The final pieces

Dumping the puzzle onto the table,
I watch her flip the pieces right side up
as I search for the edges.

We've done this before.

Trying one piece at a time,
her wedding ring slipping to the underside
of her finger as she works.

We try a conversation or two,
but there are so many words missing
that we choose a comfortable silence instead.

Why did I wait to ask the questions
until the answers had only beginnings?

Why did I work for so long
to maintain a distance when now
the middle of her hug
is right where I want to be?

Time changed both of us it seems.

...

On the drive home
the leaves swirl in front of me.
Bursts of color are now transitioning into
bare branches, chilling me to my bones.

Glancing in the rearview mirror
I catch the memory of her waving from the front door.

I wonder what this season feels like to her.

...

Fitting the last pieces into the puzzle.

A homeless man

I saw a homeless man,
clearly confused,
walking along the road
wearing a trash bag for a coat.

Watching from a safe distance.
A window between us.
Or maybe a world.
Wondering what he needs,
how I could help.

Fear trounced love,
as it so often does.
The most I could do was say a brief prayer
and then look away.
Again.

I am so very sorry.
Could you tell him please?

The moments in between

It's funny. Well sort of.
Hmmm... let me start again.

I was thinking.
About all the little, seemingly insignificant moments,
that take place between the mountain top experiences.

All the ways I am encouraged to grow,
to experience, to learn, to forgive, to love,
to become who I am.

Every day. Each moment.
At my desk at work.
On the phone with my mom during our evening calls.
Talking with the cashier, who I have known for a long time,
because I am rather old and this is a very small town.
Sitting beside my husband outside,
watching the chickens who make us laugh when they run.
Touching base with my kids through quick texts
so they know I think about them so many times each day.
Or hiking in the mountains with friends,
who become closer with each step.

I was thinking.
It's all sacred. It's all holy.
If we allow it to be.
If we see it that way.
If we keep our eyes, and our hearts, open.

Looking forward to the weekend adventures,
I need to be careful to not throw away
the moments in between.
The every day moments.

It is all a gift.
For that, I am grateful.

A good trade

Sometimes we refuse to see
what we are supposed to, or meant to,
until we are ready
or at least closer to ready.

Tonight I wrestled with god
to get the answer I desired.
Instead, I was given the answer
I needed to hear.

"It's time to trade in your canoe for a kayak."
Excuse me?
"It's time."

What exactly am I supposed to do with that?
I hold the answer in my hands
looking at it closely for meaning.

Here I am, in the season of my life
where my daughters are the ages
I still picture myself being.
(I see you're smiling, so you must understand.)

Now I find myself gently nudged and told
it is time to reinvent myself.
Move deliberately and reverently into this season.
Loosen my grip and perceived sense of control.
Notice what is truly important
and let the worries and regrets fall away.

Small shifts in perspective
move me toward who I am today.
Recalibrating relationships.
Allowing my children, who are grown,
to become who they are.
With or without me,
either way okay. Really.

Later, I try explaining this to my youngest
who has a gentle insightful soul
and she responds in a way that touches my heart.

Can I get one too so we can go together?

Suddenly, the trade doesn't sound so bad.
A kayak for a canoe.
A solo adventure. Sometimes together.

This will work.
Definitely. Yes, definitely.

Today I will remember

Today, when I think of Uganda,
I will remember the smiles
and the laughter and the hugs,
and the voices
that make my familiar language
into something so beautiful and foreign.

I will remember
being surrounded by so many children,
always so many children,
who grab my legs, insist on my attention,
cover me in dirt, and snot,
and whatever they are eating at that moment.

In my memories, I will watch them trace
the veins on the top of my hands,
the darkness of their fingers
making my skin look so very white
even to me.

I will watch and wait for a child's face
to appear in the doorway
and hear the words "may I please enter?"

Today I will say "yes" to all of them,
and I will join in the laughter and the hugs
becoming part of the craziness
as my heart fills with so much more
than I thought it could possibly hold.

Today I choose to remember
the resilience of happy, healthy, hopeful children,
and I will be a witness --
looking beyond what they have lost
and recognizing what they have gained.

By doing so,
by first noticing and then remembering,
I will become part of their world,
even for a short time and then maybe
Uganda will not seem quite so far away.

I can never understand

Ever since saying goodbye
to the children at the orphanage,
and flying home from Uganda,
returning to my country, my family, my home,
I have been struggling to understand
how there can be so many beautiful,
amazing children who have no one
who claims them as family.
Many of whom were abandoned as babies.
Along a road. Or in a field.
Helpless and left alone.

I cannot begin to understand
the desperation and hopelessness
that interweave to create a scenario where I might
be forced to consider abandoning my child.
How someone could make the decision
to turn their back and walk away.

But that does not give me the right to judge.

I can never understand because
I come from privilege.
I have always had a safe place to call home.
I didn't have to choose between feeding my children
or sending them to school.
I didn't have to make impossible decisions
about their future.

I have always had a safety net beneath me,
with the corners held tightly by family,
by community, by the systems
designed to catch me if I fall.

So how can I possibly understand?

I think about these children,
many of whom I can now name in my heart,
and I cry for the parents and families
who never got to watch them grow up.

Saying a prayer for all the mothers
who didn't feel like they had a choice.
Who perhaps thought that they
were doing the best thing.
(And maybe they were.)

Thinking about the love
that embraced that baby,
before the heartache that followed.
The love that never
wanted to let go.

And now, from my place of plenty,
I can reach out to a child
who was abandoned perhaps out of love,
and somehow, with God's help,
bring hope into the days to come.

Now there is something I can understand.

The children's home at Noah's Ark Children's Ministry Uganda.

