I’m starting over with writing as that wasn’t quite where I wanted to go. It wasn’t really a missing. Missing implies more of a longing for something different. I don’t long for him to be back here, plus that would not be what is best for him. It’s more like, on certain days, for whatever reason, I think of him. I remember that I had another child or children.

The day started wide open. I love those mornings when I realize there’s nothing else going on and we have the whole day. I finished up the wellness plan and turned that in. I ordered the boys’ Bible books for the rest of the school year. I tried to read and write in my journal but the dog had somehow gotten into the eggshells from the garbage.

And I remembered then too and it was not a pleasant memory. When my time was not my own and walking from here to there in a straight line was a distant memory. It was not the big things, it was the littlest things I could not handle. The fragmenting of my time into microseconds and micromovements that frustrated my every tried direction.

Oh but enough about that. I’m not here to complain about a former life. The boys and I had a lovely morning. I woke them up to play with the dog. Dad was two hours away at chapel. “Don’t they have any closer pastors?”, my son asked. Sometimes they call him and other times he calls them. That’s his business and I feel no need to make a fuss.

I tried again in the afternoon to do the readings from the morning. In my Bible I found a letter that Josh had written me after Epiphany. I almost moved it to the side but then thought, “I should read this again.” And then the letter made me cry. How am I so dumb? How are women so stupid? Why do I turn away from and stop desiring what is?

He was home by then, and I felt the need to reach out. Would I have been fine then, yes, but later, if I let it go too long, I would not have been. I texted, “When you have a chance can we take a half hour or so to have some talk/catch up time?” I first said, “When you have a chance do you want to…”, but changed it, trying to own every word.

“Sure”, he said. So after lunch and whatever else we found each other on the living room loveseat. He doesn’t like to talk in bed when he’s dressed and has shoes on. It didn’t need to be much, it was just an exchange of sharing whatever we’d heard, read, or done in recent days. He says his things. I say my things. We’re content to just be.

Is this divine grace or a tragedy? The way we change for one another, the way our edges are smoothed, the way experience shapes us. I had class later over Zoom because of the weather. So we had supper all together which between three of us was made. Class went well and she let us out 15 minutes early.