Sometimes it hits you in the strangest places. Like in a community pool while you’re swimming laps using some kid’s abandoned unicorn innertube, so you don’t get your hair wet. Just for instance.
One of the sweetest parts of life right now is getting to know a whole new family. Their likes and dislikes. Their histories, their aspirations. What makes them laugh, what makes them cry. How they like their hamburgers.
It can also be one of the hardest parts.
Witnessing a mom and her two teenagers at the pool was one of those mindless, holy moments you see a hundred times a day without really seeing it. I loved the way the ladies ganged up on the boy about hair dye and starting high school (Nobody is doing blue hair anymore, dude!) and brought up old stories about mean math teachers and crazy friends who would do anything for a laugh. When one sibling offered the other $20 to retrieve his goggles (and bring back some chips too!), the mom said, “Absolutely not! You don’t even have $20, bro. I’ll be the one who has to pay that debt!” The three of them giggled and chatted as the sun went down, the shared history between them so thick. They knew each other well, and it was beautiful.
And I was reminded that I’ll never have that again on this earth. Not in the original configuration, anyway. We don’t get to watch sisters tease each other in that down and dirty way that only sisters can do while knowing at the same time they’d defend to the death if they needed to. The girls won’t be ganging up on Daddy to make fun of his annoying habit of talking to every person he meets (Hey fellas!). There’s not a tight circle who knows and pities one another over the number of times I’ve made them wait to leave a restaurant while stirring my salad. The little family that he and I built — all that history — feels like it’s gone, and heaven seems awfully far away.
I’m starting over with new people in a new configuration, and it reminds me of all that has been lost. I don’t know all the stories and experiences that make them who they are. The loose-leaf paper showing my work looks like nothing but an exercise in how much can be subtracted from a whole.
I don’t belong there. Not yet.
But I’m learning, and they’re learning me. It’s true what they say about having to “feel it if you want to heal it.” Doing so opens you to both the comfort of those who love you and to the Signs. And they come. Every. Single. Time. They help you remember that you’re not alone here.
The Signs tell me … It’s not gone. Just changed. It’s not a subtraction problem. It’s a multiplication. And the love is the exponential.
Even a mean math teacher could see that.
Increase is coming, so enlarge your tent
and add extensions to your dwelling.
Hold nothing back! Make the tent ropes longer and the pegs stronger.
You will increase and spread out in every direction.
Your sons and daughters will conquer nations
and revitalize desolate cities.
Isaiah 54:2-3
That feather jumped off the screen at me and made me smile big ❤️ I assume some of the other pics might also include beautiful signs for you too which I love. Those signs are such a balm for our aching hearts.
It’s multiplication, not subtraction. Incredibly profound. And I just adore that you’re opening yourself to the possibilities that multiplication can bring. As usual, I got so much out of your beautiful writing.