Yesterday the kids woke up sick and cranky for the fifth day in a row. I tried to interest them in breakfast by asking Devon what he wanted to eat (oatmeal? toaster waffle? egg?).
"Popsicles!" he replied.
I couldn't think of a single reason why not.
We have a rule about popsicles. They're too sticky and messy for inside. They're either bathtub food or outside food. I strapped Carrie and Melina into the wagon, lifted Devon so he could stick his feet in his Cars boots, and grabbed a fistful of popsicles from the freezer.
We had breakfast on the front doorstep. As Devon sucked down his first and started on a second, I rocked him on the creaky porch swing and enjoyed something I rarely get in the mornings anymore now that we're up-and-out.
Time to think.
This week marked the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Devon is in love with his Cars boots.
Mommy chose Devon for last Saturday night's pick-a-child-and-go-shop-with-the-crazies-at-Walmart ritual. I rarely impulse buy but an article of clothing that Devon can put on by himself AND turns his feet into little Lightning McQueens seemed like a win-win. We ended up in the tobacco line for forty-five minutes. We always do. It's the only over-twenty-items line open after ten p.m. Devon hopped in and out, in and out of the boots, strutting around proudly. He checked out the people in the tabloid photos and made up stories about them.
"The girl went swimming in the cool (pool). She fell off the Froggy Potty and went boomps!"
"The man lost the monkey! Oh no! He is crying. In the bed."
I feel like we were really there for our community that night, providing much-needed entertainment for many jittery people in line behind us who decided a bit late that Nicoderm just wasn't going to get them through the weekend.
We picked up a nasty respiratory bug somewhere. We were all over the place before the coughs and crankies confined us to the house. We went to gymnastics.
When I got tired of things from Devon's closet showing up in his bed, we went to Home Depot to buy a lock for his closet door.
Door lock: 3 minutes.
Riding the John Deeres: 45 minutes.
We went to the Splash Pad like we do every week.
This was the first time I could sit and enjoy the fun.
Now that the girls are walking so well, I'm not hovering and waiting to lift them back to their feet when they want to crawl or nursing their skinned knees.
We took a Saturday morning trip to Cracker Barrel. Mommy took pictures of the kids while Daddy drove.
On the way into the restaurant, Craig asked "So, at what point do we order kids' meals for the kids?"
I smiled confidently, patting the bag where I had packed baby protein shakes, squeezies, and fish crackers. Ever since Cracker Barrel started skimping on the biscuits and corn muffins if ordering breakfast (Come on, say it ain't so, beacon of southern hospitality!) I have to pack food that will pass the time until they bring our food.
On the way out of the restaurant, I replied that the time for the Kids Menu has evidently come. The kids had a great time, devouring our entire bag of snacks and beaming bright-eyed at our pancakes and french toast. I got a half-piece of apple toast between feeding bites to the girls. Craig was a great sport. He couldn't have sneaked more than five bites of his own pancakes between Devon's demanding more. He patted his tummy modestly, saying that large southern portions aren't so good for us anyway.
We capped off the morning with a ride on the carousels at the mall.
They're perfect for us right now.
Three seats. Three kids.
Dave Ramsey would be proud.
Devon jolted my elbow, finished with his second popsicle and angling for a third. I frowned. It's a bit early for nothing to eat but Fla-vor-ices, which are nothing but fake dye and sugar. I ducked into the house for fish crackers, our staple these days.
At least four times a day we engage in our ritual "sharing of the fishies in the pikkmik table" as Devon calls it. I make three little mounds of fishies and the kids all sit down.
With a wave of the hand, I am dismissed, but I watch from a nearby chair to make sure nobody pushes, fights, or pulls hair. One set of Biblical twins damaged their relationship for decades by scheming over a "mess of pottage", so I can't underestimate the sharing of one's food in the area of positive family dynamics.
This week everybody sat primly in their seats, sneaking fishies from the piles in front of their siblings and passing on the ones set before them. Last week Devon enjoyed playing Creature from the Dark Lagoon. He would hide under the picnic table as the girls ate, snaking his arms like tentacles out from underneath to grab fishies from their piles and drag them back down to the depths. He called out to Carrie and Melina in his monster voice, using the new nicknames he's chosen for them.
