Thoughts from a Melancholy Monday

"Hug Molly and kiss sweet Catharine...It's killing me not to be there." I choked the words to my Mama past the lump and my throat and found myself surprised that it was there at all - the lump, I mean.

I woke up yesterday morning after a full and wonderful evening with some dear women sat around my table and communicated with their eyes, their tears, their words, and their laughter - that even though we feel alone right now, we don't have to forever. It was beautiful and rich and life-giving and affirming. I went to bed full and woke up  expecting more of the same, as a friend who I've wanted to be an even better friend for a very long time was scheduled to bring her littles to my house so they could play and we could get right down to what God is doing in our lives - and beyond.

What I ACTUALLY woke up to was a toddler with hand, foot, and mouth disease and thus the melancholy set in and hung low all the live long day.

Let me tell you that all was fine. The girls were wonderful. Marilee was snuggly and a little irritable, but she was not what she might have been - what I might have been - with friggity, fraggin' sores all over her mouth, hands, and feet. It was not a bad day, but I could not shake the blah's. I tried. I couldn't.

We stayed in PJ's. We watched more TV than any expert or super-mom would ever approve of. I finally got all the children's clothes in some sort of order.

And my sister, my best friend for as long as I can remember life, delivered her second baby. And I wasn't there. Again.

There is an ache that accompanies that sentence - an apart-ness from the people who have molded me and loved me whole for all my life - that runs deeper than my words can say and holds tighter than this life has the power to shake. It's good. She's good. Sweet baby girl Catharine is good, too. They're beautiful, and I am grateful that I have pictures to see and a trip approaching. But the fact that we miss out on each other's major life events - it's almost more than I can bear sometimes.

There's no answer, no solution. Only the honest acknowledgement of the pain of it all, another surrendering to the One who has allowed us to bear this particular burden, and the choice to keep living full and whole in the where, who, and how of today. So, I told Him it was hard. I felt mounds of gratitude to and for a gracious friend who hooked me up with oils for the hand, foot, and mouth situation, and considered that blessings and burdens blend together like the pinks, oranges, and blues of the Florida evening sky - to make something deeply beautiful - something so striking that you let your five year old stay up past her bedtime watching it disappear and marveling at it's inexplicable beauty. 

Then you rent Saving Mr. Banks and embrace the art of creativity and the way it allows you to cry for what you didn't realize you were quite so sad about. You eat popcorn and stay up too late and say feelings aloud to the man who lets you hurt when you need to. You go to sleep and you get up and you do it again.

And you know that Jesus, sweet Jesus - He is the one to look to and consider at the beginning of every day. He is the maker of beautiful, possible, and strong.