Monthly Archives: June 2013

When I logged onto Facebook this morning, this was the first thing I saw…

This beautiful young woman’s name is Jessica Giddens. It had just been announced that she was voted homecoming queen at her high school. The man standing so proudly behind her is her father. He is a soldier in Afghanistan and he had flown home to escort her to the game.

The beauty of this moment brought tears to my eyes.

I love the look of sheer joy on her face…made all the more radiant by the presence of her father, I am sure. That moment would not have been so sweet without him standing there to share in it.

There is nothing like a father in a girl’s life.

My dad has been gone from this earth and my life for eleven years.

I still miss him everyday.

Last week, I was pulled over for not having a current inspection sticker on my car. (Turns out that the garage had done the inspection but had forgotten to add the new sticker. I was oblivious). While the officer wrote up the pink warning slip, my eyes filled with tears and I thought, “I wish my dad were here.”

The thought seemed to come out of nowhere and I felt a bit foolish, longing for my dad’s presence when I am 48 years old.

On the other hand, does any man protect you like your dad? (I am extremely blessed to have a husband who does. Yet, when my dad was still alive and he and my mom came to visit, he would always pull me aside and ask, “Is there anything you need me to do around the house? I’ll take care of it.” 🙂 ).

Yesterday, was my “baby” brother’s 44th birthday. He came over for a grilled steak dinner, complete with cheesecake topped with strawberries for dessert. (None of that was made my me…mercifully. I wanted him to enjoy his birthday dinner).

As I watched him interact with my kids and my husband and talk on the phone with our mom, I realized something: He has adopted much of my dad’s mannerisms. The way he stands with his hands in his pockets. His hearty laugh. The way he strolls around the house while talking on the phone and holds the door open for a lady.

I love my brother for himself but I also love that in many small ways, he gives my dad back to me.

If you are blessed to still have your dad with you, call him. Visit him. Let him know what he means to you. Life goes by fast and you only have one father. No, he is not perfect. But then again, neither are you.

Extend grace.

“Because death is the only thing that could have ever kept him from you.” —Ally Carter

“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” —Mignon McLaughlin

And that is what Doug and I have done for twenty one years.

So, when confronted with a (temporary) empty nest,  we were ready for it because we are best friends.

But first we had a choice to make. Our lives have been in somewhat of a holding pattern lately due to a situation beyond our control. We had hoped we would know something by last Friday…but it was not to be.

Decision time: would we focus only on the one thing God has withheld for us, allowing it to cast a pall over our weekend? Or would we deliberately choose to set our sights on all of the rich blessings He has graciously given us?

We chose the latter.

He is always speaking. He had said no to something we had wanted (on our timetable) but I knew He had so many more “yeses” to share with us that day and I intended to find them.

He had given us a glorious day. We live in a beautiful place. We enjoy a good road trip, so we took off for the North Country.

We told our dog Buddy that we would be gone for the day. He was clearly broken up by this news.

As we headed out to the car, we spotted this:

A huge mama snapping turtle was determinedly crossing our front yard in search of a place to lay her eggs.

All creatures great and small
The Lord God made them all

Our first stop was the Sugar Shack, which was voted the #2 best place for breakfast in our state.

I am not typically a breakfast person but since a good friend and I had walked seven miles very early that morning, I was ravenous.

The staff was no-nonsense, the decor simple and rustic, and the food was delicious.

While we were enjoying our meal, my friend Karen texted me to remind me that the annual Lupine Festival was beginning that day. It was only a half an hour north so we decided to go. We had made the trip last year and it was lovely.

Turns out that this year…not so much.

I am not exaggerating when I say that we saw FIVE lupines. And five lupines definitely does not constitute a “festival.”

Last year, this was the scene  at one of the lupine fields:

This year, that same field looked like this:

Not a lupine in sight.

I must admit that I was disappointed that we had driven so far for nothing, but then I remembered a passage from Susan Spencer-Wendel’s book Until I Say Goodbye. 

“Events rarely happened as anticipated…but were perfect moments nonetheless. Because I did not have expectations…accept the life that comes…don’t force the world to be the one you dream. The reality is better.” (p. 348).

Accept the life that comes. That right there is a recipe for the stress levels in our lives to drop by several degrees.

Despite the fact that there were no lupines, there were still such beautiful things to see.

On the drive back south, Doug and I talked about our years of parenting. As I looked across the front seat at my husband of twenty-one years, the fifty year old man with silver hair morphed into the man he was when he was a father for the first time at thirty-two. I remembered our mutual wide-eyed panic when my parents left to return home when Josh was two weeks old. Could you do this by ourselves? Raise another human being?!

It had all seemed so scary at the time.

But with prayer, perseverance, and the ever-important sense of humor, we made it.

Were we perfect? Not even close. No such thing.

But we love our kids with our whole hearts and we did the best we could. We are a team. There is such a sweetness to that truth.

Our next stop was to a place called The Basin in the White Mountains. It is absolutely beautiful, peaceful, and serene.  I saw the fingerprints of God everywhere I looked.

We ended the day by having dinner with my mom and brother at a local eatery. Jeff joked that they were just cheap substitutes for the kids, but nothing could be further from the truth. Even if my family wasn’t family, I would have them as friends. We laughed the night away. (We also did a lot of shouting to be heard because we were sandwiched between a party of twenty and a party of seven!).

But it’s all good.

