...but a mist that appears for a little while

This year, for me, has overall been a bit of an oxymoron. Maybe you as well? Covid has caused many things in life to skid to a halt, others to a slow crawl, but there are parts of life that have been much busier than ever. 

A week or so ago, after a busy spell of lending our daughter a hand putting her classroom together, to be ready for the start up of school, things were slowing down. I had plans to catch up on some desk work for a ministry.  I was woefully behind on tending to personal finances, the cleaning of bathrooms and mopping of floors, phoning a few relatives, and piano practice that has been woefully neglected, bedding needing laundering, and a pile of errands to be run, their reminders scattered across the back seat of the Jeep.

Then a grand-daughter was exposed to a covid positive student in her class, and was sent home to do school online. Her mother is teaching and could not stay home with her, so I had the privilege of sitting in on her class zoom meetings (how does the teacher ever get that many wiggly children to pay attention?!); we sounded out letters as she wrote sentences and I showed her the tall solid line versus the dotted one in the middle, and which letters had to reach which line, then watched her little fingers struggle to grasp the pencil and make it behave. It brought back afresh the memory of my red Big Chief tablet, how proud I was that it was mine and I was learning to write! I remember my little fingers struggling with a fat pencil to write my whole name, that ended with a z, quite the challenge. 

We counted and colored and watched videos and talked about oh so many things. We sang the do-re-mi song and then went downstairs to my rescued piano, and I showed her how to play the notes while we sang slightly off key. For recess - and when you're in first grade, you HAVE to have recess, we found a local park that had no other children in it, and she ran - I walked - the BMX bike trail. We shook the heavy laden limbs of two gnarly apple trees,  and gathered the red and green fruit that showered to the ground to bring home to the deer who visit our property nightly. We gathered leaves of red and gold for her mama to make suncatchers for their patio door. We fed beautiful mallards, with their green beaks and teal and purple pin feathers, at another pond while we ate McDonald's Happy meals. 

It was a time of such sweetness. She's six years old, and I don't know how much of these days will stick with her twenty or more years from now.  They will stick with me as long as have my senses and am here on earth. 

Then I managed to catch a cold. I only get one about every other year, but of course this year having a cold, one might as well have Ebola. Sneezing or coughing around anyone is understandably horrifying, so we were somewhat isolated for a handful of days and I got to enjoy knitting and reading and baking yummy quick breads. The time of moving slowly was lovely on so many levels. 

Just as I was literally catching my breath, thinking I'd get back to all that was waiting to be tended to, family called to let me know my 95 year old father was being flown to Denver because of difficulties with breathing and possible heart concerns. Thankfully, after a handful of days and calls back and forth between family and hospitals, he was back home with some medication adjustments, and a brother to stay and watch over him a bit, and I was listening to him tell me that he would not feed hospital food to 'a good pig', and it would take a lot of talking to convince him to go back again. 

Then just as we were gathering our wits about us, Cub Sweetheart mentioned his right eye was bothering him. An appointment with the eye doctor showed he has a macular hole, requiring immediate surgery. 

Two days ago we had no plans, now we have two surgeries and umpteen follow up appointments scheduled an hour away, and a bit of challenging recovery for him. We're optimistic; they feel confident he will have the majority of his vision restored. Having had a cornea transplant about 5 1/2 years ago, I am the perfect person to care for him, knowing just how precious our sight is, how weary one grows of administering eye drops on the hour, and sleeping in goggles for weeks on end. How a bowl of homemade soup can give new courage for another day of being uncomfortable. 

After this recent rush, we expect within a week or so our days will come to a standstill as he recovers, all activity being restricted. It looks that way right now at least. 

Our family here is sad that their Papa will not be able to join them for our annual Halloween soup cook off, and that he will not be able to man the porch rocker and hand out candle to all the little ones as we have done for the past several years. 

I find myself thinking of this verse:

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” James 4:13-15

As with so many things, there's next year, hopefully. Spending Halloween with his six Idaho grandchildren would have been lovely, but being sure that his vision is restored as fully as possible is a major. We're trying, mist that we are, to major in the majors right now, one day at a time.  To be flexible in all ways, whether it's dealing with a rush of circumstances, or life screeching to a halt, and the back and forth of it all from one day to the next. I'm comforted with the reminder from James that we are but a mist. And no matter, whether life swirls around us, or becomes stagnant and stale with waiting, it's all going to be okay.