We just returned from the last great family adventure: a camping trip on the Maryland shore. Camping for our family means using a tent and cooking on a campstove or maybe even a campfire. No sissy pop up trailers or RVs for us. We were on Assateague Island; we pitched our tent maybe 200 yards from the surf. It was wonderful. We walked barefoot everywhere, we played in the waves, built a fire on the beach, got up early to watch the sun rise over the ocean. I realized as I sat on the beach with my kids that when I was younger the way I dealt with endings of pleasant things was by assuring myself that I'd do it again sometime. As a fourth grader the only thing that made leaving Disneyland bearable was the thought that I'd come back. As a young family we visited Pickett State Park in Tennessee, and I liked it so much we went back for three years in a row. One visit to Glacier Park wasn't enough, we had to go back again two years later. But on the beach I realized that I'll never be able to do this one again, not like this anyway. Grace is leaving home in six weeks. Oh, sure, I know she'll be back, but I also know it will never be the same. It was as though sitting on the beach I heard "time's up", and I knew it was true. I thought about how so many of my highest hopes and ideals have been set on earthly things, good things, but earthly, and how earthly things just don't last. Kids grow up. Parents eventually get too old to jump and play in the waves. I thought about how more and more of my heart is getting invested in heaven, where there is a better hope than even the best earth has to offer. I always thought that being on the beach in happiest harmony with just my husband and my two kids was the best-- but there must be something better up ahead.

In a camping supply store I found a tee shirt that is my souvenir of the vacation. It has a simple line drawing of a glass filled halfway, and it says "half full." My kids are growing up and willingly taking the gift of freedom we have granted them. My back is a little stiffer after a night of sleeping on the ground (but we still aren't stooping to RV camping!). My father in law (we saw him while en route) now walks with two canes. But the glass "ain't half empty." It's half full, and you know what? It's gradually getting fuller as we look forward to that something better.

Proverbs 31:25

My children have been in Florida for the last week on a trip with the band and choir from our school. Yesterday I washed their sheets, and because it was a nice day and I had the leisure to do so, I put them on the line to dry. Seeing them waving on the line made me smile; nothing says "home" like clean, fresh sheets on your own bed after a long week of travel. Later in the afternoon I had the opportunity to go along with Fotomama to shoot engagement pictures. The bride and groom-to-be were a cute couple, obviously in love, and Cherie shot some incredible pictures. I stood there wishing that I was twenty-something again and newly in love. Then I sort of shook my head and thought, "No, I'd much rather be where I am now." The place I am now is the place where I'm happy putting laundry on the line because I know it will make my kids glad to be home, and I guess you call this place "family." That couple just starting out is getting married so they can get to this place that I have already found.

Graduation is over. Around here graduation really is celebrated as a rite of passage. We went to the party of our neighbor's grandson. He and Grace have known each other since they were in third grade. He used to mow our lawn for us when we were on vacation; we once brought back a shark's tooth for him as a souvenir.  Grace used to ride to school with him and a couple of other guys (chivalry was completely dead-- they wouldn't even get out of the car but would make Grace clambour over them, French horn and all, into the back seat). He was in band with our kids. We used to sit near his parents at his basketball and football games. When we left his party, I observed that it is a wonderful thing to watch and be a part of someone else's growing up, and I feel so privileged to have lived here long enough that I can say I have done that.

 

Then as we hosted our own party for Grace I found myself feeling completely humbled by the presence of so many people who have shaped the person she has become. Yes, people congratulated us and told us what a great kid she is, but we couldn't have done it alone and though we beamed with pride through the whole week, we recognized that we just played the parents' role in her life and there have been so many other roles that have been played. There was the bumbling cross country coach who arrived at her party all excited about handing her an engraved plaque. He coached her for four years and though she didn't learn much about running under him, she did learn something about making someone besides her parents proud. Her track coach came to the party. There wasn't a lot left to be said between the two of them; Coach Dorhout had coached Grace to within two seconds of qualifying for state track, but it didn't matter that Grace hadn't qualified in the end because they had won each other's respect and there was mutual satisfaction in that. Her math teacher came. Gruff, with unreasonable rules in his classroom, he still really enjoys teaching seniors. He had ended out the semester by showing country music videos and drawing life lessons (something even more important than math!) from them. She won't forget him. People from her work came. People from TEC (Teens Encounter Christ) came. Her best friend's parents, who were also having a graduation party that night, did a quick clean up after their party and drove all the way into town just to see Grace. My parents came from Idaho.  And our church family was all there. Grace didn't have her aunts and uncles and cousins there (they all live too far away), but our church family functions in the same way, because they have helped us raise this beautiful, gracious young woman. She finished high school well, academically, athletically, and most of all, with her integrity in tact. We are all proud of her.

 

Pictures are in the album to the right.

I am on a leave of absence from blogging now because I am getting ready for graduation. Actually, I am not really getting ready yet; I am just in the thinking about getting ready stage and that is stressful enough. I can't really get ready yet because there is so much going on that gets in the way of getting ready, though we did this week go out and  buy four tiki torches for the party (an oft quoted line in our house from Gilligan's Island:"better keep those tiki torches lit."). Last week we had three track meets and a band/choir contest. When we paid at the door of the band contest and they marked my hand I commented that the black mark fit nicely between the blue mark from Thursday's track meet and the red mark from Friday's meet both of which were still visible. Between going to all the events and doing the necessary laundry between the events (what I call "two sport laundry night-- a whole load of Grace and Jed's maroon uniforms and sweats and warm ups), there hasn't been too much time to actually work on the house.  I did try to do a little around the kitchen last night after the band contest. I spent six hours "tidying up." It probably wouldn't have taken that long but I got distracted arranging pictures on our refridgerator-- that alone took an hour and a half. It looks really nice, though. I hope our guests can get past complimenting Grace on all her achievements and notice how nicely organized the outside of our refridgerator looks. So this is it, until after graduation.

