In the Leaves

Today was a good day, the kind of good that reaches deep and fills me with joy.  Not like yesterday, when an interrupted nap caused me to cry along with Michael, when I unsuccessfully tried to referee a fight with the rear-view mirror and ended up throwing a baseball glove back to get the boys' attention.  Today, we had nowhere to go.  We had no appointments or meetings to hurry for, no one waiting for us to arrive or depending on my ability to get shoes on small, wiggly feet.  This morning, perhaps for the first time ever, Winston willingly shared his cars with Michael, and as they played peacefully, I was able to get my shower.  Once we were all dressed for the day, the boys insisted we play outside, and thanks to this beautiful weather, a week of sunshine and falling leaves, we found ourselves in the backyard jumping around in piles of crackling leaves.  I took pictures to capture the moment, to share it with my husband busy at work and relatives who only experience our family via social networking.  The joy of the moment is caught on my children's smiling faces, but the pictures hide my internal struggle.

Last night, I read Matt Walsh's blog about At Home Moms, and I realized that a war is raging within me all day.  First I am a woman, a list-maker and do-er, someone who derives identity and worth from what she can accomplish.  That woman was a great student and employee, always doing more and more.  She set goals and made things happen.  But that woman became a mother.  A mother is a nurturer and giver, whose time is best spent being: being with her children, being present in the moments that come unbidden and without warning, the first steps and the first words and the questions and the requests to read the book again, play the game again, make me another meal, change another diaper.  Being alert to the nonverbal signals that a child is tired, hungry, wet, scared, needs his mama.  And if you haven't already figured it out, doing and being come into conflict over and over.

The woman in me says leaves should be raked and collected and gotten rid of.
The mom in me says leaves are meant to be raked into a pile over and over so children can jump and throw and kick and laugh.
The woman in me says an hour playing outside with no accomplished task is a waste of time.
The mom in me says playing outside means setting aside the list of things to do and enjoying with the kids.
The woman in me sees the grass stains and dirty pants and panics that they won't come out in the wash.
The mom in me sees the grass stains and dirt as a measure of how much fun is being had.
The woman in me looks for a way to make this time productive, like teaching ABCs or learning to identify the trees.
The mom in me looks at happy faces and thinks her children are teaching her something.

Sometimes I need Winston to dump out my bag of leaves and shout, "I want a BIG PILE!" to remember that moms don't need to have the nicest lawn or the cleanest house.  They need to have secure children who know they are loved and valued.  And they need to stop doing, and just be.  So the mom in me is glad that I made that decision many years ago to stop working at a job and make motherhood my job.  That my husband supports us and supports me in who I am.  That lists are fine and good and have a place, but don't contain my worth as a person.

Papa doesn't live here anymore...

Three days ago, I told my mom that I would speak at Papa's funeral.  No problem, I thought.  I can keep it together and represent our family in the service.  But today, when my moment came, it was a struggle.  Not because "I'll be Missing You" played on the radio as I drove to the church.  Not because of the open casket.  Because just before my time up front, we sang a hymn, one of his favorites.  And I heard it.  The huge, empty silence hovering over the middle of the room, just above where Grandma stood.  Every time I have been in church with my grandparents, I have heard his voice rise above all the others, deep and strong and full of melody.  That was when I finally understood:  Papa isn't here anymore.

There is a vacuum, like the reverend said.  There is a hole in our family, a void in our hearts.  But even though he is gone, there are memories, stories and moments and images that we can cling to and remember that we were loved.

Every person at the calling hours, the service, everyone who wanted to there but couldn't make it, each of our lives were touched by this man.  Jonathan reminded us all that he was so proud of his family, that he looked forward to being a part of the moments of our lives.  With 15 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren, it was a full-time job.

He lives on in the faces of his grandchildren.  His work can still be seen around the farm that he tended for more than 60 years.  His commitment and fidelity is evidenced by the gold ring Grandma passed around to show us last night.  Papa was worth celebrating.  His sister-in-law remarked that he was a father whose children remembered him fondly, because he raised them with a steady hand.  His brother said that more than siblings, they were friends, with 81 years of stories to tell.  And what better way for us to honor him, and his memory, than to stand up, with Nathan leading on guitar, and sing like never before, oh my soul, and worship the one who redeemed us, the one who prepared a place for Papa to live.  Because he doesn't live here anymore.

