We had another couple of inches of snow overnight. Josh came in this morning asking if there’d been any communication from the grade school. The high school had been cancelled. He opened my email and skimmed the message. Down at the bottom it said that most of the area schools were open today, but if you wanted to keep your kids home for the day that was fine.

“Well what do you want to do?”, he said. We’d already made our drop-off and pick-up arrangements, he was dropping off and I was picking up. “I mean, that means we’d still have to get them there and get them back”, he said. “I don’t care”, I said, “just let ‘um stay home.” I hadn’t even known it was supposed to snow. Sometimes they cancel school the night before so everyone already knows. One of the boys had recently told me before bed, that the way he feels going to bed when he knows there’s a snowday the next morning, that’s how he used to feel every night.

So we had another snow day here. Besides grocery shopping and cooking supper, I wasn’t productive at all today. Elianna came with me. Later in the day we watched the college indoor track races online. First the one, then the other, and in other news Matt Carpenter is back on the Cardinals after signing a 1-year contract. Once a Cardinal always a Cardinal with players like that.

Thine the truly, Thine the yes
Thine the table, we the guest
~Herbert Brokering~

It was warmer today, less biting outside. Dad and the kids went down to the lake again. I haven’t made it that far. I guess I haven’t the interest. Today I stuck to the main path, turning around at the swings. The outside cats have been holed up in the roof somewhere for the past several days. That’s where they go when it’s cold. They came out yesterday and were out again today, back to roaming around.

This morning I met with an woman whose house I visit on occasion. She’s quite a bit older than me, but that doesn’t seem to stop us from being able to connect. She always has questions for me to answer, that she’s written in a notebook as if she thought ahead and prepared them. Today was no different. One of the questions today was, “What does your morning routine look like?” I only had one certain answer, “I wake up every morning at 5 when my husband’s phone alarm goes off.”

One time I went with questions for her. This is one of those relationships where I feel like she’s giving more. She gives me plants to put outside of my house, snacks and drinks while I’m there, questions and verses to stimulate my thoughts. I can’t help but think I’m older now, I’m not a child now: I need to give back now. She asked me to pray at the end so I did. If I can do nothing else, that at least I can do.

The events of the past week are still fresh and affecting me. I think I thought I would be able to come home, take a day or two to recover, and then be okay to continue plodding through with life and school. My bed day didn’t even really hit me until today. The kids were off school again, this tie for cold instead of the holiday. Josh took them all to his mom’s to help with packing. They spent the afternoon there.

While they were gone I was going to work on school. I was behind with a few assignments that he’d just told me to turn in whenever. I’d tried to work on it down there and I couldn’t. I tried to work on it again today and all I could do was stare at the syllabus and think, “I really can’t do this.” Everyone says it’s an easy class, and so I thought I could handle two easy ones together. It was too much now.

So as of this afternoon, I dropped it. This means I won’t have all the classes done when the school closes. So I’m a little disappointed about that, but at the same time feel relieved. Four classes when nothing else is going on is okay. But honestly since the beginning of last spring, I have been dealing with additional emotional strain that hasn’t really come with many intervals of letting up. I am tired from all of it.

I think this is the fullest season of life we’ve ever had. Between the kids and their needs and activities, family members beginning to pass more, and our own individual things that the two of us are each involved in, it seems part of our responsibility to ourselves, each other, and others is to keep the white space of our lives from becoming too crowded. More than ever we need clear priorities, boundaries, space.

The work of death is ongoing. It doesn’t just come into our lives and then leave. My grandmother is praying for everyone else. My extended family is very sad. My mother-in-law is getting ready to move into her house near the end of this month or early in February. There is much that has had to go on since my father-in-law left us that does not include the pain of continuing on and living life in his absence.

Besides God obviously, the work for me as a wife and mother has been centered on keeping family first. Someone has to make supper, to make sure food is there to even make the supper with. It’s a part time job itself just to keep this place in decent working order at the very bare minimum level. The stuff influx management. Keeping the linen closet from becoming an unbearable view of disorder. This all takes work.

While they were gone I rested here. I want to have time and energy for the many things that matter, such as helping my mother-in-law move or talking to my kids or making supper. We don’t outgrow this. This sounds like I’m making a case for quitting my class, but I’m really just processing, just centering myself and taking time to rest and be. We’re all different, it looks different for all of us, but maybe not too much.