It's finally spring. The trees are budding. Yards are green again. And, because the grass has grown all of 2mm since the snow melted, our next door neighbor is-- even as I type-- mowing her lawn for the first time in 2006. This is a red-letter day for those of us who live on either side of her, as it marks the official start of the yearly lawn mowing games. The woman is obsessed with having short grass ("short" meaning relative to the grass in the other yards on the block). She mows. That is our cue to mow, which we will get around to in a day or two. Then our grass will be shorter than her grass, so she will have to mow again. The game is to get her to mow as often as possible. It works best if we and the other neighbors stagger our mowing so she has to mow again to be shorter than ours and then yet again to be shorter than theirs. The real prize, though, is when she mows, say on Thursday, and then we and the neighbors on the other side mow as late as possible on a Saturday, which leaves her with long grass on Sunday which she can't fix until Monday because it would be unthinkable for her to mow her lawn (even on a riding mower) on the sabbath.

To quote my favorite picture book: "Let the wild rumpus begin!" (Okay, readers, where is that from?)

These next two months represent a curious mixture of excitement, joy, and sorrow as we watch Grace finish up highschool. It is so much fun to watch her finish strong.I am looking forward to graduation because I know she is looking forward to it and because it will be such joy to celebrate with her. It is exciting to anticipate with her and for her all that awaits her in college. But there are moments when waves of sadness wash over me as I think about all the things that are ending. She went to her last horn lesson a couple of weeks ago. Going along with her to her lessons (an hour away) was always a bonding time for us. She performed in her last solo and ensemble competition last week. It was especially poignant because she and Jed performed together-- for the last time. Soon we'll be going to the last track meet, the last band concert, and sending her off to her last day of school. When she was a brand new baby I remember someone saying "they don't stay little for very long." It's so true. Where have the last eighteen years gone?  But a friend said to me the other day, "I remember doing all the 'last things' my senior year too, but just think, soon there will be a whole bunch of 'first things.'"

A dear friend of ours, a woman in her eighties, is hovering close to death in a hospital even as I type. She told my husband last night that she is looking forward to seeing Jesus but she feels so bad about leaving her sweet husband. I knelt in prayer in the middle of the night last night and asked God to spare her because it makes us all so sad to think of her being gone. But then I think of all  the eternal first things that await her and I feel that same curious mixture of excitement, joy, and sorrow for her and for us all.

On Jordan's stormy banks I stand

And cast a wishful eye

To Canaan's fair and happy land

Where my possessions lie.

All over those wide extended plains

Shines one eternal day

There God, the Son, forever reigns

And scatters night away.

Iam bound, I am bound

I am bound for the promised land.

I am bound, I am bound

I am bound for the promised land.

No chilling wind nor poisonous breath

Can reach that healthful shore

Where sickness, sorrow, pain and death

Are felt and feared no more.

I am bound, I am bound

I am bound for the promised land.

I am bound, I am bound

I am bound for the promised land.

When shall I see that happy place

And be forever blessed

When shall I see my father's face

And in his bosom rest

I am bound, I am bound

I am bound for the promised land

I am bound, I am bound

I am bound for the promised land.

 

Today was an inservice for teachers in our district. Inservice days are largely a waste of time, but this one, on the whole, was less so than most. We talked about cooperative learning (if you are an educator worth your salt, you should have felt a chill of excitement when you read those magic words). I liked most of what I heard today, although I responded with cynicism to the statement made by the presenter:"If teachers across America would commit to using these strategies in all classrooms k-12, I believe it would change the world. I believe that with all my heart." I wanted to tell her, "Lady,do not elevate a few good teaching techniques to life changing importance." (Besides, can a cooperative learning strategy really change the world when there are kids out there who want to bring boar semen to school?) Anyway, I can goof off on an inservice day with the best of the goof off teachers. We got to sit together as middle school teachers which was hugely enjoyable because middle school teachers are fun, being half whacked but mostly devoted as teachers (unlike high school teachers who are all whacked and elementary teachers who are so devoted they don't have time to be whacked). We did this one strategy where one person in the group was supposed to read a question to another member of the group who was supposed to answer it, after which the third person was supposed to paraphrase the answer. It was supposed to generate "rich conversation." The question posed to me was something like:"Were the major accomplishments in human history done by individuals acting alone or by individuals cooperating with others?" I wasn't trying to be a smart aleck or anything, but I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind:"well, except for the salvation of all mankind which was accomplished by just one individual with no help from anyone else, I guess all other events were accomplished by cooperation in some form." It was quite the conversation stopper. The other members of the group just sat there, not because they disagreed but because I had inadvertantly stumbled upon the one exception to the otherwise rhetorical question and there was nothing left to say. And, though the day was about education, there really was nothing left to say because apart from that single act done by that one individual (with no help from us-- no matter how committed we are as teachers) nothing has ever or will ever change the world.