Too Grown Up, Too Fast

I never imagined you would be so mature so quickly. How can a four year old possibly wrap her mind around the eternal questions you have been considering of late. Ever since your Granddaddy died, you have talked a lot about the concepts of heaven and hell and death. You try to be a little consoler, reminding me and Grammy any time you can that when we see Granddaddy in heaven, we won’t be sad anymore. You like to describe in vivid preschooler detail how joyous that reunion will be. You say things like, “Mommy, I know you are sad now. But when you get to heaven you will hug Granddaddy so tight and you will be so happy. You should think about that Mommy, when you feel sad.” You tell Grammy you can see Granddaddy waving in the clouds, or blowing kisses to you both when you are driving in the car together. Once you even told Grammy that he told you to tell her he loved her very much. You talk to me about how much you miss him and how he is your favorite Granddaddy. We cry together sometimes.

You worry about these things too much. No child should ever have to question these kinds of things. You shouldn’t have to comfort me. You shouldn’t have to play the part of a little adult because the adults around you are so damaged.

My heart just constricts when I think about your premature concerns of your own eternal destiny. You worry that you “do too many bad things to go to heaven.” You have even started blaming yourself for your Daddy’s depression, saying if you weren’t such a “bad person” your Daddy wouldn’t be sad all the time…that he wouldn’t be upset. I tell you over and over again that these things aren’t true. I remind you that you have asked Jesus into your heart, that you know He died on the cross for your sins, and that He is alive. (Maybe I haven’t done a good enough job of letting you see how truly salvation is through Him, and Him alone – that our works, good or bad, do not determine our relationship with the Father. Is it a curse of our holiness upbringing that all our children live in fear of the rapture/death because they never think they are good enough?) And I adamantly tell you every time the topic arises that your Daddy’s illness has nothing to do with you. I’m not sure you are listening.

Instead you are probably taking in the tense, stressed out faces of your mommy and daddy as they deal with the symptoms of a mental illness that has already claimed the life of one family member. You watch Grandma and Granddaddy Bryan work a little too hard to keep everything appearing normal. You see through the façade of “everything is fine” when you visit Grammy’s house and instead pick up on the nearly suffocating grief that seems to permeate everything in that lonely place. Words of comfort mean little coming from adults who are searching for comfort and answers themselves.

I’m sorry you have to go through this period of confusion with us, little girl. I pray and pray and pray that you aren’t being irreparably damaged by it all. I pray for God to give me strength patience and wisdom to answer all your questions the right way, and to pick up on the things you aren’t saying too, so your fears can been diminished. Someday soon we will all feel secure again…the world won’t be upside down forever. I can’t wait for that day.

Christmas is not about wrapping paper and bows...

We were heading home from church last night, just the two of us in the car. Daddy was home sick - bronchitis, the poor thing. I hope you don't inherit his propensity to catch upper respirator type infections...he gets twice as many as I do, I think. You were 'oohing' and 'aaahhhing' over all the Christmas lights we passed. I'm enjoying the fact that this Christmas season you are really able to take in and enjoy some of those little things for the first time. We took you to see Christmas lights before, but you seemed only briefly fascinated. I think we'll have to plan a special Christmas-light-viewing-outing this year.

There are a lot of traditions for you to enjoy during the holidays. Before our big family get-togethers on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we have some traditions we follow throughout the month of December. We have a felt count-down-to-Christmas calendar that we use to build excitement through the weeks leading up to Christmas. There are Christmas plays and musicals at church to plan for, practice for, and enjoy. When we are home, we always try to watch a lot of Christmas movies during December. Daddy is all about finding that radio station that plays 24-hour Christmas carols to listen to in the car. We love to shop for our family members and really take the time to buy them things that reflect their individual personalities, not just what the 'hot' item might be that year. I am hoping you and I can start some new traditions of our own as well. I want you and I to make some Christmas cookies together, and make some homemade Christmas cards for the granparents. I'm even optimistically thinking you might be able to help me wrap some of the gifts. Granted they won't be as "perfect" as I used to make my gifts look when I first got married, but I don't think that matters.

