Later that night at the hotel, I talked to Les on the phone for awhile.  He was telling me he was frustrated because he was just assigned a flight to Atlanta – getting there minutes after I was flying back to Oklahoma.  Such a cruel tease especially since I’ve only seen my husband for a grand total of a few hours in the past 6 weeks.  I flew back home a couple weeks ago for a doctor appointment that didn’t happen because I had a miscarriage.  It was God’s mercy that I had a plane ticket to see Les two days after Mary Elaine died.  Our kids haven’t seen their dad at all for six weeks and everyone is intensely missing him.  Do you see how cruel of a tease that trip was to us now?  It ended up the trip was cancelled but just the idea of it was frustrating.  We had an agreement with Les’ boss that Les would get 4 consecutive days off each month to be with us.  Unfortunately someone quit at work recently that has made it impossible for Les to take his promised days off.  Thus we haven’t seen him in far too long!

After my doctor appointment was finished the next day, (it went well – which is exactly what we hoped for) I made my way back to the airport to spend the next few hours getting some long anticipated reading time done.   I finished Naming the Child, recommended by several sweet people, while sitting amongst the hustle and bustle of people coming and going in the airport.  Then I spent the better part of an hour texting Les while waiting to board my flight home.  I miss him.  I couldn’t stop thinking about how I used to have dinner waiting for him when he got home from flying or wait up late for him to get home so I could hear about his day – a passenger story, a mechanical story, or any other myriad of stories he’s accumulated over the years.  How nice would it be to be able to come home to him tonight?  Instead, I comforted myself with knowing I’d get to kiss my sleeping boys’ foreheads and give Niki a big hug & kiss when I got home.  I settled into my seat next to a boy who couldn’t have been any older than 17 or 18 and very obviously flying for either his first or second flight ever.  If he was my child, I would have held his hand and lovingly patted his knee in order to try and help him calm down.  He reminded me SO MUCH of what Chris would be like at that age – touching everything, unable to sit still, and turning to look at every little noise.  He was so cute.  He copied everything I did.  Being the wife of a pilot I’ve learned all the flight attendant cues coming from the cockpit.  As soon as the bell chimed to let the flight attendants know we’ve reached 10,000 feet, I put down my tray.  The boy looked at me and put down his tray.  I turned on my iPad, he turned on his phone to play games.  I put my tray up, he put his tray up.  I turned off my iPad, he turned off his phone.

As we were approaching the airport to land, my thoughts went back to Les.  I can’t even begin to explain the impact this separation has had on our marriage but quite the opposite from what most would expect.  We have grown closer on a level I cannot even begin to put to words.  I. miss. him.

The plane landed and I turned my phone on to tell Niki I was on my way home and to tell Les that I landed safely (which is really redundant considering I know for a fact he was tracking my flight on any number of his pilot apps).  He started sending me texts and flirting with me which led me to text and walk through the hall of the airport as I walked out to my car.  I always wondered how Niki could text and walk at the same time – it’s really not all that hard.  Smiling and texting back and forth, I only momentarily looked up to glance around to see if anyone had come to pick me up as I walked out of security – even though I knew my van was out in the parking lot where I left it the day before.  I just had this weird feeling I was meeting someone there.  I kept walking.  Texting.  I was getting closer to the door so I put my phone up and went fumbling through the contents of my purse looking for my keys.  I wanted to have them out before I got out to the parking lot.

I’m walking through baggage claim when I feel someone tap my shoulder.  I spun around fast enough to possibly give myself whip lash to see my husband’s face grinning at me with a look of hope.  I really don’t remember if I kissed him first or nearly screamed, “Why are you here?!” but it doesn’t really matter.  There was just an overwhelming sense of joy and relief that he was beside me.  I couldn’t stop hugging and kissing him.  I was sooooo happy he was next to me that nothing else mattered even the fact that people are walking passed us and probably thinking I’m insane because I’m a little more enthusiastic than the normal greeting you see two people exchange at the airport who are obviously excited to see each other after a separation.

As we’re walking out to our car, the questions start pouring out.  ”When did you get here?” “How did you get here?” “How long are you here for?” etc, etc, etc.

