There’s a man named Wayne here doing some work on the beach trail. It looks and feels completely different, and I have to say, I’m not sure I like it. When you walk a trail so often and for so long you get used to where you put your feet. The beach trail is actually a road that forms a canyon in the middle whenever it rains and washes away dirt and rock.

So he’s trying to build up the road, the trail, so that the middle part is higher than the rest of everything else. I have to say, it looks awful, in that it is just so different from what it was. Last summer my father-in-law came and widened the trail by plowing over the honeysuckle on either side. I liked that change because it opened things up. You could see into the woods more and it just felt less claustrophobic.

I don’t mean to bash his work. He’s a nice man and does a lot of volunteer work around camp. He lives in another one of those giant RV’s with his wife. They’re both retired, him being a retired pastor. She quilts in their RV while he does projects. He’s fixed another road that had the same problem with the rain and rock erosion, so I know he knows what he’s doing.

The kids all started school today. One in college, two in high school, and two in middle school. I pretty much had zero feelings about it. I think I had basically exhausted all of that and the day was as normal as any other. Everyone got something to eat in the morning, and the one with cross country practice afterward was sent along with a snack and two bottles of water.

The younger four only had a half day. The high school cross country practice was cancelled due to heat. My daughter said she wanted to go swimming when they got back from school. I went back at around 11 to pick up the youngest and the other three came home together around 1. Dad and Elianna went and ran a few errands not long after they all came home.

The boys came in and told me more about their day. The one who didn’t like school last year is doing better, but now there is another one who doesn’t really like it. Both times what they didn’t like was the other kids. I tried to bypass junior high for as long as I could but eventually I wasn’t able to keep that up. We continue to pray for their school years and each situation.

After that I took a longer than usual nap. Through the summer I didn’t feel as much extra need to rest but this week things were definitely starting to catch up with me. I get this feeling like there’s an electrical charge that needs to come out. I went to the Y this morning for the first time in months. There were flaky particles I’d never noticed before in the water.

Apparently they’d just cleaned out the pool, so I don’t know if that was just debris they’d missed in the cleaning or part of the cleaning itself. I’ve been thinking about needing to start some different kind of strength exercises again in the near future. There is a yoga studio in town I used to go to with heated yoga classes that I think might be good for what I am wanting. I get impatient with my body at times and forget how far things have come and how much progress has actually been made.

I woke up when Dad and Elianna were back home. We all went down to the beach and played. Dad stayed with the boys and I took the paddleboard out to ride with my daughter who decided to swim for her running workout. She swam to the far side of the lake and back and then we stayed in the swimming area a little longer. It really didn’t seem too hot.

Coach Beisel out in Seward rescheduled practices for 5:30AM. They’re that way now for the rest of the week. That’s when they were having their workouts before so I guess they are getting a little more used to it. Today was the first day of classes there too so I am curious to hear how all of those went. Monday seems to be his busiest day of the week, finishing off with an Astronomy night class that I was quite jealous of (which means super excited about).

My normal class schedule starts back up tomorrow. Since I am starting my practicum this semester I have an additional time that I have to be on campus. They have what they call “group supervision” for 90 minutes each week. It’s where the practicum and internship students are divided up amongst the professors and we talk about how our experiences are going. I like the one I have and would’ve been happy with any of them.

I don’t feel ready for the school groove yet, at least not in terms of starting myself. I wonder sometimes why it seems like my capacity for doing things just isn’t what it used to be or never was what others seem to do everyday without problems. There are people who go to work and do all kinds of things with school commitments. I simply can’t imagine having to keep that kind of schedule. I truly couldn’t do it and never would want to.

We stopped by the farm on the way home from the meet. One of the boys is running cross country this fall. They had an early bird meet up in Bloomington this morning. We left here at 6:45 and were there within an hour. I was excited to go. These meets have always felt like ways we get to spend family time together.

Ethan facetimed in with me and the other boys. He had a break from his orientation activities and wanted to cheer for his brother. For as much as the boys were good sports with his sporting events, it made me happy he was showing support for his brother. He was playing Minecraft when I called and was playing the other night when the boys were on. Josh wanted to know if he’s actually getting out and hanging out with other people or if he’s just been playing Minecraft the whole time. He said he has been getting out.