The Gate

Eight-year-old Isaac was in front of me
leaping over deep ruts in the red dirt road,
his skinny legs ending in an oversized pair of crocs.

We were running on a road from the compound into Mukono,
a half-mile at most, but also a world apart.
For Isaac, a trip past the compound gate was a rare thing.

As we ran down narrow roads
past houses built from clay bricks dug from yards
(most without running water or electricity)
I watched him take in all the sights and sounds.

The orphanage where he lives
provides him with so much -
a safe place to sleep, food, clothes, an education,
medical services, church, 170 brothers and sisters
watched over by dozens of aunties and uncles.

It also made me think,
did living inside the gate make him a bit of an outsider?

We sat along the busy road through Mukono -
me, Isaac, Katie, Christian, and Jared -
counting the taxis packed with people as they
passed by at alarming speeds.
Watching people trying to get from one side
of the busy road to the other.

The language spoken around us was Luganda
and I wondered how much, if anything,
the boys understood.

We finished our meal, an egg and vegetable wrap
called a rolex, cooked in a tiny wooden booth,
odd-sized boards and sticks giving definition to a livelihood,
and started walking home.

Eventually we passed back through the metal gate that separates
these children from the surrounding landscape.

Watching my daughter and her husband,
walking hand in hand with these boys, I am humbled
by the many small things they do daily for the children
they are called to serve.

A quick hug ends the evening as the boys run to
the Children's Home to get ready for bed.

Tonight their dreams might be bigger than last night's,
which is perhaps a small gift that God can use in big ways.

Enough

Tell me, what is your greatest fear?
My greatest fear is that I am not enough.

Enough love, enough encouragement,
giving enough, doing enough...
all of these things.

You don't have to be enough.
(The silence that follows holds a space.
It gives me time. And courage. To hope.)

You don't have to be enough 
because I am enough.

(I swing my feet, and my toes touch the water,
bringing back memories of sitting on the end of the dock as a child.
I feel the sun on my face.
But even more, I feel a presence beside me.
An arm around my shoulder.
A sideways hug.)

You don't have to be enough, because I am enough.
Letting the air out, I realize I was holding my breath.

But who will--
You don't have to be enough because I am enough.

But what if-
You don't have to be enough because I am enough.

But how can you possibly do it all without me?
(A smile and a shake of the head, making me smile too.)

You don't have to be enough because I am enough.
Trusting. That enough really is.

Growing Seasons

People tell you, before you're ready to listen.
And when you finally do,

you're surprised to find yourself

already in the tight outer rings, 

the ones that make it hard to count

exactly how many growing seasons have gone by.

It dawns on me, the tree is around the same age
as my granddaughter.

(I will probably tell her, before she's ready to listen.)

Using my finger to count the rings,

smelling the wood, feeling the roughness,
slowing down enough to pay attention.
Hoping someday she will understand
the importance of doing the same.

A beautiful day dream

We were sitting in the screen porch at the cabin,
seated next to each other, but looking beyond ourselves,
down the hillside below to where we knew the creek to be,
even though we couldn't quite see it.

The dad I was with was my old dad,
the one that I knew before Alzheimer's took so much away.
It felt so good to be with that version of my father.

We talked about various things, but the conversation headed
to a place neither one of us really knew how to discuss.

He was a bit sad and worried,
feeling as if he was a burden to us in the last
half dozen years or so of his life. That bothered him deeply.

I was able to answer him confidently and honestly
as I told him, "No, you were not a burden."

He listened, quietly letting me explain.
I told him how he taught us all so many valuable lessons,
even when the chaos and confusion
muted the words.

He taught us what it meant
to be in the present moment. Fully in the moment...
with no past to reflect on and a future we weren't ready to explore.
Now. Together. Gradually slowing.
To nearly a stop. But not quite.

We learned from him that there is a gift in putting others
before yourself. It felt so right and so good to be there for him,
and with him. He brought our family closer together.
He was the catalyst for so much love.

I told him we experienced gratitude as he said "thank you"
even when it appeared that he had so little to be thankful for.
We found love in his smile.
He gave us a direct connection to joy,
making us laugh with his raised eyebrows and comical expressions.

And as I watched my mom beside him, day after day,
I came to understand what it is to truly love someone.
That much.

Then he turned his head away from the view and toward me.
There were tears in both our eyes.

And we knew.

Learning to Meditate Part VII

I can honestly say, I never know where
meditation will take me.
And for that I am grateful.

On this night,
I listen to my spiritual mentor and friend
as he leads our small group through a guided meditation
in the early winter darkness and quiet of the sanctuary.

A place where we are given permission to be still.
Where our breathing becomes the ryhthm of our souls.
Where we are invited to focus
on the present moment,
quieting ourselves and listening for the still small voice
that is not our own.

Tonight we are encouraged to take our worries,
our concerns, along with the physical manifestations of tension,
and place them in a boat
and then push the boat out into the water.

Sitting there with my eyes closed,
what I saw next was not what I expected.
(It rarely is.)

I saw somebody wrestling something into the boat.
It took a while for me to figure out what it was.
And then it came to me - that's my ego.
The being (I never clearly see faces)
was shaking his head and laughing
as my ego kept trying to get out of the boat.
Over and over.
Refusing to follow directions and stay put.
Thinking it was in charge.

Then something on the shore caught my eye.
It was me, or the shell of me,
without my ego.
Filled with light and love
(I know these things as God).

Standing there on the shore
shoulder to shoulder sharing sacred ground,
smiling at the ridiculous antics of my self
out there in the boat, as it drifted slowly away.

Amazed by the feeling of fullness
that emptying yourself can provide.