His cancelled flight to Atlanta and just missing each other there, put Les over the edge with the need to be with his family.  This was a lighter week at work so he kinda forced getting his promised days off.  He drove through the night on Sunday to arrive at my parents’ house at 5am.  He decided to sit in the living room and rest while he waited for everyone to wake up.

We were predicted to get snow Sunday night so I had texted Niki reminding her to get up early and see if her school in the afternoon was cancelled or not.  She came out to the living room around 7am to turn on the news and walked right passed her dad.  He said nothing, waiting to see what kind of reaction he’d get from her.  She sent me a text saying they didn’t have anything on the news and I told her to look it up on the website.  She pulls out her laptop and walks over to the other side of the room and catches a glimpse of Les sitting there.  She let out a shriek of fright and dropped her laptop leaving it forgotten on the floor.  ”Daaaaaad?!?!?!”  She smacked his arm and yelled at him for scaring her and then gave him a gigantic bear hug.

They sat and watched the news for a little bit together enjoying the quiet of an early morning house.  The boys began to stir and Les could hear Justin ask grandma if he could go to the living room and look out the window to see if it snowed.  He ran out to the window, never noticing his dad, ran back to the bedroom and started screaming, “It snowed! It snowed!”  Grandma asked him to quiet down so he didn’t wake up the rest of the house.  Justin then ran out to the bathroom and Les walked to the hallway to go say hi to him – knowing full well he should wait until after his child went potty before surprising him.  Only Les didn’t get quite the reaction from Justin a father might expect after being away for six weeks.

“Hi LJ.”

Justin looked straight at his dad and yelled excitedly, “IT SNOWED!!!!!!!!!!”

Les tried again, “Hi LJ.”

“Hi dad.”  and gave him a hug and kiss.

The other two boys soon emerged from slumbered and gave dad big hugs as they all woke up together on the couch while watching a cartoon.

Les spent the day with the kids while I was in Atlanta.  I’m soooo glad he got that time with them.

Grandma graciously agreed to watch the boys while we left to spend the next few hours at a nearby coffee cafe.  It’s not the typical cranked out coffee shop.  As soon as you walk in the door, you realize it’s a well-loved hang out.  The walls have received many obvious layers of paint, although it still looks nice.  (Maybe something I’d see in England at an old pub.)  The floor has been ripped up and left baring only black cement but somehow it works for this place.  The lights shine down from the ceiling casting shadows on the tables and people below.  The aroma of brewed espresso lingers in the air and temptingly whispers to me to order one.  Laptops glow against a few, scattered faces.  Hands write feverishly as they take notes or write an assignment.  Friends chat on a nearby couch while sipping on hot tea to ease the chill of the cool air seeping into the coffee shop through a cracked screen door.

I approach the counter and order our tea and cappuccino while Niki grabs one of the few remaining tables in the room.  I turn around to find her beckoning me to a chair next to her at a worn, round wooden table.  I’ve promised Niki for a couple of weeks that we’d sit down and fill out applications together.  I also agreed to read over her essay drafts and answer any questions she may have about the plethora of applications that becomes a senior’s life.  Interruptions around the house (we won’t name any brothers’ names) have superseded any earlier attempt of fulfilling this promise at home.

Essays and applications are by no means an ideal mother/daughter time for either of us but the chance for alone time together made even writing a pleasurable task for the two of us to do together.  Niki and I are very much alike…and very much different.  We have many of the same tastes but when it comes to socializing and writing – we couldn’t be more different.  Where I find writing soothing and therapeutic, she finds it torturous and a chore.  Where she finds a friend in every room she enters, I hope to be as invisible as possible.  As her pen casually leaves her fingertips and rests on the table, Niki thinks she’s being sneaky with me as I sip on my tea and listen to her share all her deepest hopes, dreams, and fears for her upcoming college years.  She has me right where she wants me – not asking her to continue on with her essay and attentively listening to her talk.  This is not an atypical conversation for us though.  I’ve been very blessed to have the relationship I have with my daughter.  With that said, it’s the first time in a long while where I’m knowingly being manipulated and enjoying every moment of it.  In the end, she did get her first draft completed on her essay and I got to listen to her as she shared her heart with me.   Bliss…

When I’m upset, I’m silent.  This is me.  I know many people are concerned about me as they find out the news.  Words are simply not going to pour from my mouth regardless of how much I know that person wants to hear them from me.  It’s too much for me right now.  Writing allows me to share with you that I’m okay even amidst the pain because I have my husband’s loving comfort and we are clinging to God for strength.