He and Laura have their own Minecraft world now. I don’t know if he was playing with her or someone else from camp or school. The coach sent out an orientation week schedule where it shows everything the team is doing from when they arrived to when school officially begins Monday morning. They’ve had workouts and meetings, as well as team bonding and travel activities. I am assuming that a college level coach has been watching the weather and is well aware of the 100+ temperatures next week.

I was hoping that things would settle down after his actual launch day happened. It seems to be so, at least so far. A girl in my class last year said she cried every day for two months after taking her first son to college. I’ve probably cried every day but after the first night it hasn’t been bad. I stuffed a lot down during class this past week but had car rides to make up for it and “Love Is” by Vanessa Williams and Brian McKnight. I feel like they pretty much nail it as far as love goes except for one line that almost ruins the song.

They say: “And it fades away so easily.” That is the most untrue thing I’ve ever heard sung about it. I still wouldn’t say that the years went by fast. Some definitely seem to go by quicker than others, and when I look at pictures of the kids from past years I can hardly believe how much they have grown. It does seem to happen in ways only seeable when you look back in time. In the moment they’re just with you and you’re eating and drinking and living your days.

The house is coming along quite well and they’ve started in now with the electrical wiring. Watching a house go up has actually been quite incredible. My father-in-law has been in the hospital since the night of our 20th wedding anniversary. I still want to write an anniversary post but haven’t had the chance to be in that space yet. I’ve started two so far but they weren’t the right ones.

They moved him to St. Louis a couple of nights ago. He’s now on the oncology floor and being tended to by the doctors down there. The tumor he had surgery for back in June is growing back and causing paralysis in one of his legs. This whole cancer thing with him truly came out of nowhere and it doesn’t seem possible that this is the position we are currently in. My mother in law says she wants him to be able to live in the house. This house has been around for as long as I’ve known them.

We went out to lunch together once we came back into town. We were celebrating our son’s first meet and doing something fun before kids start school. Dad and the kids had their waterpark day yesterday, with Miles and his younger brother Graham taking me and Ethan’s tickets. My daughter commented that we’d hardly gone regular grocery shopping all summer. That’s something we’ll be needing to get to again but today we were soaking up summer days.

The deer ran away again. I keep telling them that I’m not going to hurt them. I keep thinking it’d be nice to pet them like you would with a cat or dog. I came around the corner and was startled first by the rock and the tractor head in the middle of the trail. At the entry of the woods were four deer grazing. They looked up and saw me and we did the thing we always do where we stop and freeze and stare at each other.

I didn’t bother to go any farther. I wasn’t really feeling all that up for a walk anyway. On the way back one of the cats came up running with a hummingbird. He dropped it in front of me. I had to take closer look because I couldn’t tell at first if it was a bird or a cicada. It was upside down and struggling to breathe. I’ve told him before he’s supposed to leave those ones alone but it’s almost like they’re just toys to him.

We’ve got one more half-day of our intensive class tomorrow. Thankfully I was scheduled to not have to do any presentations or article reports until tomorrow. I really need to stop putting off this kind of homework. We were saying today that our brains were tired and our professor said it was time for a teaching moment. There are going to be days when you’re falling asleep at 3PM and you’re still going to have to do your job.

I don’t know how people go to work every day like this. You come home and there’s basically no time left to do anything, and if there was you wouldn’t have the energy to do it. Josh asked about going to Knights Action Park tomorrow to try to still get our waterpark visit in. I want to go but I want to go at a time when I will have enough energy. He took the kids to the fair today and they did their normal state fair things.

All this stuff with Jeremiah got me thinking about how much people die every day without fanfare. You wonder why God would take someone like him but that assumes that his life was somehow more valuable, like he was somehow more important than the ones who never were homecoming king or loved by so many. Most people in life never win a single thing and yet God cares about and values their lives just as much.

During the sectional boys track meet junior year the meet was delayed for over an hour. Right around dusk the electrical system quit working. The meet could not continue until whatever they used to time the events started working again. There was hardly any communication about any of this. We just hung out in the bleachers and walked around.

