My New/Old Best Friend...

 I said goodbye to Nicholas in the parking lot of a Thai food restaurant...again.  

We were leaving to spend the week end in Carmel and he was leaving the next morning for Idaho to go back to college.

I was crying looking out the window missing him already.

We hung out a lot when he was home because the other kiddos were in school.  

So we would head up in the hills and go for our hikes each day.

I was thinking about how fun it is to spend time together and how much I enjoy talking to him.

He is wise and smart and is such a great listener.  I just talk and talk and he patiently listens to my sometimes never ending stories.

He offers such insight and great perspective and he is sooooo funny.

Those lines between parent child that were so cut and dry for so many years, 

were suddenly blurry.

John, hearing me sniffling in the backseat, asked if I was OK and I told him that it was just hard to say goodbye to one of my best friends.

So that is what happens.

You raise these people and it's hard and sometimes never ending. 

Days last forever but the years are flying by.

And then you are done.

And I realized that night, 

looking out that car window, 

with tears streaming down my face, that one of my biggest life wishes came true...

my son is my best friend.

Looking forward...

Ever faithful time moved me right into my favorite season....yet again.

Usually I start collecting leaves, pumpkins and acorns as soon as they make their appearance anywhere.

I start puttering around my house putting up fall and Halloween touches. 

Not this year.

I have been nesting....and by nesting I mean throwing everything away.  

For you may remember my oldest son left for two years to teach people about Christ in Guatemala.

Two years!!!!!!!!

My heart has been near to bursting because he comes home October 30!

I get to hug him, hear his voice, hear his laugh.

I get my son back.

There are no words in the dictionary to express how much my heart has ached for him and how excited I am that he is coming home.

There are just no words or no way for my simple brain to convey the joy that I am feeling.

So in saying all this that is why I am nesting. I think it is the same feeling as when you are getting ready for your newborn baby.  

That excitement and feeling to prepare.

So when I opened up my fall and Halloween Tupperware with all my decorations in it instead of putting them up...  I did what any sane person would do and I threw them all away.

I just need everything to be simple, clean and ready.

I can't explain it.

So I used fresh pumpkins, apples off our tree and real leaves I gathered on my hike in the hills with my Tamara.

I used my tattered old books and dishes that remind me of what this time of year is all about...

Family get together's and cozying up on the couch, wrapped in a quilt, with a favorite book.

I am learning patience once again as each day seems to pass a little slower. 

I am counting down when I am at the Oakland airport and I look up and I see my boy, my son coming towards me with that smile.  

The smile that will light up his face with happiness in knowing that he has made a difference in so many lives.

A smile that says I am finally home.

I imagine my scream and the dead run towards him as I wrap him up in my arms and breathe him in.  I will study his face like I did when I held him in my arms 21 years ago from today.

I will cry.

In the end...

this is going to be my favorite fall ever and that is saying something because everything important to me has happened in the fall...and I mean everything.

http://lotsofcalls.blogspot.com/2008/10/pumpkin-patch.html

Separation....

My heart is a little bit broken and it may not heal for 2 years.

  Not completely anyway.

 It has been raining outside as if the weather wants to mirror my mood.

 It has been exactly 2 weeks ago today that I dropped Nicholas off at the MTC. 

 I thought I would somehow feel better..hasn't my mourning period expired?  Actually,the rational part of me does feel better. My brain knows this is the best thing in the world for my boy.  His letters are confirming everything I believed he would be.  He is loving the MTC, he loves his companion, his district, and he is loving the strong spirit of the Lord  while learning in that holy place.  And because it is Nicholas I am talking about, he is laughing all the while making the best of every situation.

 But even though my brain tells my heart all these wonderful things... my heart hurts.  

My heart wants to feel his ever present energy and his booming laugh. I ache to hear his voice and to tell me that everything is going to be fine. Things don't feel right, my house seems empty.  

But my 3 other children need me. 

 It's time to decorate the house for all of our favorite holiday.  So that is what I am going to do.  I am going to pick myself up by the boot straps, put on Nat King Coles Christmas, make some hot chocolate with some fantastic pumpkin dessert and decorate the Christmas tree.  

Won't that make me feel better?

My head tells me most definitely but somehow my broken heart knows it's not that simple.
But I have to try....

 

I am grateful for so much where in the world do I begin?  I guess the thing that I am most grateful for right now as I type this would be, that I get to give birth to these amazing human beings, that teach me by example of how I want to live and what kind of person I want to be.