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.

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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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?

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

(Pause)

“First Caribbeans, 13:13!”

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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Today is my sweet husband Donnie’s 44th birthday.

Forty-four. Wow. That sounds like such a big number. Even ten years ago, anything beyond 40 just sounded…old.

It’s funny how, now that he and I are both approaching our mid-forties, it doesn’t seem old at all. Because we were talking, and had to agree: we still feel like the same people we were twenty years ago.

Oh, we’re more mature. I like the way that we don’t worry so much over all the little things that used to bug us back then. I like how God has shown us through the years to extend grace to others, including ourselves. I can’t say I was very gracious in my twenties. Everything was about me. Everything seemed like a BIG DEAL.

I behaved as though everything was a BIG DEAL. Now most of those things that worried me so seem so small.

But the essence of who we are is still the same as twenty years ago. He still gets up early, raring to go each day. He’s always loved Volkswagens and fixing things and watching TV. I still stay up way later than I should, and I’m still the artsy, crafty, motherly person I’ve always been.

Together, I think we’re still a pretty good match.

One thing I become acutely aware of with each passing year, and that is how fast each year passes by. Here we are in late July—it’s already back-to-school time. Then it’s Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas and a whole new year will be upon us when I swear it feels like this one just began!

My baby will be one year old in two months, my middle son is starting third grade, and my oldest will be a teenager in January.

The days are long, but the years are so short. So very, very short.

Note that I didn’t mention my birthday, which is coming up far too soon for me. I know they say age is just what you make of it, but I still can’t grasp the fact that I’m over 40, no matter how loudly my aches and pains announce that to me each morning.

Donnie and I laugh together over our creaks and aches that we didn’t have a decade ago. We talk about how we need to get fit so we can keep up with this house full of boys. Maybe one day soon, we’ll move beyond talk and actually do it!

Birthdays. The day we celebrate the arrival of the people we love. We give them gifts, but they are really God’s gift to us.

1. I feel like I might never know what it’s like to be well-rested again.

2. I would need to sleep for a month to catch up.

3. Do the right thing. Especially when you don’t want to.

4. You are completely unique.  Just like everyone else.

5. It’s hard to know how much other people think about you. But however much you think they do, in reality, it’s probably far less. (Something I’m trying to instill in my almost-teenaged son, who is entering that phase of life where he’s convinced that everyone is looking at him and judging him somehow.)

6. It seems that whatever my husband does, my sons follow suit.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to going to bed early, tomorrow my plans include sleeping in and Sunday, I want to spend the day in bed, but I can’t, because it’s my wonderful husband’s birthday and we are going to celebrate him!

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It’s been a while since I saw that show, but it seems like there was usually one angel assigned to a case. Then as the story developed, sometimes other angels came onto the scene. But remember how the Angel of Death showed up shortly before someone died? You knew it was coming, but when you saw him appear, it always made you kind of go, “Oh no—go away!”

That is how it’s felt here, across the street from my dying grandmother. It’s as if I feel the angels starting to congregate around her house. I can’t see them—though I do know people who have seen angels, and I believe them—but it’s like I’m just aware of a spiritual shift in the atmosphere surrounding her house, if that makes any sense.

I had a dream that I went to visit my grandmother, but instead of being at home, she was in another building, almost like a big, gaudily-decorated retirement home that looked like a cross between a day care center and an aquarium. I dreaded going that day, because I knew she was close to death—I had to walk forever it seemed, through these long, winding hallways and tunnels, peeking into different rooms and starting to feel panicky because I couldn’t find her.

But finally, I walked into a room painted brilliant blue, with lots of windows and sunlight pouring in, and there, kicked back on a purple chaise lounge was my grandmother, and on a red chair next to her, her sister, Ruby. They were dressed in white Capri pants and summer blouses, barefoot, with their fingernails and toenails painted red. And they were laughing their heads off. My grandfather was in the corner of the room, chuckling softly at them and shaking his head as he often did over other people’s silliness. The whole feeling of the room was pure joy.

And I didn’t know what to make of it. It wasn’t what I was expecting to find. Because Ruby has been dead for years, and my grandfather died over a decade ago. And my grandmother wasn’t sick or frail, but chubby and healthy like she was when I was 20. But when they saw me standing there, they smiled, welcomed and hugged me, and I remember feeling silly for expecting something bad when clearly, all was well.

I smiled when I woke up. And I smiled again when I heard that my grandmother has been dreaming about Ruby every night.

The past few days, when I’ve gone to visit, her face is so pale gray—I cannot get used to seeing her that color. But when she sees me, or one of my kids, her soft brown eyes light up with pure joy and it’s all I can do to not start bawling that very moment.

Because that look is what I saw when she greeted me in my dream. And I know that when my time comes, when I walk into heaven to be with her again, that is exactly what I’m going to see.

It’s a WiggleWormBottoms diaper cover, and the name sure suits my wiggle worm, as you can see in these pics.

I thought it would be cute to try to capture him sitting next to the giant whale stuffed animal on the daybed in his room. I barely caught him before he lunged away.

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2. Why can’t some people just relax and appreciate the moment?

3. Upon reflection, my reflection in the mirror is sporting a few new wrinkles. And let’s not talk about those gray roots.

4. I’ve been waiting for this particular brand of peace for quite a long time.

5. Later, you wake up–and wish you’d have gone to bed earlier.

6. Last week, I got to go to the far and boundless sea. I miss it.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to finishing the grocery shopping, tomorrow my plans include cleaning, decluttering and visiting with family, and Sunday, I want to go to church, then enjoy the dinner I’m cooking for extended family, featuring many of my grandmother’s favorites: fried squash, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, black eyed peas, banana pudding, and more!

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