Dappled Things

I am recovering from a long and somewhat emotionally draining week. Last Sunday, I received a phone call from my mother-in-law letting me know that Will’s grandfather had just passed away that morning. He was ninety-two and had not been doing well in recent weeks, so it was not totally unexpected. It was a sad loss, nevertheless. My husband loved his grandfather and our children loved spending time with him. He was a sweet man who was thought much of by his community.

We drove to South Carolina on Monday, attended the funeral on Tuesday and then visited with Will’s side of the family. On Wednesday, we were able to stop by and see my parents. My mother has Alzheimer’s. It is a heavy thing to see my mother progressively getting worse and my father steadfastly tending to her needs even as he is growing older.

We drove back Wednesday afternoon. It is about an eight hour trip for us each way. We got back that evening with enough time to stop for some fast-food burgers and then go to church. I saw my good friend was still enormously pregnant and chided her about that, but fell into bed that night without much thought on that matter or any other. I was exhausted. My children were exhausted. My husband was exhausted. It was good to be home in our own beds with our own pillows. It was good to have Maggie, our geriatric dog, sleeping on the floor beside my bed and our cat, Sam, sleeping in a fluffy, white ball on Lily’s bed. Home. A constant mess, but otherwise practically perfect in every way.

When I woke up on Thursday morning, I had every intention of catching up on the laundry, getting the girls back on track with their lessons and perhaps even contributing some time to the grand effort I have undertaken to organize our book collection. Instead, I got a phone call letting me know that my dear friend had gone into labor during the night and was in need of immediate prayer because she and the baby were in such a dire situation that the doctors were afraid of losing them both. I spent the rest of my day praying with my girls and by myself for my friend and her little one. I was on the phone or the computer receiving or passing along information for the better part of the day.

I can joyfully tell you now that both my friend and her baby are well and in the process of going home this week. This is her sixth child. She has five other children at home awaiting her. The thought that we nearly lost both her and the baby would be so heavy if not for the joy of their recovery.

Sometimes I wonder if God knows how much I really dislike rollercoasters. It’s not the heights or the depths that bother me, so much as it is the sensation of falling. When the bottom drops out and you have no control over the fact that you are, indeed, falling. And it just keeps happening over and over again. How can I take any comfort as long as I am on this earth? I used to see people and think that life was not that difficult most of the time. I know better now. This life will never be comfortable. It is not without its joys, but it will never be a place to rest.

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Ecclesiastes 9:11