bittersweet, terribly sweeping in its finality of how things were and now are. While we rejoice with achingly full hearts for the wonder of a new loving family, a parent at a wedding has a heart breaking for the little boy who has grown into a man, or the sweet tot who is now eager to be a wife and mother. I cannot watch Fiddler on the Roof without bawling my eyes out when the father sings "Sunrise, Sunset".

Time is merciless, and love is ruthless on our hearts. We can't stop life from moving on, but we so much want to say "Stop, stop. I need to hug and kiss that little boy one more time before he is grown and gone." I can't complain. We did do a lot of hugging and kissing, and spoke words of love. We rejoiced at the maturing and thrilled at the miracle of a new love story. Mom plays an important role in a boy's heart, but sees the inevitability of another woman taking that place, and the need to bow out gracefully. I could not be happier about the number one women in my boys' lives. They all made excellent choices for a life partner, and our family is richer and fuller with each new addition.

The nature of love, however, is to cut your heart open, bare and vulnerable. At the time it happens you hardly realize how you have exposed yourself, since you've been anesthetized with feelings so thrilling you are not sure your heart can contain them. And that is the irony--it can't. It must be cut open to expand. And somewhere down the line the pain of love catches you up, and you find yourself crying that your baby has been replaced by a toddler, then by an adolescent, and finally by an adult walking out the door, happy to be leaving your home. And that same person will never come back the same. Don't misunderstand me. I am not sorry and clinging to the past. But I am now paying the price for loving with my whole heart. Pass the Kleenex.

Change

When growing up,  it was inconceivable that someday I would look at the people I lived with and think of them as not being in my "family"--but it's true, if I define "family" as a nuclear group of mother, father, and children. Yet so it is. I am now a mother and not a child in the family I hold most dear. My parents and siblings are not in my "family", but they are important and special nonetheless.

When raising children, you get inklings of what will happen when they grow up and marry, and suddenly you are on the outside looking in at their "family". You have become "extended" family--someone that they stretch to include. With one child married and two more committing themselves to their brides this year, my "family" is shrinking and my extended family is growing. I feel a wistful happiness for them. So much excitement and living is ahead of them still.

I do not, do not, do not understand the joy people feel in being empty nesters. All I can think is that they endured parenting, always looking to the day when it would at last be over. It probably isn't that black and white. Maybe the teenage years were rough? I loved having teenagers, and I think my teenagers knew that. We filled our house with teenagers, our own and all their friends. I could never bake enough cookies.

When people ask me why I had five children, I have to quick decide if they can take the real answer: because I couldn't have ten. There were days when I longed to run screaming from the house, but most days I loved my life and my brood and wished they would not grow up so fast.

Having a granddaughter has been a great comfort to me. Although she always prefers mommy and daddy to me, and I love her for that, it pulls at my heart when she reaches for me.

Change is hard, but stagnation is death. I will learn to appreciate the quietness, and being able to have a rational conversation that isn't interrupted a dozen times. I will be able to keep up with my housekeeping and perhaps have time for some postponed projects. I'm just hoping that life doesn't get too quiet, orderly, and predictable. I don't want to be bored till death!

Stepping up in the Queue

I have vague memories of my great grandmother, hardly anything really. There is a photo of her sitting in an armchair by the window of her room in a nursing home. And I recall one time waiting in the car while my parents went in for a short visit. It was a long time ago and I was very young. There is some confusion about what I remember--was it what I remember happening or what I was told about?

I can say a lot more about my grandparents--the three that I knew. My material grandfather died about the same time that my great grandmother did, and I feel the same confusion with him about my "memories". The other three grandparents lived to be ninety or more. Grandmother Zugg lasted the longest and best, living to be ninety-six and mentally sharp to the last day.

Both of my parents are still alive,  healthy and active--and approaching the ninety year landmark. At least, they are past their mid-eighties and showing few signs of the permanent wind-down.

My sixtieth birthday is a year and a half away. My husband just retired at sixty-five, and in a few months I can say that most of  our children are married. One child already has his own child.

Five generations. One has passed through the veil into eternity. The next is moving closer. Barring any tragic missteps, soon my generation will be first in line. Life is like stepping on an escalator in an eternal queue.

Slipping Down the Ladder

I have one married child. A second one is taking that plunge in little more than a month. It's a happy occasion, but bittersweet. Every parent has to recognize that they are now just a little further from the center of their child's affections. This does not mean that the child cares less for you, but that others, spouses for starters and children later, have stepped in front of you. This is as it should be.