Jeremiah stayed and waited to watch Ethan run his 800. He was hoping to PR and ended up getting 6th which was better than he’d hoped for. For some reason I was able to watch that one and I’ll never forget them coming around for the final 200M. The boys were 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 in a row, one in front of the other with equal space between all of them. I remember thinking then if he could just hold on…

He had to be tired. I was amazed at their speed and you could tell he was running with all he had. He PR’d and after that Jeremiah left. It was dark by then and the meet wasn’t all that close by to home. I remember thinking that I admired his parents. They seemed so free with his driving, letting him go from this place to that, all the way out to camp on some occasions late at night.

Jeremiah was faster in the beginning. They met during the second year of high school when Ethan was a sophomore and Jeremiah a freshman. We told him he might enjoy trying cross country. His friend Elijah, one of his first new friends at the school, was also on the team. He said he thought he might want to give it a try. That was the year with the most boys on the team. It took a while to learn their names, but I finally figured out that Jeremiah was the one with the bright orange shoes.

One time, during the beautiful meet at Pittsfield almost two hours away, Ethan and Jeremiah were coming in neck and neck. Ethan had decided he was going to try and beat him. This was the same meet when teammate Zack Fales had his epic 1st place finish that set the new meet record. This was when I was still running around, and when I saw him and Jeremiah that close, I didn’t know who to cheer for.

So I stopped where I was and watched. Afterward Jeremiah put his sweatshirt on and put the hood up. He pulled the string tight so you could hardly see his face. He was trying hard then not to cry. Ethan gave a devotion about it last year at camp. Not the crying part, but about sports and teams. How Jeremiah had helped him be better.

The next year Jeremiah didn’t run. They’d recently found a brain tumor and he was going to start treatments. The brain tumor was inoperable and incurable. The team made t-shirts with Jeremiah’s name on them. Jeremiah responded well to his treatments. Besides cross country that year, he did most everything the other kids did. He was on the basketball team and was top in his class.

Jeremiah had a lot of friends and each one has their own stories about him. During his funeral service they had four speakers from varying youth groups and peer communities he was a part of. He was homecoming king his junior year and went to nearly every dance with his steady girlfriend of well over a year. No one was ever able to tell me where she was from.

I could tell that Ethan loved Jeremiah very much. Last fall he told me that Jeremiah’s parents had gotten a spot with something with the Make a Wish foundation. The wish was to throw the first pitch at a Cardinal’s game. Ethan asked if we could go and watch and bring friends. Of course we could, we just had to know the date. It took a while but we finally found out. I asked my daughter if she’d come along.

The rest of the van was filled with boys. Miles and others. It was a school night and we were going to be out late, but it was worth it. It poured as soon as we pulled into the parking garage. We stood there and waited for the rain to pass by. It never fully did so we had to get wet crossing into the stadium. We went down to our seats after having to wait a while because there was still some occasional lightening.

There were actually like 10-15 first pitches that night. Jeremiah was toward the end of the lineup. The boys asked if they could go over to where the basketball boys were sitting on the other side of the stadium. I said they could but to stay together. They watched Jeremiah from over there. I’d run into a couple from Hoyleton, so I was talking to them. I had to excuse myself to go back down to our seats to make sure I didn’t miss the whole reason we’d come.

For the visitation Ethan wore the team shirt from junior year. In the week before Jeremiah died, there’d been many friends coming and going at their house. When Ethan and Elijah went to visit, his dad told them that this past year Jeremiah didn’t really want to run. He was burnt out on running, but he had wanted to be with Ethan and Elijah for their senior year.

I forgot to mention prom when they all went as friends, when Peter didn’t know they were supposed to show up dressed. Jeremiah was a sophomore that year, but was able to go with the group of juniors. I don’t even know who took him officially as their date. He was very well-liked and loved at school that I doubt it even mattered what person he went with.

Jeremiah had to leave school toward the end of the school year. His tumor had started affecting more things and prom was the last major school event he’d been to. He came to graduation but I hadn’t seen him. I didn’t see him that day until he came for the party, rolling up in a wheel chair. He could not push himself, and he had on a hat and sunglasses to shield his eyes from the light. I hadn’t realized he’d been declining and was taken back.