The kids were off school today. This morning I cut my hair just to trim the dead ends off. The ends were starting to get crunchy and I didn’t really feel like paying for a generic and typically mediocre haircut when I could just as easily do that for myself here at home. I actually kind of like it.

This afternoon we took a trip into town. My daughter had a lunch meeting with friends. While she was doing that the rest of us went to Barnes and Noble. I’d seen a Goodreads review of a book on Elisabeth Elliot. I have another book I’m starting called Foster by Claire Keegan. This was another recent John Blase recommendation. He said the author had put a spell on him. I decided I would give his recommendations one more chance.

If I don’t end up liking this one then I’m not going to bother reading any more of what he likes or recommends. Truthfully I am eager to get back to my own pet research projects and reading preferences for my own down time. I haven’t been looking forward to this semester as much as usual.

We’ve got class tonight and I haven’t done much of anything for it. There wasn’t really anything due so that was helpful. I will show up in my sweatpants, put in my time, and then come home. Thankfully too he usually lets us out early. It’s just that one harder teacher who doesn’t. I have her for an intensive but that’s a few months away. So it’s just the two 8-week classes right now: Research and Evaluation. Tests and Measures.

Josh and the boys went down to the lake again today. The past two days I have had him text me pictures. They weren’t out there as long and all came back with bright red cheeks. He and I are both nursing a cold so we’ve been taking turns with episodes of violent sneezing. Supper is on the stove.

Last night I should’ve ended with “so now I sleep” instead of “so now I wait”. To sleep is to imply that you are temporarily at peace and have let go of your cares. To be waiting is to still be wanting something. It’s true that’s where I was but it wasn’t enough to make it the end. Oh well. I woke up several times in the night, once because the room was cold.

I left around 10:45 from the parking lot and was home again around 12:20. I texted my dad to let him know, and my sisters, and my cousin, and my husband, and called my grandma again. Josh and the kids were out to lunch. When they came home I gave them all big hugs. I have a side to my personality that’s hard to show, these surges of happiness.

Surges of anything can overwhelm people. I started playing and singing Celine Dion while we were in Florida. I didn’t do it for very long. It was still pretty early and my cousin’s youngest daughter was still asleep on the couch. I was happy to be there, even under the circumstances. At first I had considered turning around and going back home.

I didn’t know what we were going to do. For months I’d had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to go down if/when Aunt Susie needed help. That’s what I was going down there for. There are things that went down in the end that I feel like should not have happened. She was upset about it too, acting as her own nurse even hours before she died.

Sometimes when our plans change we can look back and say, “Oh, if it had gone the original way then such and such would never have happened” and the story is spun with a glittering God-angle. Not that God isn’t constantly working things out all the time, but sometime his timing and reasoning remains hidden from our understanding and sight.

And in those times we walk by faith. My aunt is with the Lord and she is at peace now. I was trying just to be a sweet and comforting peaceful presence, not too vocal, not too loud, not flamboyant or with aims to rescue. Of my uncle and cousin and his family I thought, “Well these were her most special people in life. To love them is to still love her.”

But even that wasn’t fully it. They couldn’t just be special to me because of her. My uncle, my cousin, his family, they are special to me because they are special to God. Period. And over the past couple of years we’ve been blessed to have had more frequent connecting points in time which have allowed many of us to know each other again.

So all that to say, I’m glad we went. I had asked my cousin straight up on that morning, “Is it too much for us all to come?” He said maybe three might be too many. By then my aunt had already cancelled her plans. So that is when Jess went one way and Liz and I went another. We hugged and my uncle said when we left we’d gotten him off to a good start.

I didn’t quite make it home tonight. The wind was too bad and blowing the snow so I couldn’t see. It usually takes a little over three hours to get home from my sister’s house, but by about that time I was only halfway. People who were driving had their hazard lights on so everyone could see where the other vehicles were located. I followed behind a semi until I came to El Paso.

The airplane ride was uneventful. We had a different model this time and there seemed to be about 1-2 inches more of leg room on this one. Maybe it was because I was used to it, I don’t know, but the rows didn’t look as crammed this time. After landing we found the car and took turns cleaning it off. As I was clearing the snow so the car could back out, I kept thinking how not that long ago there’s no way I could’ve done this.

I miss my husband and my kids. Some time apart is fine but after a while you’re ready to be back. And what’s a hotel room without a bedmate or space overflowing with kids and bags? On the drive I called and spoke with several relatives via telephone. It’s supposed to drop below zero into the night and early morning. I decided it was best to stop for the night, so now I wait.