Oftentimes this is also the beginning of a deeper revelation for the child of just what you gave to them, sacrificed for them, and how you blessed their lives. They find themselves now following your example, and feeling the cost. Then there will come this moment when the light blazes on. It might be triggered by something that touches them, but more likely by an act of their child in which they recognized themselves. Perhaps it was an act of deep ingratitude, or careless acceptance of a great sacrifice. And they understand how thoughtless a child can be and how much the child will take your best for granted.

I am fortunate. All of my children have eyes to see. And I have eyes to see, too. I see signs that they will outshine me as parents. I weep for my faults. I rejoice in their gains.

I am fortunate in what I was given. My parents did the best they knew how.

So although we continue throughout our lives to slip down our children's ladders of prominent place, if we are lucky, they will treasure where they came from.

Paying Up

It's been a mild winter. Not much snow. Only a few bitterly cold days. Lots of sunshine. I shoveled the sidewalk once. It didn't really need it. We haven't used our fireplace as much. My car never slid on the road, and the tires never started spinning without traction. One gets the feeling we're going to cruise right through this season and never quite experience it. There's been nothing to it.

Few challenges in life are like that. I don't mean the things we worry about that never happen, but the things that are unavoidable and unwelcome. Only a lucky few can get through life without a trip to the dentist to fill a cavity, or win that scholarship that would have made getting an education so much more reachable, or land the job of their dreams before the old sheepskin has gathered any dust. We do our best to brush and floss, study hard, and write the perfect resume. Cavities, hard under-rewarded work, and lost careers happen to most of us.

There are a lot of trite things said about challenges--mostly overcoming them. I like to think of them as the hot sauce in the chili, the burn in the whiskey, the ouch in the band-aide pulled off a hairy limb. They bring tears to your eyes. Pain reminds you you're alive, and that's a good thing!

So as I look out on an unseasonably warm winter day, squinting at the brightness of it and notice the buds swelling much too soon, I am uneasy at the easyness of this weather. I like to pay as I go and distrust situations where the bottom line is something unknown and brushed off. When the bill comes in, I'll have to pay the price.

I distrust this winter. Come spring the bill may come due. I don't want my spring bulbs to pay the price.

Surviving the Song of the Season

I struggle with Christmas. You're heard all this before about returning to the real meaning of Christmas. Simplifying. Focusing on the Incarnation instead of the inhalation of as many parties, gifts and food as possible. The season is turning into a celebration of family. "Make someone happy this year." "Get the family together." "Make this the best Christmas ever."

I have no arguments about quality family time, letting those you love know you love them. But sometimes I feel this desperate urge to retreat from everyone so that I can remember the Someone who made me able to love, give and have hope.

About a year ago, I realized that I do have a few special minutes in all the holiday bustle where it all becomes clear. These few minutes are Christmas to me. I anticipate the moment, and usually weep for joy when they come. This is it: our family tradition was always to play one particular song on Christmas morning. That was the signal for all the kids upstairs that they could come down and start the fun. The song is this: (Done by "Glad--Acapella Project)

In the first light of a new day
No one knew He had arrived
Things continued as they had been
While a new born softly cried.

But the heavens wrapped in wonder
Knew the meaning of His birth
In the weakness of a baby
They knew God had come to earth.

As His mother held him closely,
It was hard to understand
That her baby not yet speaking
Was the Word of God to man.

He would tell them of His kingdom,
But their hearts would not believe
They would hate Him and in anger
They would nail Him to a tree.

But the sadness would be broken
As the song of life arose
And the First born of creation
Would ascend and take his throne.

He has left it to redeem us,
But before His life began
He knew He´d come back not as a baby
But as The Lord of ev´ry man.

Hear the angels as they´re singing
On the morning of His birth
But how much greater will our song be
When He comes again
When He comes again

Hear the angels as they´re singing
On the morning of His birth
But how much greater will our song be
When He comes again to Earth

When He comes to rule the Earth!

If you have not heard this song, I believe you can hear it on iTunes. I'm no music buff, but this moves me like no other song. If you could go to heaven for one single deed, I believe the singer in this song would deserve that reward for hitting that one last note--piercingly beautiful--sometimes I wonder if I will survive till he finishes that note!

Unwelcome Visitor

He stamps and glares

And gives a shake

Clearly disapproving,

But I insist he trot along

And tap the glass

To get him moving.

An astounding leap

And off he bounds

Into the woods at hand.

He looks back once

And sees me there

Making good on my demand.

Perhaps now the birds

Might have a chance

To get themselves some dinner.

They'd best be quick

Cause that squirrel I know

Ain't getting any thinner.