The "Navy soldiers" folding the flag for Grandma

Papa

A patriarch is the male head of a family, its leader.  The man who sets the tone for everyone by his words and his actions.  It is easy to see what is important to my grandfather, who has always been known as "Papa":  his life is a study in hard work, family unity, and Christian service.  One of my earliest memories of Papa is attending his "retirement" party, although I've never known him to be idle for a day.  When, in his 60's, he stopped working for Westinghouse, he continued to run the 100 acre farm he lived on with my grandma.  In the winter months, when the farm was tended by my uncle and cousin, my grandparents went south, to the border of Mexico and Texas, but not to enjoy the moderate temperatures and slow down.  Those months were spent building schools and churches, meeting with other "retired" folks, and teaching the children of Renosa.  When I was in high school, they took this missionary work up a notch, spending a year in Honduras running a mission house.  It was the year of the earthquake that ripped that small country in half, and we watched on our TV as news reports came in of monumental damage, lives lost, and we wondered if Grandma and Papa were somewhere in the rubble.  But not too long after, they were able to call on a sat phone and let us know that they were okay, just managing a little differently now that many roads were cut off and buildings fallen to the ground.  Not exactly peaceful, easy living for a couple in their 70's.

Surrounded by their children and spouses

One of seven children, Papa always tried to make contact with his siblings on their birthdays, dispersed as they were across the country.  He attended family reunions for several different offshoots of his family tree.  He also came through Dallas to pick up my sister and I on his way to his brother Paul's funeral in El Paso.  I remember that Papa drove the whole way, an 8-10 hour drive, at least, and he was not as sensitive to my 7 year old entreaties to make bathroom stops as my parents were on such long trips.  Nonetheless, we made it without my bladder exploding, and went through the burial ritual.  The only thing I remember about my great-uncle's funeral was his granddaughter, a girl close to my age, with whom I'd been playing Barbies earlier in the day, sobbing into her mother's shoulder and crying out, "He's my grandpa!"  I wondered at the change that had come over her, and of course, couldn't understand her grief, as my own grandpa was sitting down the row from me, very much alive.  And really, if I'm being introspective and philosophical, that is the defining characteristic of my Papa, that he was there.  He was there, in our kitchen, drinking coffee and playing card games with us on his annual trip down to Renosa.  He was there at Christmas, watching his children and grandchildren open their gifts.  He was there in my living room, as I played the first song I learned on the clarinet for him.  He was there at my high school graduation, and again for college.  He was at the weddings of each of his grandchildren.  He was there, in my hospital room, the day after I gave birth to my first son.  He was there, six years ago, helping us move furniture into our new house.  And he was there, just last September, at Michael's first birthday party.

Christmas 2009

When my mom went into labor with me on April 3rd, some part of her mind must have disengaged from the pain and the relief that at long last, the baby was coming out, and thought about her dad, who was celebrating his 55th birthday at his home in Pennsylvania.  I think she was pleased at the idea of her daughter and her dad sharing a birthday, but I wasn't.  True to form, I stubbornly stayed inside her until the next afternoon, already determined to be original.  The fact that our birthdays were a day apart didn't seem to change anything, however, and we frequently celebrated together.  The first was on my fourth birthday, which we spent sharing a beach house with Grandma and Papa in Virginia Beach.  I don't remember much about that except for the house being on stilts, which was a novel concept.  There is a frequently told story from that trip, though, about my burgeoning vocabulary, in which I told Papa to "stop aggravating me!"  He said, "You don't know what that word means."  And I responded, "It means 'to fight'."  Another birthday spent together was my 23rd and his 78th, at which time I was a newlywed who bundled up with her husband and parents and drove to a Cracker Barrel halfway between Papa's farm and my new apartment.

Spending a snowy birthday together 2005



Our lives have only overlapped for 31 years, and though I've heard stories about his time as a young man, turning in bottles to get a nickel and heading downtown to watch a movie, playing basketball in high school and sailing in the Navy as a young man, becoming a father to five children and watching them grow, what I have seen is who these early experiences shaped him to be.  I know him as a man of consistency, someone who loves to sing and has a pretty good sense of humor.  I have seen the pride he takes in his family and a job well done.  I am awed by his knowledge of planting, growing, and harvesting, caring for animals and running all the equipment required.  That is what I remember, that is what Papa means to me.