This afternoon my cousin, sister, and I went for a walk. One of their dogs was up at the house plus another dog that they are dog-sitting for over the week. Dogs sure seem like an awful lot of work. Three of my siblings have dogs now and I’ve caught only glimpses of all that is involved in caring for them and training them. This was the first time I think I’ve ever walked a dog.

Cats are a lot easier. Growing up that’s what we had after a series of emotionally based decisions by my mother. One day there was a free cat in the pet store and the rest is history. From there we enjoyed several litters and got attached to many of them, even getting to keep an entire litter at one point. Mom got attached to another one later. By the time we moved from New York there were six cats that needed homes.

My grandparents took all of them. Only one was allowed inside, but the rest had a home on their outdoor porch and four acres of land. My grandma has often told me the story of how I gave her two dollars before we moved telling her it was to put toward cat food and if she needed more to let me know. I don’t remember that but she never did ask for any more dollars.

It’d been about ten years since I’d been on a plane. I texted Josh after we’d boarded and told him it was just as awful as I remembered from the last time when I’d said there’s no way I’d do it again without some kind of calming medication. I had it with me but didn’t take it. When I started crying in my seat, my sister said, “Here Beck, get your blanket..” and she leaned over toward the floor to pull it out of my backpack.

The way they cram those rows together feels completely inhumane. Once we took off and got into the air I was more or less okay. When he and I had flown before our kids seemed way too young to have both of us die. But this time they were older and I had more peace that they’d be okay. My sister and I sat leaned up against each other while she read her magazine and I rested my eyes. I watched out the window.

We’ve had a good day of getting things done. Liz and I cleaned out the bedroom that used to be where my aunt took care of my grandpa. She had a counter full of medical supplies from herself and a closet of my grandpa’s leftover items in the closet. Whatever is unopened one is able to donate. Some of it my cousin wanted to keep. At least one garbage bag was filled from his room. They still have his ashes here.

My uncle had taken a video of my aunt about 7-8 hours before she died. She was giving pillows to her granddaughters and sharing her final words and testimony with them. It was beautiful to hear her share her faith with so much clarity and love. In a way it gave me some closure to have still been able to see her before she died. I wish that we had been able to make it sooner to be able to give her the care she’d given to others.

My uncle and cousin said she’d given them a list of end-of-life symptoms to look out for earlier that day. My uncle said they all came true. I know she would’ve loved to be here but maybe by now she’s forgotten those dreams. Everyone keeps saying it doesn’t seem real and how it feels like she’s just out at the store or should be in the next room. There seems to be a comfort we didn’t anticipate where our loved ones are never fully gone.

This morning we received a call from my cousin saying that my aunt had passed away in the night. It came as a bit of a shock even though we knew that things had not sounded good the evening before. They had just hired a full time nurse starting yesterday evening and I was eager to get down there so I could step into that role. When we found out she had passed there was some discussion that was needed to figure out how we ought to proceed with the day.

My other aunt didn’t end up flying down to Florida. One of my sisters who was supposed to fly with us drove to Kansas City in order to be with my other aunt. After talking more with my cousin and figuring some other things out, my other sister and I flew down this afternoon and landed around 4:25 eastern time.

We spent the evening with my uncle, cousin, his wife, and two girls. We are staying here at the house with the same plans to fly home Saturday morning. My cousin ordered Panda Express for supper and we passed around his phone so we could put in our orders. A few of us left to pick up the food and stop by Target. I picked up a pair of flip flops that I could wear if we go for walks. So far we’ve been talking and looking at pictures. After a while we all went to bed.

Last night the kids were looking at pictures on the computer. In the years we’ve been living at camp, I can’t believe how much they’ve changed. I looked through a few and when I saw this one of them at the beach I said, “Oooo, can you send that one to me?” But you can hardly even see us, my daughter said. “But I love those five little dots”, I told her.

I’d forgotten all about it until tonight when I opened my email. I usually scroll through looking for any messages I need to read, when I came to the subject line of Five Little Dots. It made my heart happy and I remembered again the picture. My son had also just sent a snap chat reply to my brother-in-law saying, “Can you tell her I said hi?”

“Was he saying that about me???”, I asked. And then I lost it because he was. Isn’t that crazy? How all he had to say was can you tell her I said hi and suddenly I felt so touched and I don’t know what. I know I’m emotional for other reasons but between the dots and the hi I was once again blessed. These loves of my life who were my world.