Boy, did I obsess over the package trimming those first couple of years though. Clothing had to be placed in tissue paper before it went in the box....wrapping paper had to be unique and elegant....every package had to have ribbon wrapped fancifully around it. I made my own bows or embellished store bought ones. Once I started teaching full-time life got a lot busier and ministry responsibilities around the holidays became more intense. Soon I had stopped worrying so much about the look of the package on the outside and became more concerned on what was on the inside. By the time I had you, well....let's just say last year the packages just did have cheap little stick on bows and more than half of the gifts ended up in gift bags. I have to chuckle when I think about it. All that fanciful wrapping usually got crushed or messed up when we had to pack all those gifts into the trunk of our little car for the 3+ hour drive back to Sanford. And even the ones that did survive the trip were destroyed in 0.5 seconds of excitement.

So that's my life lesson for today, I suppose; don't obsess so much on the outer trappings, whether in Christmas or just in life in general. It's what is inside that counts.

Our Thanksgiving Weekend

We all had an especially good Thanksgiving this year. We headed down to Sanford on Wednesday morning after Daddy visited one of our church ladies who had surgery that morning. Traffic was really bad, especially through Raleigh. We were very thankful to get home, and Daddy and I both crashed at Grandma and Grandaddy's house - especially Daddy who had only gotten about three hours sleep. You were so excited about knocking on their door when we arrived - such a grown up thing to do! You played and played with Grandma while Daddy snoozed on the couch and then we went and ate Japanese food that evening for supper (you love the salad, the rice, and the little peas and carrots in the rice). After that we went to see Grammy and Grandaddy and you enjoyed playing in their shower (you call it your 'house') and unrolling a bunch of toliet paper in the bottom of it - Grandaddy will let you get away with ANYTHING!

Thanksgiving day we got up really early so we could drive to Fayettville to meet Grandpa, Uncle Jesse, Steve, Lisa, and your cousins Trinity, Katey, and Sam at the Sandpiper Restaurant. You didn't eat very much - hush puppies mostly - but you had a good time playing with Sam and Katey.

After we ate we all headed to do some Thanksgiving Day shopping in the few stores that were open. We went to KMart and Hammricks and then hit the Super Wal-Mart in Spring Lake on the way home. You are quite a trooper when it comes to shopping. When we would leave a store you would say, "Where are we going now?" You had the most fun playing with Sam. He's used to little girls since he has two sisters, and he kept you giggling the whole time we were in KMart.

After we got back to Sanford, we headed to Grammy's house. You had fallen asleep in the car on the way back so we took Grandaddy Elton's car so you could stay in your car seat and sleep a little longer. Grandaddy Ronnie had cooked steaks on the grill and Mema, Emily and Uncle Joe all came over to eat with us. You ate macaroni and cheese and salad, with ranch of course! We all got to see Uncle Joe's new car - a black 2007 Acura. Emily went ahead and gave us our Christmas gifts from her...she gave you a little pink stocking with a princess crown ornament in it. She gave Mommy penguin salt and pepper shakers (which was pretty cool since Mommy collects Christmas shakers!) and a Christmas hand towel.

The next morning Mommy and Daddy got up at 4:30 a.m. so they could be at Super Wal-Mart when the big sales started. It was INSANE!! People putting two 50-inch flat-screen plasma televisions in their cart at a time....lines a hundred people long for an XBox 360 game system....the whole store so packed that at times no one could even move in the aisles....We managed to get quite a few good deals though. The cupcake maker you have asked for constantly for Christmas was on sale for $20.00 and Mommy managed to get the very last one. We went to a few more stores after we got everything we wanted at Wal-mart. We actually got to see the sun rise for the first time in a long time - Mommy and Daddy are NOT morning people! - while Mommy ate a McGriddle Sausage Sandwich from McDonalds and Daddy stood in line at Game Stop.

We got a lot of great deals....probably saved nearly $200 all total. We went back to Grandma and Grandaddy's house and you were still asleep, so we went back to bed too! That night we went to Mema's house and had Thanksgiving Dinner with all of Mommy's family. There were 23 of us in that little house, but I think there was enough food to feed 60 people! We all ate until we thought we would explode and Mema still said, "Ya'll just don't eat like you used to....look at all this leftover food!" It felt really good to be with all my family. Everyone actually took time to stick around and spend time together after we ate. Grammy brought a bunch of old pictures from when Mommy was little and we all spent a lot of time reminiscing. Mommy helped Jason tune his new guitar and played a little and showed him a few chords. You played with "Little Boy Cameron" and Aleigha and Drew in front of Mema's Christmas tree most of the evening. Jason and I talked about how all of us had grown up spending so much time together as kids and how we wished the next generation of cousins could actually see each other more than a couple of times a year. Maybe someday...

Happily it will only be a few more weeks before we get to head back down that long road to Sanford once again and spend some more time with the family we love.