But the boys went right up to him and made their adjustments. Ethan didn’t see him again until the week before he died. Rumors had been coming that he was fading and was now on hospice. His friend Noah had told him that if he wanted to come then he needed to come soon. They went the next night. The next day Elijah’s mom asked if Ethan would go with Elijah. They went back again that afternoon.

Yesterday when he left for school, he was wearing the same purple shirt that he’d worn for the visitation. I didn’t ask, but I wondered if this was his way honoring his friend whose funeral he wouldn’t be going to that morning. Throughout the day, at various times during class, I was wondering if we all had made a mistake. I should’ve gone with them. He should’ve stayed another day. Eventually I realized I was probably just sad.

I told Elijah not long ago, when driving him from camp to the school where his mom works. When Ethan was sitting alone at the lunch table, he was the one to come over and ask if Ethan wanted to come over and sit with them. Later I learned that he too had been a new kid, as he’d started a new school the year before in 8th grade. I told him thank you for being his friend. If I could I would say the same thing to Jeremiah.

Tell me how far away
the sun is again

93 million miles

And cross out every page
that tries to say
the earth is old

I didn’t tell you what to do

Repeat after me
Our Father
from your car seat

Smile at me

Once more before bed
And tell me again

the names of your trains

Dennis and Rusty
push them around

At my feet with your puzzles

I have a few
but ask me now

I’d take a picture of them all

I didn’t sleep much last night. Josh had reset his alarm for an earlier time so I could wake up and get started on finishing my paper. I ended up waking up several hours before the alarm and went ahead and got up. I asked if it would bother him if I was typing in our room. We have so many windows around that the living room is creepier in the middle of the night.

He said that was fine. I typed for a little bit on our floor but eventually moved into the living room after needing to change positions. Before I left I changed his alarm back to what he’d originally set it for. He left in the morning to spend some time with his dad at the hospital. After printing things out I left for class a little after 11 and told the kids dad would be back again soon.

After class I met dad and the kids at Jeremiah’s visitation. The older kids stayed there the whole time with Josh and after we had visited with others for a while the boys and I left to pick up some grocery items from the store. We ate supper together and afterward dad packed the van. The coach sent a text saying they were praying for everyone and for safe travels.

Ethan and I went out for supper yesterday evening. One of the things that happens in times like this is I start wanting to pass down every single piece of sage advice and life lesson I can think of. Before he went to high school I told Josh he needed to take him out and have whatever kind of talk he needed to have before then. I never asked what they ended up talking about.

So this time I figured it was my turn to say whatever it was I thought needed to be said. I thought I’d make up for all the things I never said or wished I’d taken more time to say over the course of the past four years. But I didn’t really end up doing that. We watched videos on my phone from another mom from when one of their friend groups had made a short movie for school

After that we drove to the park in Sherman. He asked what we were doing and I said, “I feel like…” and that was all I could manage. A few minutes later I tried again saying, “I just feel like this is basically the last…” And eventually I was able to say a few more things. We walked down the sidewalks and sat for a while on one of the benches by the pond. Then we came home.

We drove into Chatham this evening to get ice cream at Sabores. It’s a Mexican ice cream place is how I’ve heard it described. I liked it right away when I saw it. The colors are bright and the counter is full of fun looking ice cream and popsicle juice bars. I was sort of craving ice cream after we’d finished a family supper out. Ice cream is just one of those summer things.

My son said he knew where we could get some ice cream. The girl he went to prom with back in April has been in the picture since that happened. My husband told him that pretty Lutheran girls who show that kind of dedicated interest in you do not come along every day and that this was a big deal. If he had any interest in her at all then he needed to be letting her know.

Kids having significant others or anything resembling it isn’t something I imagined happening right now. I guess this is all practice for when the kids are grown up and have their own families. We will no longer be the core family unit that spends every evening and holiday together. I’ve been asked several times this week about going this way and that with Miles or Laura.

I’ve tried to be saying yes, and they always seem surprised. Between the two of them there has been going out to dinner after cross country practice, eating dinner with Laura’s parents, going to the last youth group gathering before college, the state fair, and watching movies. None of this accounts for the time that’s also been spent texting or emailing or discording.

