As I get more and more excited about leaving for Germany, I am also beginning to panic. How on earth am I going to go 11 months without Madelaine? I was pondering the other day about how much comfort critters bring. I wake up at night and look to see where Madelaine is. I am comforted when she is curled up on the pillow and pile of blankets next to the bed. When I reach out to touch her, she acknowledges me with a little squeak, and we both go back to sleep. Not only do they comfort us, they give grannies something to do and something to worry about.
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| Granny and Elijah |
I call my Granny and she says, "'Lijah follows me everywhere and he meows at me all the time." What she doesn't say is that when he's not following her around meowing, she is following him around, needing to know where he is every 5 seconds. I know how 'Lijah feels when she tries to lug him around and cuddle him...that used to be me being lugged.
Holy moments. I was sitting with a 92yo lady during her last half hour in the hospital before Hospice came to pick her up. She couldn't talk much, so we just sat holding hands, her fading in and out. Every once in a while, she would open her eyes and sort of look at me and drift off again. Then she opened her eyes, looked right at me and smiled, then drifted off. Holy moments. Deep joy and deep sorrow.
In moments like these, I am stripped of all the things that I hang my identity on. My eyes are opened to see the things that matter, what frivolous things we chase after. I want to scream at the TV playing on the wall, the DIRECTV commercial playing between sections of some cooking show. What does DIRECTV have to do with life? So many things we chase after that really don't matter...
Pondering quote from "Open-Hearted Ministry":
"Authentic selfhood in God is about not denying or disregarding aspects of ourselves, but embracing our full selves just as God does." (Koppel, 48)
Pax.
Oh yeah to Koppel
ReplyDeleteGood point.
ReplyDelete