Over the years, writing has become therapeutic for me.  It allows me to reflect, analyze, and vent. Sometimes I share it with others…many times I put it away never to be seen by anyone other than myself.

I decided to write about the miscarriage for that one other person who searches the Internet for someone else who has experienced something similar.  This post is for that one person who finds comfort in knowing they are not alone in their heartache.  Their loss.  Their search for…why?

The Sounding Promo Video

I’m pretty sure if there was a camera pointed at me while I was driving you would have seen my mouth dropped open while I was listening to Cady popping these figures out.  We all know she’s a genius but the whole conversation was still incredibly impressive coming from a Kindergartner.

Then Justin tells her, “I want 6 pieces of gum so I’m not giving you my money.”

Without hesitation Cady tells him, “If we ask one of our moms for one more dollar then we can all get 6 pieces of gum.”

Oh yes, I gave her the extra dollar out of pure awe.  The kids are now waiting anxiously for Friday when Cady comes over to grandma’s with their gum.

My sister-in-law came up with a brilliant plan to have a cousins’ movie night and watch the Polar Express.  We’d give them a ticket to board the train and serve them hot chocolate during the movie.  I wish this could be a tradition we could keep for years to come – I don’t know that it will realistically happen.  This is my first Christmas with my side of the family since getting married.  It’s just the way it has worked out.  Maybe we’ll get to do this once again in the future sometime.

Niki printed out tickets, cut them out, and colored them in for her cousins.

All nine of the cousins came over to grandma’s house and got dressed in their jammies.  My sister-in-laws and myself prepped for the movie while grandma enjoyed snuggling her two youngest grandbabies.

Emma was actually snuggling into grandma so sweetly until I messed it up by taking a picture of them with the flash.

All the kids gathered on the couches and we started the movie.  Aunt Melissa passed out their tickets to board the train and later punched them as the conductor on the train was punching the other children’s tickets.  They were so stinkin’ cute!  The kids ranged from 2 to 17 (although Niki only participated in the watching and drinking hot chocolate part).  The absolute amazing part is that all six of the little kids held their tickets through the ENTIRE movie.  I expected them all over the living room within minutes.

***

This was a huge treat for the kids.  They are not allowed to have food and drinks in the living room – for obvious reasons.  I only filled their mugs half way in hopes there would be less chance of spills.  Success!  We also had some popcorn towards the middle of the movie even though that wasn’t part of the story.  

Finally, we passed out a jingle bell to each one of the kids towards the end of the movie.  Aunt Melissa had such a great idea and I’m glad we got to do it with the kids.  They really enjoyed it and the kids got way more into it than I was expecting.  Yay for a great cousins’ movie night!

On Thanksgiving, I felt so incredibly blessed to be eating a delicious meal surrounded by so many I love.  My mother-in-law spent days preparing a feast for her family.  It was time well spent.  Before our meal, the house was loud with laughter, talking, and playing.  Moments after saying prayers and the first bites reached our mouths, the entire house hushed as we longed for and tasted all the flavors of Thanksgiving.  I think it’s easy to get wrapped up in the decorations and atmosphere of a holiday but what I find most important to me on Thanksgiving is the time spent with family sitting together and chatting while thanking God for making it all possible.  How often do we do this anymore just within our immediate families?  I know how difficult it is to gather the six of us for dinner on a regular basis let alone gathering with extended family for a meal.  I also cherished the care and thought put into the meal by my mother-in-law.  It’s an act of love on her part to dedicate that much of her time for a special family meal.

