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| Drew at his last big formal event before leaving home |
It turned out to be just as I had thought - not a lot of meeting his every need. He's not a needy kid. Well, in a month and nine days I can't even call him a kid anymore. He'll celebrate his 21st birthday doing sit ups and push ups and trying to get his 1 1/2 mile run time down. But it's all good because it's time for him to step up and step out. That's what we spent the last 20 years doing... raising him to leave.
May was a pretty amazing month. It started with organizing what was needed to officially graduate #2 son, Sam, from High School. It's a bummer, in a way, that he didn't have a stage to walk across, however, I can't imagine him even feeling comfortable in front of all those people. I think he'd choose taking college classes over walking a stage any day.
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| Congratulations Sam Class of 2011 |
I know he's relieved. His brain has been tired, he's been tired. He's working about 20 hours while taking a full load of college courses. He's due a rest. He's taking a year off to work closer to full-time and save some money for his last two years of college. It's hard to believe that in another year my home will be reduced to two children.
Kate was another kid who had me going hot and heavy. She had a choir concert only days after her ballet performance. It was amazing to watch her dance again. This year, instead of a bunch of different classes coming out and doing a dance for people who are dying for some OTHER class to dance, one of the dance instructors wrote a ballet. It was based on "The Parable of the King" by Beth Moore. It was beautiful and it was an excellent opportunity for the Upper School kids to participate in something awesome for the Lord.
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| Kate's class were the animal creatures. Cute duck... |
All of this kept my mind and my heart busy. Keeping me from reflecting on what this house will be like with one less person. And not just one less person but my friend. Drew is the one that would talk with me for hours. He loved to talk politics, economics, eschatology, theology, you name it, he would discuss it with joy. He and I love to listen to Rush Limbaugh together and while I hated to listen to the extreme liberals go on and on and on, he'd love to listen to them and laugh and I realized how much of his own person he was becoming then. He's like me, in a lot of ways, poor kid. He's better though. He can have a conflicting conversation with anyone and then in the end, agree to disagree and move on to the next "event". I have never been good at conflict, I never will.
I'm excited for him. He has so much of life ahead of him, so much adventure he has no idea he's about to meet head-on. He's got a precious girl waiting out there to be his wife. He doesn't know her and she doesn't know him but God knows both of them and He has plans for them. He has places to go, people to meet. It's all one big adventure. And he will do it apart from me, apart from us. THAT is the one thing that I will have to get most used to. Day after day, I am a part of his life. It's not that I'm nosy or a nag or force myself into his business it's just that we have moved somewhat past the "mom and son" relationship to as close to friends as a mom and son can be. We talk about a lot and I know what's going on inside his head and within his life. In less than 7 days he will live day after day after day without me knowing anything about his days. I won't know about the good, the bad, or the ugly.
It's ok, that's the way it's supposed to be, that's the way God designed our families. I feel sorry for the parents who dread the day their children leave and begin their lives away from their childhood home.It'd be foolish of me to think that I won't spend some time wiping tears this summer. It's a big transition. But my heart isn't really sad. My heart is filled with excited anticipation at what the Lord has in store for my #1 son. Lord willing, the next picture I post of Drew will be in his Air Force uniform.
Oh, and I'm nursing a hurting husband just home from the hospital after hernia surgery. He's got until Sunday afternoon to feel good enough to board a plane because at 1:30 he's off to yet ANOTHER super secret location for two weeks. During that time I will be painting and painting and painting in order to move Sam into Kate's room and Kate into the room Sam and Drew shared. I am hoping that all that work helps the summer go quickly. I don't usually wish my summer away but I can say that I will be excited to drive to San Antonio and watch my son graduate from Basic Training. After that, I think I will be better able to rest in the place God has for me right now... at least for another year, when #2 son moves off to college, but that's another blog post.
And in the midst of all this, I choose to begin another blog. WHA????? you ask completely confused? After all, I've not been known to keep up with this blog as much as I should. But this one is hopefully not going to last long - mainly because it is one that I am using to help me do something that I should have done years ago. It's called Paleo Quarter and can be found at paleoquarter.blogspot.com. It may or may not be worth following. It's mostly for me to work through some accountability issues and to be honest with myself about who I really am.
I hate these kinds of blogposts... lots of talking about your kids when people really don't want to hear all of it. But right now, my kids are on my mind. So this is one post that you'll have to forgive me for. I'll get more spiritual and "thoughtful" next time.
