home, ver 2.0

HOM and i check in to the hotel again. this is our third set of rooms in the same place in a little over a month. our rooms increase in altitude with each incarnation. quite clearly, we are moving up the loyalty ladder. do you feel like this is home? HOM asks me. you bet. 

J1 calls this his third home. there's his home home, there's the army barracks, and there's here, where he bunks with his dad every time business brings HOM here.

blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside

J1 flies over during his block leave. he quickly commandeers the car to embark upon the rabid social scene. the place quickly overruns with his paraphernalia. the music is loud and long. he does his dishes. he pulls his weight. he runs me my errands. he figures things out. he shows concern. 

as much as i hardly dare to imagine it, my son has, i think, become adult.

family reunion 101

what they don't tell you is:

• reunions are nice. we've missed each other.
• reunions are painful. they begin to end as they begin.
• once the euphoria peters off the genteel tug of war for the car keys commences.

decision algorithms

to awaken before the dawn and spend an arm and a leg taking a cab in the wee hours to meet your father at the airport coming in from his trans-atlantic flight, or to await a more pragmatic hour and meet him at the hotel, at a considerably less painful pinch to your (limited, military-sized) wallet? 

i cannot begin to tell you how proud i am of your choice, i tell my son. that's mushy, he says. that, too.

tangled threads

this is our summer vacation plan:

he wants to come.
she wants to go.
he needs to go.
i will stay.
all at the same time.

i'm thinking i would like to hide me 'ead in the sand for a bit.

precious mem'ries

manhattan in spring
walking miles
great food
a place called butter
convivial company

the only thing missing is one of us.

thank you, son

J1 is away on a military attachment at a location that is not covered by his cellphone plan, so he gets himself a 'phone-card. i'll just call you from time to time to say hi, he says. i'm not sure exactly why, but hearing him say that is really nice. this comes under the category of stuff a mother treasures up in her heart. 

letters from prison (1953, 1970)

reading the correspondance between bonhoeffer and his parents i learn several things. i learn that one doesn't graduate from parenthood, as long as life is not done. i learn that it is no small gift to be able to participate in shaping my children's worldview, and a wise mother will not quickly resign such a gift. i learn that the heritage i impart can play a redeeming role in their lives, by the grace of God.

also, i learn that the path we travel may meander through almost unimaginable anguish, and that this is both a cross and a gateway to joy.

killer heels

killed me feet.
but me ankles looked purty.

commissioning parade 2

the dress code on the invitation says, lounge dress.

as HOM and i discover, there is lounge dress, and there is a flexible interpretation of lounge dress, ours included.

commissioning parade

my privilege. my pleasure. my pride. my joy.

by the grace of God.

an officer and a gentleman (1982)

HOM makes me sit through the dvd with him. it's about time, he says. it'll give me an idea of what my son has endured. 

if you want to know, this is my first new drama movie in ten years or so. somewhere along the way between more youthful days and the age of decision i stopped watching anything more stressful than cars. it's a nice show, i discover happily. i had forgotten what fun it was to watch a good movie with a guaranteed good ending.

2011, in gratitude

to learn that God is able to, and indeed does, watch between us when we are absent one from another.

to discover wondrously that He is able to do new things on tired soil, to see a road built in the wilderness and a river made in the desert.

to remember that He goes on the journey through the waters and the flames.

then Samuel took a stone ... and called its name Ebenezer, saying, "thus far the LORD has helped us."

- 1 Sam 7:17

tempus fugit

J1 calls from camp. training is starting to wind down for the year. how quickly time has passed, he says. his father laughs. only to you, HOM tells him. to me it passes slowly enough, as i ask God for your safety daily.

and yet, i suppose it has passed quickly enough too. almost a year down, with cadet school almost over, and he's still hanging on. reason enough for thanksgiving.

empty seat

J1 turns another year. this is the first birthday we do not mark together. it is the price of growing up.

keep well, my son. keep safe where you are. keep faithful. remember he abides with you. remember we hold you in our hearts and in our prayers. know that we are proud of you. know that we are thankful for you.

may God supply your every need.

bittersweet, again

as always, the tree, around J1's birthday.

HOM puts it up alone this year.

there's been so much to give thanks for

but around this time

we especially feel the empty seat.

thanksgiving 2011

J1 calls us in the wee hours from his jungle stint at the other end of the world. i'm fine, he says. it's a very nice place. say hi to dad for me. i've got to go; it's my friend's card.

how gloriously He provides, in the unexpected calls and small kindnesses of mundane conversations!

james 1:2-4

it's tough, HOM says to me, when you see your kid struggle with setback and disappointment and can only stand aside. comes a time when a parent comes to a high wall and realizes the child needs go beyond, and on his own.

count it all joy, the apostle says, when you meet trials of various kinds. i would have you know this, i tell my child, but it is a lesson you learn for yourself, and you must learn it alone. 

perspective

J2's looking at college apps and i keep thinking she's starting high school soon.

J1's been a soldier for a half year, which seems much longer than six months.

last week's nyc escapade is a world and a holiday season away.
i instinctively consider 1998 to be within the last 5 years.

i still get a nice fresh feeling writing the 11 in 2011.

perspectives

the full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.  - prov. 27:7

which pretty much sums up why anyone would be grateful to finance or endure a trip halfway around the world for a purely discretionary meeting that lasts as long as the time spent on the journey.