On Your 31st Birthday

On our way to Prom, 2001

If you met your husband when you were both 17, you may be so impressed with the person he has become by 31 that you have to wonder if he's the same person.  Because you remember that boy who made your insides vibrate when he looked at you, talked to you, made you laugh.  You remember how strong his pull was, that you just wanted to be around him all the time.  And then your flirtation became a Relationship, and you went from being two lovely, perfect creatures to real people with flaws and differing points of view.  And you watched him spend his graduation money on CDs at Best Buy, and then hide them under his driver's seat because his mom would lecture him about it and you wondered if someday you would be the one he would hide things from under the driver's seat.  And he made friends with a ridiculous group of guys at college, and you were grateful for the distance because it meant you didn't have to go with them on group outings and when he told you stories about them over the phone he didn't see how many times you rolled your eyes.  And you wondered if they would ruin him, this sweet boy who gave you the cherry off his ice cream sundaes and waited weeks to kiss you, who wrote you silly poems and insisted that you had to have A Song because all couples have A Song, and when you decided on one you both liked, he preferred the one from the Notting Hill soundtrack and you were adamant that it had to be the Alison Krauss version.  So you weighed these things, the douchebag friends and the daddy issues and the conflict avoidance and the fact that he was really cute and had a nice car and loved you and when he held you it was like the earth shifted so that everything was right at last.  You didn't know which was more important and you wanted it to be like a math equation, except math was always your worst subject and this wasn't an algebra test, this was real life, this was maybe the most important decision ever, whether to fall head over heels or turn and run.  And then suddenly, it wasn't a choice anymore, it was inevitable that your life was going to merge with his, and so when he got down on one knee, you barely listened to everything that he said, you just waited for that question so you could say YES!  And then the day came when you said your vows, you were both still so young, but you'd been to weddings where the bride and groom were both younger than you, and it made you feel like you were old getting married at 22.  And it didn't take two weeks before you realized just how vulnerable you had made yourself, that you had given this person your life and your heart and he could destroy you completely.  And every time you passed one of those billboards for "when a diamond isn't forever", you prayed that you'd never have to call 1-800-DIVORCE, that you would treat each other as tenderly as the cake you placed in each others' mouths in that rented hall as everyone looked on.  Because he was still a boy, so much so that when you opened a drawer to put your clothes with his you found a note from his mom that said "Don't forget to shower and put on deodorant" and you couldn't believe that the person who held your heart had trouble remembering something so basic.

First Father's Day 2007

But you built a home together, one that was filled with garage sale furniture that you proudly brought home in your tiny Saturn, and the Dave Matthews posters decorating your bedroom, and the ceiling above the bathtub that caved in so you could wave up to the couple who lived upstairs and fought constantly until one day the lady was gone and it was silent up there and the ceiling was fixed and you didn't see anyone anymore.  And you learned together, and when he got the call that his aunt died, you knew that as much as your heart was breaking, his was breaking worse, and so you held it together and packed his black pants and sport coat and held his hand.  And when you peed on that stick and the two pink lines popped up, and you felt dizzy and sick and completely overwhelmed, he hugged you and insisted on going out for steak to celebrate because this was Good News, and he held it together while you puked and cried and threatened to shove a peanut butter sandwich down his throat, so help me God I wanted crunchy peanut butter, not creamy, and he drove to Taco Bell at 1am because you just had to have a crunchy taco (what was with the crunchy cravings?).  And when you held that baby in your arms, that life that you created together, you looked at him and didn't see a boy anymore, he had somehow become a man, a father, and he took that title so seriously and went to work without complaining anymore, and said, Yes of course you should be home with the baby, I'll make the ends meet all by myself, and suddenly you were home owners and he was cleaning out gutters and mowing the yard.  And you tried not to be surprised every month when he paid the bills on time, but it was still hard to believe that he was prioritizing the mortgage over a new Playstation.  And then another baby came and he shocked you even more by cleaning the bathroom without being asked and he learned to cook really good food and suddenly he was switching from Sports Center to the Food Network and was so confident and in charge.  And so you returned to the math equation, the listing of the good and bad, and his hair was disappearing every day, but so was Prince William's and if its okay for a prince then it should be good enough for the love of your life, and beyond the looks you noticed integrity and honesty and maturity, handling difficult situations and refinancing the house to get a lower interest rate and getting up in the middle of the night to clean up the kids' puke and then coming in and cleaning up your puke and you knew that you couldn't do it if the situation was reversed.  And he updates your phone and finds educational apps for the iPad, and even after all these years, he makes you laugh.  And when your car breaks down on vacation and your aunt dies and your sister moves across the country and the doctors say there is something wrong with your son, he holds your hand and there is no one you would rather be with when everything is falling apart.  And when your bank account is overflowing and your best friend comes for a visit and the flowers that you planted are blooming, there is no one you would rather be with.  And then you discover this common desire, this wish to give a child a home, and together you fill out the endless paperwork and go to the classes and then suddenly the phone is ringing and there is a baby for you, and together you nurse this little life and make him your own and you see that the love he has for the new child is just as fierce and strong as the love he has for the ones you made together.  And you hear him at night, tucking the kids in bed, praying with them, reading from the storybook Bible, and you know that he is sharing his deepest self with them.

