My beloved grandmother Honey has been dying for months now.

In February, they said she had maybe two months left. Several weeks ago, we were told it would be a week, maybe two, until she died.

She is still here, still suffering, still stubbornly clinging to life. She can barely hold up her head, but insists on being put in her chair in the living room each day so she can see the hummingbirds visit the feeder outside her window.

We don’t know why she is still hanging on. It sounds just terrible, but we want her to pass on. We’re ready for her to go because it’s so heartbreaking to see her suffer. None of us understand why she is still here, why God has seen fit to let her pass in such a slowly agonizing manner.

The only sense I can make of it is that she is so precious to all of us, the only way we can let go of her willingly is if we know that we know, beyond any doubt, that she is better off leaving us.

My visits with her have been heartbreaking and beautiful, sad and meaningful. When I saw Honey tonight, she was laying in her recliner,  so thin and frail, her head fallen to the side, her face nothing more than a skull stretched over with papery thin wrinkles. Her eye sockets were dark, sunken and her eyelids closed.

I rubbed her arm and talked to her to wake her, and her eyes cracked open into a blank stare. After a moment, it registered that it was me, and she smiled and greeted me. Then her head fell back to the side. She lifted it again then said how happy she was to see me, and how beautiful I looked.

Every time I’ve seen her in the past month, she has gone on and on about my beauty, about how much I look like her. I jokingly told my sister that if Honey had to get stuck on repeating one thing to me, at least that was a nice thing to hear so often.

My visit was short; I had to get home to feed the baby and put him to bed. As I nursed him, I thought about Honey, about how she asked for two hugs when I left tonight, and how every time I’ve hugged her goodbye in recent months, I’ve wondered if it was the last time I’d ever do that.

Years ago, Honey told me that she hated looking in the mirror. She said that she wasn’t pretty anymore, and she hated seeing herself look that way. I guess in a way, I understand. I kinda miss how I looked 20 years ago, too.

When my babies were born, I stared at their faces for hours. And because of that, in those early days postpartum, whenever I saw myself in the mirror, I always felt a brief sense of surprise, an odd sense of recognition as I saw them again in my reflection.

I wonder if something similar is what Honey feels now when she sees me. I favor her—and her mother—more than my sisters or my own mother. I wonder if when she sees me, she feels that same sense of recognition of herself so many decades ago.

I am certain that 40 years ago, she held me sleeping as I held my little Jonah tonight, gazing at that sweet little face and drinking it in. And I bet that after she laid me down, when she saw herself in a mirror, she also saw the melding of our faces.

Past, present and future—all in one reflection.

1. I’m going to Crazyland on the short bus. Want to come along?

2. I prefer to express my adventure and daring in more intangible, esoteric ways. I’ll chase after a writing goal, or dare to pursue a project that others doubt I can accomplish. But you’ll never see me bungee jumping or skydiving. E-VER.

3. Perhaps today you can make it a point to be nice to me. Because I’m tired.

4. I’m so glad that my boys are equipped with a true adventurer’s spirit.

5. Compassion is a gift. (Truly, after recent observation of the uncompassionate actions of some, I am convinced that the ability to show compassion is a gift from God. Those who CAN do it, SHOULD do it, at every point possible, to make up for those who are completely clueless when it comes to showing love and mercy to one another.)

6. Mothers of infants prove that life without adequate sleep is possible, no matter how difficult.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to restocking the pantry, tomorrow my plans include way too many piddly tasks to list here, and Sunday, I want to enjoy my time at church then relax with my sweet family!

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We got a glimpse of Jonah’s budding personality last night.

Let me preface this by telling you that Jonah loves his food. I mean, this baby loves to eat. He’s ten months old and eating way more table food than my other two did at this age. He eats his baby food and wants whatever we’re having, too. The kid can eat.

Last night, we didn’t have dinner until Eli and I got home from VBS. That was later than we usually eat, so Donnie had already fed Jonah his dinner while I was gone.

So we put Jonah in his walker, and he was in it beside me, munching on a rice cracker. I offered Eli a bite of my chicken, and when Jonah saw me spoon-feeding Eli—and not HIM—he stood up straight in that walker, pumped his fist into the air, turned beet red and SCREAMED.

Wow. Kinda scary to be stunned by a 10-month-old’s temper.

But then we all cracked up laughing. It was just too funny a sight, that little bitty boy so fully, physically, with every ounce of his being overflowing with anger over missing a bite of food.

Y’all go pray for me now, you hear?

Eli was working on memorizing his Bible verse for VBS tonight.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

(Pause)

“First Caribbeans, 13:13!”

I’ve written about some of my favorite things about homeschooling before. But as I’m watching my friends gearing up to send their kids back to school (which starts July 29th), I just have to compose a top-ten list of things to LOVE about homeschooling at this time of year!

10. We don’t have to start school on the same day the county chooses for public schools. So we always wait a couple of weeks before starting back. It feels so deliciously decadent to do this!

9. I don’t have to get anywhere near Walmart, Target or the mall this week, while they are jam-packed with back-to-school shoppers.

8. I don’t have to spend $$$ on each child for school supplies that they have to share with everyone else…or things like hand sanitizer, band-aids, Kleenex and other items for the whole classroom. (Downside, though—I DO have to cough up the cash for curriculum and that isn’t cheap. I’d probably come out cheaper with the school supplies. But I like knowing that my kids are actually using what I’ve bought for them. I loved shopping for school stuff when I was a kid—it would’ve really upset me if I didn’t get to use the items I’d chosen for myself.)

7. I can wait to buy our school supplies in late August or early September, when it’s all on clearance.

6. We can go to Chuck E. Cheese’s or a park on a weekday and the kids pretty much have the place to themselves. We love doing this with another homeschooling family.

5. I don’t have to start making the kids go to bed early to adjust to the school year schedule. Bedtime is pretty much the same, year-round.

4. Another shopping one, but I don’t have to drop $30-$50 bucks per kid on new backpacks and lunchboxes. We need those only rarely—and when we do, we still have a collection from when the kids went to school. And those costly back-to-school wardrobes? Non-existent until the weather cools off, then they’ll just need some new jeans.

3. Baby Jonah won’t have to say goodbye to his favorite playmates for 6 to 8 hours every day. I remember how little Eli used to fuss for Zach when Z went to school.

2. No school open houses or curriculum nights to attend, no new teachers to adjust to (and no having to worry over whether my kid would get a good teacher or a bad one). I know exactly what my kids are learning, and that they have a dedicated teacher who loves them very much.  And if it turns out that the curriculum I chose isn’t a good fit, we can change it. Again–the flexibility is what I love most about our lifestyle.

1. We get to sleep in two weeks longer than everyone else! Wait—we get to sleep in most days throughout the school year, too. Yay for homeschooling!

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