Turn Around

I can’t say I didn’t know this was coming. I started losing you the day you were born. But everything was still so new then. You had just arrived! Your leaving was the last thing on my mind. Besides, I had 6,700 days to prepare for you to go. I had all the time in the world.

Holding you as a newborn, I picked up those 6,700 days and looked at them like a telescope turned the wrong way, with your leaving a tiny dot that seemed a million years away. Now I turn the telescope around, and see our time in minutes, magnified up close.

I look at the calendar and have to blink a few times. “Move out day” is one of the tidy entries on the calendar 10 days from now, sandwiched between “vet appointment” and “payday.” There it is in regular black type.

How can it look so ordinary? It should be a foot tall, maybe in bold, red letters. A heavy slash between one day and the next. One day you will be here, and the next you will be gone. It's just the reverse of the day you were born. Within 24 hours, our lives change forever. Boom.

So. What do you say we rethink this moving thing, put it off a year? There’s no way I have taught you everything you should know before you leave home. I need more time to teach you how to sew on a button. Cook something besides burritos and frozen dinners. Budget your money. Read a bus schedule. Flirt. Check your oil.

Believe me, there’s so much you don’t know yet. I can make a list that goes on for pages. In fact, I'm thinking another year may not even cover it.

But no... That’s not how this works. I had my chances. It was just hard to remember on each of those 6,700 days that those chances were happening in every second. I know, some part of me realized that someday you'd leave and that every day that passed subtracted one off our time together. But still, I always thought there was plenty of time left to do all those things I meant to do.

So I guess you’ll have to figure out everything I didn’t teach you. Luckily the internet can show you how to do a lot of them! And don’t forget you can call your mom too!

What’s next for you? Your path is uniquely your own, so I can’t say for sure. But I am guessing that there will be times coming soon when your heart is so filled with joy that you’ll want to sing a jaunty Broadway song at the top of your lungs. Times when you are so stressed out that you’ll feel like your brain can't contain one more thing as you finish studying at 2 am. Times when you are sick and sad and wishing more than anything your mom could be there to stroke your head while you throw up. Times when your heart is breaking because someone you loved fell in love with someone else. Times when you desperately wish you could talk to somebody, but your parents don’t make that list anymore.

All of those and more incredible, hard, wonderful, stretching things are coming. You can almost see them from what feels like a million years away if you squint through that time telescope the wrong way. But turn it around and you can see what matters: today. A hint of tomorrow. Each day is a wonderful bundle of opportunity and learning and even joy, just waiting to be unwrapped.

There are 10 days until you move. So today, we go grocery shopping and compare prices of generic and brand name canned beans. We bought you a Crockpot, so I’ll teach you how to make Swiss steak. Then let’s check your tire pressure. Or iron a shirt.  Or even sit on the couch and watch PBS "Nova" together. We’ll keep spending our precious days, as always, one moment at a time.

I feel the weight of these measured minutes with you. As you come into my home office while I’m working, I’ll stop and look you in the eye every time. When you want to vent about work or school, I’ll listen for as long as you want. Or let's dance ridiculously in the kitchen, belting out "The Greatest Showman." In 11+ days I'll be so glad we made the most of this time.

Each of us gets 24 hours every day. How many days does anyone have left? 6,700 days. 10 days. Maybe 30,000 days. Who knows when a chapter will end—when those thick lines will come that separate a life into Before and After? If I taught you nothing else, I hope you’ll try to remember to cherish each precious, fleeting day. Don’t look back with regret. Every moment is a gift.

Turn around, my darling, and walk toward the sun.

P.S. This. ==>

20 Love Letters

June 30, 2014
Dear Sweetheart,
Twenty years ago a couple of crazy kids had their first date on St. Patrick's day, became engaged in April, and got married in June. It was a whirlwind romance, and I've never stopped spinning. What can I possibly do to show my love for you? On this, our 20-year mark, I'd like to give you a love letter for each year, for you to savor one by one.

1994: Our courtship was so fast this is one of only two pictures 
taken before our engagement!