An opportunity arose on Friday.  Shopping.  Just Niki and myself – something we have not done in years. There’s something about not having to deal with boys hiding in clothes racks, messing with each other, touching everything they pass, or begging for something every ten feet that makes me feel like Black Friday shopping will pale in comparison.  We first attempted the midnight sales at an outlet center.  We turned back.  Wow.  That’s all I have to say about that one.  Then we went to the mall after 2pm on Friday.  Much better.

On the way home, we stopped at a grocery store to pick up some items for a birthday party for Les and Chris.  Niki went to get some face cleanser while I was a couple of aisles over looking for stuff on my list.  Within a couple of minutes of being gone from me, Niki came jogging back to me.  ”Mom, there’s a guy following me.  He kept staring at me so I went to the next aisle and he followed me there.”  She was in the make-up aisle.  What guy is browsing through the make-up aisle?

“Stay next to me.  You’ll be fine.”

We keep shopping.  The guy shows up again.  He’s quite obviously trying to flirt with Niki only it’s coming across creepy and disturbing.  He follows us to several more aisles.  I had enough.  I stared at him and he left us alone.  We’re picking out some vegetables when I see this same guy walk out of the doors to the back area of the store – he’s an employee.  We finish up and leave for home.

I tell Les about it when we get back to his parents’ house.  He’s not happy.  He decided to drive down to the store to tell the manager about this.  When he returned, Les had some disturbing news for us.  The manager was very receptive to Les and was already suspicious about an employee and asked Les for a description.  Les gave him the description I had provided him.  Then the manager asked Les to follow him. While they are walking, they found this employee peaking around an aisle staring at two college age girls and taking a picture of them on his cell phone.  The manager immediately asks the employee to hand over his phone to him.  There are many, many pictures of girls in the store on his phone.  The manager hands the phone to Les and asks him if any of these were his daughter.  Sure enough…there was a picture of Niki on his phone.  Les deleted it.

I immediately apologized to Les for thinking he was going a bit overboard by going back to the store to talk to the manager.  Niki hugged her papa several times.  Les told me, “I’ve learned to trust your instincts.  I had to go back to the store.”  I’m glad Les was paying closer attention to me than I was about myself.  I guess, for me, if there was an immediate danger I would have – without a doubt – taken action.  But I had just spent the day shopping with Niki and two other guys were flirting heavily with her (at least trying to since Niki wasn’t paying attention to them) that I ignored this guy even though the previous two weren’t being creepy about it and he was.  We had a talk with Niki on how to approach this situation if it ever happened again – especially if she’s by herself and I learned to not ignore my initial instinct.

On Saturday Niki, Les, and myself went to the gun range with his dad.  This was a first for both Niki and myself.  We had never shot a gun before. Not so for Les since his grandma gave him his very first (real) gun when he was a kid.  We are in Texas, afterall.  Have you ever met a person you felt was born in the wrong era?  When I see my father-in-law, I always think he should be a sheriff in a small, budding city in the 1800′s.  My mother-in-law would have a welcoming home and a hearty kitchen, wanting for nothing, in this pioneer community.

While we were at the gun range, my boys were making bread with grandma.  Niki and I are slightly jealous.  They didn’t just make bread. They made bread from scratch.  The boys got to grind the wheat first before mixing all the ingredients together to bake a loaf of fantastic bread we would all share later at dinner with our soup.

We put together a special birthday party for Les and Chris.  Everyone enjoyed a feast which included but was not limited to pumpkin juice, butterbeer, and chocolate frogs.

We said our goodbyes and headed off for our drive home.

On the way – I couldn’t help it and stopped the van to have the kids stretch their legs and learn a little Texan history.  We read about Sam Houston and wandered up a trail to take our picture with his gigantic statue.

Alas, another road trip.  In as much as I wasn’t looking forward to spending hours upon hours in the van driving, I was equally antsy with excitement for the trip because I was going to meet up with Les.

On this trip, my mom kindly and lovingly let the boys take her portable dvd players with us.  This, coupled with a binder of movies and three sets of headphones, has made a predictable improvement in the noise level and harmony inside our van.  With the boys occupied with movies, I faded the radio to the front of the van and giddily pressed play to a list of podcasts silently waiting for ages in a folder on my iPhone.

