Fall- first frost

October 2018 
    The flurry and hurry of getting 2 kids ready for school in America: out the door, to dad's truck, the pick up will drop you off and the van will pick you up.  First, brush your hair, brush your teeth, did you get all your things? Lunch is packed- please eat it all today.  Cold air rushes in the house as they rush out of it.  Remember to be kind and be honest and look out for the lonely.  Latch the door and silence.
    The cold air from outside washes over like a sugar glaze to wake me up inside.  Now it is me all alone and awake, loading up cereal bowls from the sink.  And I think, it went so fast.  Even though we woke up so early.  My little ones have now become medium sized.  They outgrew their shoes and jeans just now.  And they will have outgrown the mornings with mom before I know it.  This silence is foreboding.  So I turn on the machines that make things clean. The clothes machine, the dish machine, that do their jobs so quick and easily.  They hum and beat that old drum!  Keep moving quickly so no one gets hurt, or at least so no one feels the emptiness.  Keep moving, hustle. Hurry and worry about the appearances.  Curate, de-clutter, remove the evidences.  But life was just here a minute ago.  
   And now we are six, no seven, soon she turns eight!  And that's just the baby.  The Man-cub is both longing to stay little and growing into freedom.  I must let him grow up and out from me, however it hurts.  They never told me how labor pain continues for life in some ways.  The heart contracts to contain her baby, while forcing the strength of the child to prevail against it.  But these little daily habits of the heart, launching him on small explorations is my practice for the day he drives off to college, or to the moon, or wherever.
   In America, here we strive and pray and drive to pave the road a little ways.  And then we trust the child to blaze his trail, to grow strong, swinging his Masai sword through the woods.  He will carve a path that is his in a rhythm that is his, not to the beat of my dryer drum.  It's too cold in America to hang the laundry out to dry now.  So I shift the clothes from one machine to another and pray Dear Lord, "let mercy lead so that every footprint that he leaves there'll be a drop of grace."* And let me not mistakenly call it clutter.  So much life was here just a minute ago.

*Thank you, Rich Mullins and Beaker for that song! Let Mercy Lead- Brother's Keeper 1995