A Difficult Night

I cried last night.  I don't cry.  But, I cried last night.  It wasn't a girly long wah wah wah type of cry - I don't know how to do those.  It was a leaky eye, hurting heart, longing cry.  They only last a few minutes and only happen rarely, and when I least expect it.

I made a roast for dinner.  Just a simple beef roast with carrots and potatoes and onions, and of course, delicious gravy.  I ate so much I hurt myself, and my back was hurting for some reason.  My kids all love roast, and that is a comfort food for them.  That is what they want when they come to our house for dinner.  My daughterinlaw would ask for a roast dinner instead of going out for her birthday.  They all love roast.  So, I'm assuming that my heart and my stomach being so close together had a little meeting - unbeknownst to me, until my eyes started to leak.

I laid in bed, so full and my back bothering me.  It was pitch black in there, and all I could hear was Jim's breathing.  We will leave it at that.  Emotions started to flood out of nowhere.  My arms started to ache.  The tears ran.  I miss those babies.  

James so many  miles away, so little time to cherish with him as we only see him a few times a year.  To touch his hands and kiss his cheeks, and watch his eyes dance as he looks at his mommy.  Adam, growing into a little boy, yet so tender hearted and soft spoken.  I'm missing his activities and showing our support to him, and giving him those I'm proud of you squeezes coupled with lipstick kisses on the side of his forehead that he's too little to be worried about.  I love to hear that soft soft little boy voice when it echoes out "I love you Nana."  Sophie, I missed her first birthday.  I missed her first steps.  She doesn't know who I am.  I know as time goes we will have a relationship with her like James, as we will have nothing to compare it to and it will be as perfect as a long distance perfect can be.  Emma.  Emma - I just can't even put it into words.  When I talked to her a few times ago she told me that she hadn't seen me in 2 months and she was used to seeing me every week, and this just doesn't feel right.  I had to muster the ability to tell her it will be ok and we will make it work meanwhile the tears are running down my face and my voice is so choked up I can hardly speak, but I did.  Amazing what you can do for someone else you love more than life.

I laid there reminiscing of the two little ones snuggling in our bed and laughing and talking and singing.  I thought about the movies we watched laying there, and how many times Nemo played over and over and over.  What I wouldn't give today to sit through another million episodes of that just to have them near.  Their little arms slung around me, and the tender touches when they wanted undivided attention.  Hearing them say I love you more, and then the game beginning!  I don't know how many of those times we will ever have again.  Things are different.

I struggle with knowing how to take 7 years of something, and making it something else.  My head and my heart fight over it.  My head knows that you just do the next right thing.  My heart wants to put a shield of protection over it and not allow it to be penetrated any further.  Its a constant battle and because they were so involved in our lives there is very little that doesn't have them attached to it somehow.  For a short while after they moved i wanted to remove anything and everything that had any emotional attachment to them.  I thought I would heal faster and would be a big girl and get over it sooner.  Not so much.  They are everywhere.  They are in places in the dark when I'm all alone and my arms start to ache.  There is no shedding of that.

How to move forward?  I wish I knew the answer to that.  Out of the blue we will be sitting in the living room and Jim will say, I'm really having a hard time missing the kids.  And there goes the nice wall I built up so pretty.  Memories flood, heart hurts, longing happens.  

This will be our first ever holiday away from them.  We will have our other littles here, but their absence will be the big pink elephant in the room.  We will talk with them via skype, and they will be all excited to tell us about their Christmas, and we will bite our lip and put on our happy faces and be excited with them, and then we will fall apart.  Longing, aching, lonely.

I know there is a learning lesson in this season.  I think there are two things that God has shown me most.  First, this life is temporary.  My passion and my time should be spent on praying for the children's salvation and their future spouses, so that we spend eternity together. No hurt no pain no longing no aching no lonliness.  Together.  I need practice on this.  

Second lesson is more difficult and more humbling.  When I look at the words I've written, and take myself and my loved ones out of the sentences and put God and his loved ones in - I am humbled.  I am overwhelmed with how I take Him for granted, and put Him last on my list of those I desire to be with - not intentionally but my actions show it.  I have a deeper understanding - way far from what it really is - but a deeper understanding of His longing to be with His children.  I will never ever do for my family what God did for me.  I will never ever understand nor experience the depth of His love for me, until I am with Him in paradise. I will never ever understand why some of the things in our lives happen, such as our babies moving away, and how that can be for our good until I am with Him and can see things thru His infinite eye.

Today is a solemn day.  I rejoice in my Saviors love for me that I do not deserve.  Yet, in my humanness I selfishly want what I want regardless of the will of God, or what may be better for someone else.  I am going to work on rejoicing more, so that it can over power and over shadow me, and God's loving and tender care can carry me thru this time.  

How marvelous!  How wonderful! And my song shall ever be: How marvelous!  How wonderful! Is my Savior’s love for me!