I’m unable to keep track of their lives like before. This evening I asked if my son has posted anything on snapchat yet. He looked slightly confused and said you really don’t post things there. So then I asked if he’d made any snaps and he said yes. Of the cats, of the baseball field when it was covered in water. I don’t need to know everything, but I do enjoy when they share.

It’s been quite the unusual week to say the least. Josh left this evening to spend the night with his dad in the hospital. After another ER trip, and then yet another, they finally were able to get him admitted. I didn’t have a chance to write it all down then. This was supposed to be our family vacation week. It was blocked out long enough before we knew any of this other stuff was happening.

There really are times when life just feels heavier. This is one of those times, or at least in moments it is. The boys have pretty much been doing their own thing. I keep apologizing to them that the plans keep changing and that we haven’t really been able to do the fun things we planned. I am operating at nowhere near my full capacity. I keep thinking the business will all be over soon.

I’m not upset. This is just what happens, and for whatever reason seems to be the particular cross I bear in this life. My dad says we all have hands we’ve been dealt. I told him that in the Lutheran world we refer to them as crosses. Sometimes others can be there to support us, but ultimately the hands we are dealt are here to make us more like Christ. It’s the work God wants to do in us.

And yet I am upset a little. Not the kind of upset that is a waste of my energy, but the kind that says, “Lord, I need you here too.” So many others need you and I want you to be there for them in their needs. Tend to them first, but don’t forget about me, Jesus. I know when this comes it isn’t sympathy I need, or other people to think I’m strong. It’s the Lord himself, whatever he alone can give me.

When babies are born they teach you to breath through painful contractions. I don’t think I ever was good at that part. I’d get tense in the rocking chair and forget to relax. But relaxed or not there was no getting around what happens inside you. It has to happen, just like our pain does. It’s how he births us, how he frees us to where we can truly say just walk with me, Lord. That’s all I need.

My daughter and I went into town this morning to work on our papers at my in-law’s house. Our internet connection wasn’t working again, which happens sometimes when its foggy or rainy. Josh called the company and someone came out and looked at it. Apparently the problem was just two little cords that had been switched around on the outside antenna. Nobody we know of has been outside on the side of the house messing with the cords.

My husband thinks it’s the Camp CILCA ghost. One time he went down to main camp and found that someone had shut off the water that runs to the dining hall and bathrooms. The man switched the cords and the internet was up and running again. When we got home my son came and told me he thought his friend must have died in the night. He’d started seeing friends posting tributes on social media. They’d found a brain tumor two summers ago.

The visitation is Monday and the funeral Tuesday. The boys were supposed to be in Nebraska those days. After talking to the coach they worked it out that they’ll be staying for the visitation and leaving Tuesday morning now. The coach said his best friend from high school died from brain cancer when he was a sophomore in college. He was immensely understanding of the situation and predicament. This coach in my opinion has been nothing short of phenomenal.

I’ve seen a couple of tributes people have written on social media. All of them are thankful that Jeremiah is safe and resting in the heavenly home of his Lord. I remember Jeremiah having a unique sense of fashion and being the life of the party. I imagine him walking around heaven in a sparkly red jacket with a smile on his face. He was too young to drink so he wouldn’t be holding a beer, but in the same spirt would be saying to us, “Guys, this is great.”

This evening I made a picture collage for my son to take to school. We’ve got a checklist of things we’ve slowly been working on this week. Included on the list were mementos and comfort items. The only picture request he had was the one with Jeremiah from the graduation party. After graduation and two other parties, the two of us went to one last party for an absolutely beautiful memory I will never forget. From the grass and the car I watched them play.

Two of the kids ran our old homeschool PE mile course this evening. Both of them came home saying that they had cut almost half a minute off of their personal best mile times. Neither one of them believed that that could be right. It’s been a while since I mapped it out, but I was pretty sure what they’d run was a mile.

One of the boys and I went out and walked it after I downloaded a GPS app on my phone. It was a mile, though they both had started from a different tree than I started from which may have affected the time by five seconds, but not thirty. I don’t know where the running thing comes from. They definitely didn’t get it from me.

While this was all happening, another one was at the bike trail. Ethan and one of his school friends ran seven and a half miles. After that they stayed at the old high school where a summer baseball practice was going on. He said the practice was almost over and he was going to try and catch the coaches before heading back home.