A few podcasts have begun and ended when I hear from the backseat, “I think we’re going to stop again. I just saw a sign for Starbucks.” I chuckle and tell them, “No”, giving it no more thought.

We walk into our hotel room and one of my boys excitedly exclaims as he sees an advertisement on the desk, “Mom!  They have your favorite coffee – Starbucks – here!”

“Thanks for letting me know.”  No more thought dedicated to it.

We arrive the next day at our destination and anxiously wait to see Les.  It’s been a couple of weeks since the last time we saw him which is actually fantastic considering we expected to see each other only once a month for the next 10 months.  A few waking hours is all we had with Les before he had to fly the next morning.  But…they were cherished hours in a way I can’t even begin to explain with any real justice.

This period of our lives has made me realize just how much I took for granted – all the thanksgivings I left out of my prayers.  ”Thank you God for letting my husband have a job.  Thank you for letting him have a job 20 minutes from our home.  Thank you for only taking Les away from me for 3 – 5 days at a time while he goes to fly.  Thank you for the dinners we eat together as a family at our kitchen table. Thank you for my husband’s arms wrapped around me as I drift off to sleep.  Thank you for all the things my husband does for me that I never noticed before because I was too busy focusing on all the things he wasn’t.  Thank you for the support he is to me after I’ve had a long, difficult day with the kids.”

Les and I have been through some…adventures together – especially concerning the foster care years. I’d like to think that these situations have brought us closer and made us stronger.    You can’t go through the experiences we’ve gone through together as a family and not have some sort of huge impact left on your lives.  There are still some day to day struggles that have never gone away with our boys even long after the days of no longer having to worry about social workers randomly showing up out of the blue or wondering if birthdad made it out of jail and then if he will show up to the birthparent visit and finally what impact that will have on your boys when they get home from that visit.

Every person has a story about the impact life has made on their lives.  There are many days, despite my best effort, that I feel like not only am I banging my head on the wall – my whole body is being slammed against that wall.  Les is the one I talked to about all of it.  I purposely leave so many stories off my blog. It’s the same reason why I hesitate publishing the book about our foster care experience – I don’t want people judging my boys for a life they were innocently dealt and the impact it left on them.  Don’t get me wrong – my children are amazing.  They have taught me innumerable truths about myself and God. But…it’s hard when you give and give and give and what you get back is a child climbing onto the end of your bed while you’re still waking up one morning to tell you, “I’ve given this a lot of thought.  I want a new mommy and daddy.  Ones that won’t tell me no.”   Or when you’ve stayed up all night long multiple times with your son while he’s having fibril seizures only to have him give absolutely no regard to the terror and love you felt through it as he parent shops each and every time you’re out with other adults. Or the absolute lack of trust or affection given to you as a mom even after all the love you’ve poured into them day in and day out.  It’s nothing less than draining and heartbreaking.  It leaves you wondering if anything you do makes a difference. Will it ever make a difference?  Some days you see this little glimmer of hope or progress.  It can send you literally leaping for joy and talking ninety miles an hour to your husband as you explain detail by detail the small but equally enormous success because one of your sons actually gave you a semi-quasi hug of his own doing that day.

We say our goodbyes to Les at the hotel and we’re back on the road for some more driving.  I stopped at a Target to quickly pick something up and to let the boys stretch their legs a bit – helping to get out those long drive wiggles.  As we’re walking through the doors, one of my boys tells me, “They have Starbucks here.  Can we get a drink?”  Alright…this time I felt it.  The smack as I realize the impact my stops at Starbucks across several states have made on my sons.  I’ve unintentionally taught my boys that Starbucks holds a prominent importance in my life.  Far more importance than I ever gave it credit for. In the past two months, I’ve stopped at Starbucks far more times than I care to admit without being embarrassed.  Previously, I only went as a special treat – a handful of times throughout the entire year. My frequent stops to get a chai tea started when I was making road trips with the boys.  Without Les.  Without Niki.  The car had seemingly shrunk and the fighting was a bit more than my sanity could take.  Coffee sounded good.  Afterall, I used to tell Les that it was my cup-o-sanity.  That first sip seems to somehow magically take the edge off the “He took it out of my hands again!!!” in the backseat. It was my coping mechanism of choice.

