July 9, 2011

• It’s raining. 

  Again.

  3.5 inches and counting at our house.

  Highway closed in spots and our own little range road by the oil well washing out.

  Beautiful wheat going into head now lodging in the heavy rains.

  My emotions have been on edge the last few days. I don’t know why.   I told Dan last night that I wish I just didn’t feel everything so deeply.  It all cuts.  From the beauty of a sunset to the words I read to the face-off I had with my child to the drowning barley field.  There’s this underlying sadness that I can’t understand, I write in my journal.  Added to that, I feel like I’ve accomplished absolutely nothing except (kind of) keeping this house going in the last week.

  Dan & I had breakfast out at White Spot this morning.  I love a chance to wear my pretty black neck scarf in July.  We watched the rain fall on sad petunias and sodden streets and quietly drank our decaf.  We savored the peace and talked about life.

  (The Six at home ate frozen waffles and bacon that their dad fried for them.)

  After breakfast we bought flowers at Safeway and went to hold our beautiful new grand-nephew at the hospital.  He has a head full of black, black hair and the sweetest, fullest little mouth.  His young parents are so proud and happy. (And no, I don’t have photos.  And yes, I am sad that I didn’t take the camera.)

  After hearing an ohsofamiliar and yetsodifferent and uniqueandspecial birth story and remembering ours (the many we went to Coop for groceries.  Fresh cherries, fish and chicken, Crisco, frozen beans as we await the ones growing in the garden, batteries.

  Driving home through the rain I started singing Laura Story’s song :

  What if Your blessings come through raindrops
  What if Your healing comes through tears?
  What if a thousand sleepless nights
  Are what it takes to know You’re near?
  
  What if trials of this life
  Are Your mercies in disguise?

  It fit.  The rain.  And the hard nights we’ve been having with children up at various and sundry times for various and sundry reasons.  Liesl the most restless of all and we don’t really know why.

  And then Dan said, “Did you think at all about how that could have been Kevin & Lori’s baby you held today?”

  (My brother Kevin was married to my nephew’s wife for 8 short months before he died.  Yeah, it’s a little confusing.)

  And I hadn’t even thought of it.  That in itself made the tears start.

  And then I cried some more. 

  And I said, “Kevin would have been so proud to have a little son.”

  And later, “But he’d be proud of Joe & Lori’s baby too.”

  And later, “In fact, I’m sure he IS proud today.”

  And we drove past the fenceposts that have nearly disappeared in the rushing water.  Home to our house on the hill and 3 smiling littles to meet us at the door.

  Later today I read these words by Ann Voskamp:

  “Only self can kill joy.  I’m the one doing this to me.”  The demanding of my own will is the singular force that smothers out joy-nothing else.”

  And “Pride slays thanksgiving….A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.”  -Henry Ward Beecher-

  And because I am not Ann I can’t wrap this up  nicely.  I don’t even know if this makes sense.

  It’s just the piercing emotions of the day for me.  Emotions that I can’t put any trust in but are there nonetheless.  And facts that keep me holding to Christ with a longing for better and fuller life ahead.  And I don’t know why I feel like blogging when I’m sad.  I don’t write about the hot and sunny Thursday this week when the children and I went to town and got books at the library and ate blueberries and cheese sticks at the park.  I don’t write about Canada Day ball games with friends and that one luscious fly that I caught even though I didn’t make it to first base one single time.  I don’t write about fireworks on a windy Alberta evening.

  There is steak for dinner tonight.  My white walls and floral livingroom wallpaper are no longer glaring at me.  (Though I have yet to decide how to decorate the consomme brown and the french ditch green and the newbury tan.)  The boys have been playing Lego more nicely than I ever dreamed possible.  My windows are dirty, but I think I’ll invite guests for lunch tomorrow.

  And the rain keeps falling.
  
  

  • 5:49 pm
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