He calls Carrie "Stink-A-Bunkers."
Melina is "Weenut Butter."
I filled the cupholders of the wagon with fishies and handed Devon the entire container to hold. He smiled incredulously at this embarrassment of fishy riches. As he gamely stuck an arm in the box, trying to see if he could bury it up to the elbow in his favorite snack, my disordered thoughts finally seized on the Bible verse I'd been trying to call to mind:
2 Corinthians 4:17: "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."
I've been sick too this week. Every afternoon I struggle to get my pitifully whining kids down for naps and collapse on the couch to be sick myself. I haven't had the energy or lung capacity to accomplish any of the goals I set last week: work out every other day, make significant progress on the baby books, rigidly enforce an 8:30 bedtime so Craig and I have some time to connect every night, and go to Awanas with Devon and help in his class. The virus and the shut-in lifestyle made us all cranky. It's been a struggle to convince the kids-- and myself-- that this week of illness is a light and momentary trouble.
I have only to check facebook to regain some of that perspective. A friend lost her mom unexpectedly this week, and another young family in the community is reeling from the loss of their six-week-old son. I think I have my problems, but in comparison my cup of grief has only one or two tiny drops in the bottom.
My mom's early morning phone call informed me that my Grandma Irma Jean Meth passed away last night. I watch my kids as they eat, seeing glimpses of my grandma in Devon's closed-mouth expression. I'm sad that they won't make kuchen with their great-grandmother in fourth grade like I did with mine. I wonder if they'll be great at spelling like grandma.
I indulge in a moment of confusion and frustration over her long season of illness, now finally over. She had Alzheimer's. She's been here-but-not-here since before Devon was born. When he was placed in her arms at ten weeks old, we saw only a twitch of response in her eyes. We never got to do the same with the girls. She didn't get to sing hymns over my babies like my parents do, harmonizing in her alto voice with my Grandpa.
We don't know exactly what happens in the mind of someone with Alzheimers. Was she aware the last few years and her body just lost the ability to respond? Did her mind flicker back and forth along the timeline of her life, reliving disjointed scenes and images? Did it hurt? Was she scared?
It doesn't seem "light" for her to gradually lose everything she knows, from the words to tell her daughters she's just had a haircut to where the silverware goes when setting the table to the comfort of living each day with her devoted husband. Nor does it seem "momentary" that Alzheimers took most of her last decade on earth.
That's okay.
The point of the verse is not to give us a spiritual pep talk or shame us out of feeling bad when life seems hard. It gives us this hope: future glory outweighs present suffering.
Grandma opened her eyes in heaven last night. Just the first moment was wonderful enough to make her last five years no more painful or inconvenient than a sneeze. The degeneration that started the moment she became part of no-longer-perfect creation on a fallen earth reversed with the screech and zip of a rewinding cassette tape. She reached out tentative mental fingers to find that the space between her's ears didn't feel foggy anymore. I'm sure that it's pretty amazing to meet God in his house for the very first time, but how much more so to reach out to him with arms that are moving for the first time in years.
It's been compared to turning off the nightlight because dawn has come, reaching the home you never knew you were always looking for, or just (for children) falling asleep in the carseat and waking up to find that Daddy has unhooked your seat belt, straightened your crooked neck, and carried you in to your own soft bed where you belong. I know the comfort of the scripture's promises of heaven are general. The real thing will defy comparison.
I don't think she's an angel watching over us. If heaven is a place out of time, it makes sense to me that no matter when we die we all get there at the same time. We stay here and live out the days God has chosen for us. Most importantly we teach our children about him, hoping that they will make the same choice we have and be given the same gift of heaven. Grandma is DONE with all that.
I'd like to think that in life out of time we can somehow relive how we were at any moment in time. If she wants to, she can give baby Devon the squeeze she wanted to give him two years ago. She's holding Carrie and Melina as babies, walking with one slippery toddler hand in each of hers, and seeing them graduate college all at the same time. It makes me a little jealous. It's tempting to think of heaven like one big after-party, but it's not. Most of all it's the beginning of real life exactly how we're meant to live it.
Since she's already seemed "gone" for so long, my Grandma's death feels more to me like the death of sickness. The dear woman I remember happy, healthy, and fully in control is very much alive.
Psalm 116:15: "Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints."
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