1994 On our second date, I borrowed my sister's black top with that 1980s-fashionable sweetheart neck and wore daringly wide-leg jeans with boots. After dinner at the deli (where you gallantly sacrificed your pickle for me), we walked to your old elementary school and talked and talked as we sat on the swings in the dark. You told me about a poem in the college literary journal that you found out was mine that you had loved so much you had shown it to all your friends. I was so flattered. Sitting so near to you, I could almost hear a crackle of electricity between us. A switch inside me flipped. I thought, "This guy is amazing. I could really see myself with him." I just wanted to be with you always. I got my wish. Just over three months later we tied the knot. I'd do it all over again.

1995: Nap time

1995 Fast forward through dating to becoming a dad in 15 all-too-quick months. Fatherhood brought out a whole new side of you that was a wonderful surprise to me. We'd just come home from the birth center with the baby about 9 p.m. We were bone-tired exhausted when he started to cry at 11. We'd both been up at that point for about 36 hours, much of it in labor. You said, "You sleep. I'll stay up with the baby," for what was the first of many times. For two hours you tried to console a screaming infant until you finally came and woke me up: "Honey, I can't get him to stop crying. I think you need to feed him because he's hungry." The crying stopped! Poor you had stayed up two hours trying to calm down a starving baby! But thank you for letting me sleep for those precious two hours!

1996

1996 For our evening entertainment we would sit a few feet apart on the living room floor in our 900-square-foot house with the hand-me-down furniture. Holding up the baby who hated to sit but wouldn't take more than a couple steps on his own, we'd coo with arms outstretched, "Come on, take a step, you can do it!" Over months those staggered steps turned into actual walking, but those room-brightening toothless smiles when he did it were the best reward in the world. I felt like I would burst with joy looking at you and our precious toddler, our love made flesh.

1997 I wanted to beautify our house, so even though we were poor as mice, you scraped together enough to paint the ugly brown house trim a lovely gray and hammer together some teal green shutters. We planted roses and a twig of a tree and some grape vines from my dad. I knew you loved me because you wanted me to be happy and to live in a lovely home. You took such good care of us.

1998

1998 Another new baby brought more sleepless nights. You would sit in the rocking chair endlessly, and when you carefully inched your way toward the crib, the little limp baby on the shoulder still had bright eyes that were darting around. Back to the rocking chair. Or that was when you would put him in the baby swing, wind it up to maximum, and lie down on the couch! Thanks for letting me get a few hours sleep in a row. Again.

The Greatest of These Is Love

picture courtesy www.LDS.org/design by Jennifer

"And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." 

1 Corinthians 13:13, NKJV

Never, Never, Never Give Up

These are interesting years now that my children are teens. For a long time I was able to run my home the way I wanted. I made a daily effort to teach my kids things that are important to me. We did lots of stuff together--the zoo, the park, field trips all over, playgroups. Dinner times might be crazy, but at least we were all together. I could teach manners even if they didn't use them! When a fight or argument got out of hand there was always the good old "time out."

Doesn't an A and F average out to C?

Being a mom is the best job in the world but also the hardest, because for each kid you have a different job description...and by the way, those descriptions change more than once a year. I'm in a constant state of flux. Am I doing everything right or wrong? Some days I feel like I earned an A and an F at the same time on my mommy report card.

These are the years when they don't want the lessons on manners--or any other boring lectures. When hanging out with friends is 10 to 1 preferable over a family activity. When they get big enough to start making Big Decisions that can have lifelong effects. When you hope they have internalized some self-regulating techniques, because there is no time out.

Choices become larger as kids grow, and success and failure are the only two sides of the coin. Nature gives a mother the fierce instinct to protect her children, including protecting them from making mistakes. But what drives the child is the desire for autonomy and independence.

Protecting my kids from their choices is the worst possible idea. And yet it is the only way to enable them to learn and hopefully grow up to be happy, productive members of society. My mom said that if you are a good parent, you work yourself out of a job by the time your child is 18. It's kind of sad but true.

This Is a Test

Everything in life is a test. I knew that already, but I guess I always hoped I was being graded on effort. Then I realized… every test is pass/fail.

What is most important for me to learn from the experiences of my life? Why do I go through these ups and downs that are tailored just for me? In every situation I have the choice to turn toward God or turn away from Him.

Where is my heart? Am I focused on God--or on myself or any of a billion other distractions that don't ultimately lead to Him? Pass or fail. It really is that simple. Every moment is our teacher.

• I react with impatience. Fail.
• I give a sucker to an exasperated mom stuck in the checkout line with a toddler who is having a tantrum. Pass.
• I complain and bring a negative energy to those around me. Fail.