That was the first evening of the hockey playoffs between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Boston Bruins. Clearly, we are in Bruins territory but my brother proudly wore his Penguins hat and T-shirt. As we exited the restaurant, there were four guys in a convertible who were clearly offended (but good-naturedly so) at Jeff’s brazen Pittsburgh display.

Noticing this, I raised my arms in the victory sign and yelled, “Pittsburgh!!!”

We native Pittsburghers are black and gold to the bone.

(Sadly, my enthusiasm was misplaced, as Pittsburgh lost later than night. They are currently down two games. Here’s to a win for the third game!).

The last night of our empty nest, I headed to our church for Bible study. On the way there, I was praying not only for the safe return of the kids that evening but for the holding pattern we are currently in with no end in sight. At the church, I was reminded of God’s greatness, His love, and His goodness. That He is always at work, even when we cannot see signs of His hand.

These truths were still ringing in my ears when I pulled into my driveway…and saw this:

Isn’t that just like Him? To send me the sign of His promise, shining right through the storm clouds!

His promise that He is in full control at all times. That He can only do good to those who belong to Him.  That He keeps His promises…all of them.

As I said at the beginning of this post, He is always speaking.

At 9:15, the side door burst open and our kids tumbled into the kitchen, full of the energy unique to teenagers. Julia dropped her bags the instant she saw me and literally sprinted across the house to tackle me with a hug.

The next hour was filled with exciting stories of their adventures.  As the conversation wound down and fatigue started  to take over, they began to head for bed.

“So what did you do when we were gone?” our son asked. “Did you spend your all your time crying and missing us?” He was kidding. (I think).

I smiled at him and said, “Missing you, yes. A little bit of crying too. But Daddy and I had lots of fun.”

He returned my smile as he hugged me good night,

“The two of you always do.”

**********

I would say that  Doug and I will be ready for the empty nest when it comes for good in two years. We have lots of plans.

Of course, we won’t fully be alone…

🙂

“Making the decision to have a child is  momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”—Elizabeth Stone 

I discovered this weekend that I am not as tough as I thought I was.

My kids left Friday morning for Canada with the high school band.

I envisioned myself meeting this day with deep serenity and a  calm spirit.

Instead, I was up early, making sure they had packed properly, had all their electronic and charging devices, passports, snacks, Canadian money, etc.

My husband told them something, then I would repeat it until he (gently) said, “Susan. Stop. It’s okay.”

Oh.

So I sat down, rather than following them around and watched the scene unfold around me as Josh and Julia got ready to leave in a last minute flurry of activity.

There were hugs and a round of “I love you’s”…and then they were gone.

And a part of my heart went with them.

I headed upstairs to have some quiet time, opened a book, and found this photo of a three year old Julia.

That’s when the tears began.

“For crying out loud,” I told myself. “Get a grip! They are only gone for a weekend!”

True. They were only a four hour car ride away in Montreal.

But they would be in another country. And since I don’t have a passport yet, I could not get to them easily if I needed to. That was what felt strange to me.

My kids were traveling to another country where they would have all kinds of fun and exciting experiences…without me.

That is the way it should be. As parents, we work ourselves out of a job. That is good and that is right.

Yet this trip was a reminder of just how fast our years of parenting had gone and that our kids were on the threshold of venturing out on their own to make their mark in this world and live their own stories.

Parenting is without a doubt the hardest job I have ever (and will ever) have. Nothing has made me feel so inadequate, exhausted, and imperfect. Or so exhilarated, joyful, and blessed.

Our son Josh is the strongest-willed child I know. He was  a generally sunny kid but when he wanted his own way, watch out! He intended to get it.

My mother was an absolute God-send to me here. She would counsel me, “Stand firm! You have to establish clear boundaries, that you are in control and he is not. If you don’t do the hard work now, it will be too late when he is fifteen and taller than you. Keep it up!”

So many times, it would have been much easier for us to just give in to our little red-headed tyrant but my mom’s encouragement (and lots of prayer!) gave us the backbone to do our jobs.

As a result, Josh is an absolute joy to us as a seventeen year old young man. God has taken that strong will and channeled it into someone who is extremely motivated, goal-oriented, and principled. He has many friends from all backgrounds, and his sense of humor, as well as dead-on impressions, keeps us all laughing.

Our daughter Julia was a bundle of curly, red-headed sunshine. Her blue eyes sparkled with life and joy and the sound of her giggles filled the house at all hours. She was passionate about  any and all animals, loved vanilla ice cream, and called me “Mama.”

Today, she is both an athlete and a girly-girl, our social butterfly, a musician, and is unafraid to zealously defend her views on a variety of topics. Despite having been a teenage girl myself, I really wasn’t prepared when my sunny girl began to display moodiness, sometimes act as if I were personally trying to ruin her life, and engage in copious amounts of eye-rolling.

It is a bumpy road ahead but I do enjoy the times when I get a glimpse of that sweet little girl again. I love that she still calls me “Mommy” even though she is fifteen and a half.

The late Rich Mullins once wrote a song entitled “We Are Not As Strong As We Think We Are.” I thought of that song as I wiped away my tears and got on with my day.

I was so grateful that even when my kids cross the border into another country and I cannot go with them, that Jesus— who knows no barriers— does.  That knowledge brought such sweet peace to my heart.

This summer, both of our kids will be gone for weeks at a time. I figure this weekend was a trial run for that. I am happy to say that I passed with flying colors. 🙂

Several people asked how Doug and I did with the empty nest this past weekend. To be continued tomorrow!

What about you? Are you an empty nester? How did you deal with it? Any advice is appreciated!