Time with Mother

Sometimes I wonder if it's normal to be so torn between feelings of how incredibly bittersweet yet how absolutely wonderful life is. Is it normal to feel like crying over certain, rather trivial, less than momentous events? I think I'll always wonder.

I spent all day Saturday shopping and just enjoying the friendship of Mother as we reacquainted ourselves with Brady. For my belated birthday present Brad kept the children all day while Mother and I spent the day out. It was so much fun. I don't really like to get away from the children that much. We rarely have babysitters and, more often than not, I rather just have them with me. I love the company that they are and how much fun they have become at all of their different ages. I love how Grayson and Evye are getting old enough to really take in all of life's experiences. It just seems so sad to me to leave them behind. But every once in awhile there's a day that comes along that is a much needed day off and a day just to enjoy what is now a few and far between event when I am childless for a day.........or well, almost childless since Gavin is kind of attached at the boob for now. We sat for a long lunch at some hole in the wall restaurant I am quite certain no one else in the world knows about. The kind of place where the waitress tells you her life story........and by the time we left I was quite certain she had. Something about how her daughter has an 8 month old baby girl that is so spoiled rotten you have to constantly bounce and walk her or she screams. And that same daughter is now in the hospital giving birth to her 2nd baby at this very minute as we speak. Ummmmmmm, what was that????? Last time I checked a pregnancy was 40 wks along, technically 9 or 10 months depending on how you figure it. But it definitely is no shorter than that.....spoken from experience. I asked again how old her baby was and she said she's 8 months. Alrighty then.....whatever you say. So, on that perplexing note we left. And then we shopped. We stayed hours in the glass and breakables section just because we could. We smelled candles until our noses were on sensory overload and our heads ached due to aroma overdose. We laughed until our sides hurt at the most insane things. I think we must've carried the stroller up no less than 50 different staircases. And every time we did it just got funnier. We talked about anything and everything.......from the miraculous work God is doing in our family and how things change.... all the way down to the case of the unflushable piece of poop that the children hysterically encountered Friday morning. Yes, we covered the bases.

But, as the day came to an end the same bittersweet feeling set in. How short, how entirely fleeting our time here on earth is. These days won't last forever.....nor do I want them to. But on the other end of that is how precious and short the time is with the people that surround me. It's the same feeling that overcomes me as we say good-bye to Nanny and Pawpaw not knowing if it will be the last time that we ever see them. The same feeling that came as we said goodbye to Jackie and Curtis and Daddy and Scott as they pulled away after Saturday's party. The day was perfect and the healing insurmountable and then the inevitable partings to go back to each and every one's own life. And this time I have with Mother, with the children, won't last forever. People age, things change and I'm not sure what I would ever do without her female friendship and companionship in life. Sometimes I look at Grayson and marvel over how big he is. These 10 years have gone by so fast. Will I look up in 10 more years at my 20 year old son towering over me, hugging him close and remembering the little 9 year old boy that stands before me today? The endearing green eyes that smile "I love you", the hands that offer up mounds of hand picked wild flowers, the mischievous grin that says he's wrapped rubber bands around the kitchen sink sprayer yet again. Will I have done everything with him that I wanted to before he became the strong grown man filled with so much character that we prayed so hard for him to become? Will he know just how very much I love him? Will he know what an absolute joy he is to me? Will I be the friend to Evye in her 17 year old emerging womanhood that Mother has become to me? Will she know how very proud of her I am, of who she is and who she will become? In the chaos and busyness of everyday life right now do they perceive how desperately in love I am with them? And will Aubrey in her 15 year old self have the self confidence I never had at her age? Will Brad and I have raised her to see how absolutely beautiful she is and give her the confidence I always lacked in my younger years? I pray that her bold personality serves her well in life and that God uses it to it's very fullest potential. I pray that she stays yeilded to Him so that she becomes a powerhouse for His use. And Garrison and Grant won't stay 3 forever. I will miss them this age. I will miss raising toddler twins. Will we ever be blessed with twins again? How overwhelmed with gratefulness I am for the blessing of the two of them. How much they have changed me. How much they have changed our family. How mightily God has used them to change our hearts and minds about more children. And I wonder who Garrett and Gavin will become. Will the light, life and love of all of their older brothers and sisters live in them as they grow in their individuality? I think with each new one a part of the older children live on in the younger ones as they are taught, loved and played with by them all. Will people see a better me in the lives of my children?

These days that seemingly creep by in turtle-time at times and at others soar on the wings of eagles weld themselves into weeks, months, years and then decades. Brad will never question my love for him nor I his in this ever changing world.....and together in our abyss of love we will watch the world change, our lives change, our children grow, babies come and gradparents go as sunsets fade away into years. I can't imagine going through the ebb and flow of life without the comfort of him by my side. Time is the most amazing thing....it brings about the grandest of all of life's events. It brings new life. And yet it brings about the worst of everything too. It brings about the inevitable process of aging and life being taken. How fleeting and short it all is.