I skipped the chai tea this time, in shock and revulsion with this realization, and only purchased the item I went into Target for to begin with.  We settle back into the van, all buckled and ready to continue our journey down the highway.  I started the next podcast by Fr. Thomas Hopko and became completely engrossed in it when I realized how much it spoke to my life personally.  I even listened to it a second…and a third time.  A mom had written him an email asking him if God plays favorites.  She writes how it seems that there are some people who seem to be dealt a silver spoon in their mouth concerning their ability to become a saint.  Aren’t we all called to become saints?  Then how does the average person who struggles with situations dealt to them beyond their control ever attain sainthood?  Fr. Thomas talks about how every person is called to a vocation – some to monasteries, others to the world around us.  Some to great things, some to struggle all their life.  We have no answers to why this is so.  Only God knows the reason.  No one has the same life circumstances and therefore we are not going to be judged the same way by God.  How do we handle the hand we’ve been personally dealt?  That’s the important aspect.

There are too many times where I find myself struggling with my circumstances.  Worrying and agonizing over my inability to overcome a certain situation.  I’ve fallen many times, over and over again, as I’ve made mistakes, lacked faith, or completely lost all hope.  I know that I’m not perfect.  I know I will make more mistakes BUT I need to continually get up and continue trying to do better.  I’ve discovered on this trip that in some of my weak moments of patience and love, I’ve been clinging to the wrong hem of garment as I clench and grasp hold of it to pull myself back up again.  I’ve turned to the hem of a coffee company for comfort when I should have been grasping at the hem of Christ’s garment as I pray for lasting comfort and guidance.  I’ve mistakenly taught my children that an object is where you find peace instead of God. How often do we, as a society, teach our children what we value most when we take extra care and time to ensure our program is recorded on the tv? How we lose all sense of time as we browse or play on the Internet day after day neglecting each other? How we move around our entire schedules for a ball game but can’t make it to church because we’re a little too worn out or busy?  How we engross ourselves in a hobby as the rest of our family finds something else to do? I don’t think that any of these things are bad in and of themselves.  Should I refuse to drink another cup of coffee or chai tea for the rest of my life?  No.  It’s about the level of importance I’ve placed on them.  My kids are watching me…learning.  Anything I’ve turned to in order to forget my problems or to find a sense of peace, has turned me away from the one person I needed to turn to most – God.

“The primary goal in the education of children is to teach, and to give the example of a virtuous life.”

Saint John Chrysostom

Click the link:  (video only, no sound)  First Solo1

Note on the photo:  This photo was taken several years ago at an airshow.  I’m holding Malaki who fell asleep in my arms but would wake up any time I put him down in the stroller.   He would cry until I snuggled him – so in my arms is where he contently stayed.

Our realtor told us today that he’s having a very hard time selling ANY house right now.  He just had a closing go horribly bad last week because of the bank.  He also told us (wish he had told us this when we listed) that since August, over 500 houses in our general area have been taken off the market (not sold, just taken off the market) therefore flooding the rental market.  Our area was SERIOUSLY hit hard by the downsizing of my husband’s company.  It literally made the area thrive and made the area die.  We looked into the rules of short selling and to make a very long story short – it’s not even a possibility for us.

Sooooo…we’ve entered the realm of the unknown.  Are we going to live a very long time in our current house?  It’s a possibility.  Are we going to try and sell it again within the year?  It’s a possibility.  Is Les going to have to commute two hours each way to us?  It’s a possibility. (One neither of us is willing to do for years to come.)  What does all of this mean for our family?  We have no idea.  On the one hand, we are thankful Les has a job.  On the other hand, the price we’re paying for him to have a job in a different state from us (and the inability to join him) is taking it’s toll on us as a family.  We are taking it one step, in the dark, at a time.  It’s scary.  It’s overwhelming.  It’s reality.

Please keep our family in your prayers.