Family picture 2012

You wonder.  Where is that 17 year old boy?  Of course he is still there in the face, if you Wooly Willy some hair back down his forehead and trim the beard back so its just a goatee, and when the radio station plays hits from the 90's, you see him in the man bobbing back and forth and rocking out to the songs you both loved from the time when you were falling in love.  And he's there in the laugh that still shakes his whole body and the earnest eyes that are all-too-often weary and frustrated these days, when the kids won't go to bed and the appliances need to be replaced and there aren't enough hours in the day.  And you realize that he needs to get away, to take a few days and relax, and so you book a cabin for two and you get your parents to watch the boys and once again you pack his bags because he is threatening to only bring a toothbrush and you know that the people you pass by on your little trip will definitely not want to be seeing all of that.  And you try to think of a way to let him know just how much he means to you, how much better your life is because he's in it, and you hope that he feels the same about you.  You hope he still sees glimpses of that 17 year old girl you used to be, the one who loved to watch movies and eat ice cream and laugh at all his jokes.  The one who always had a hard time saying the Real Stuff out loud, who never quite got the right tone of voice to say "I love you" and didn't know what to think of a boy opening doors for her and offering to hold her purse.

My Fear

"So the good boys and girls
Take the so called right track
Faded white hats
Grabbing credits and maybe transfers

They read all the books but they can't find the answers."

I went to that cookie-cutter high school John Mayer sings about, the one that teaches the equation abc=xyz, with abc being Take these classes, Get straight A's, Graduate with honors, and xyz, you will Get into the top college of your choice, Graduate summa cum laude, and Get the best job ever.  And that's it, that's the meaning of life.  But I was lucky, because my parents didn't believe in conveyor belts, and they encouraged me to chart my own course.  They never shied away from being "weird" or different.  If I wanted to take a class that went away from the mold, they said do it.  If I liked reading science fiction novels instead of the "classics" required in AP English, they said drop the class.  If I wanted to wear clothes from Goodwill or my grandma's attic, they shrugged and went on with it.  They showed me how to figure out exactly who me was, with no right answers, no strict guidelines.

Well, I never lived the dream of the prom kings
And the drama queens
I'd like to think the best of me
Is still hiding up my sleeve

Sometimes when I mention something that my parents did really well, they'll scoff and say they weren't doing it on purpose.  They were flying by the seats of their respective pants, with no map to show them where to go.  So maybe it wasn't sheer bravery that caused them to let me be weird.  Maybe they were just clueless about what they were supposed to be doing.  But isn't that courage in and of itself?  To plow ahead, not looking to the side to see where the other parents are, if they are on the right course or headed for a cliff, to push me into the wide open world instead of on a narrow path to the Ivy League?

"I think what must have frightened my parents most 

of all [about my diagnosis] was the possibility that I would

not be able to lead the "normal" life they really wanted for me.

Like many parents, they equated normality with

being happy and productive."

Daniel Tammet, Born on a Blue Day

So why then, coming out of a home that placed so much importance on individualism, have I become that parent who is constantly checking what the others are doing, wondering if my kids are missing out, not measuring up?  Because I'm afraid.  I'm scared that my kids will show up at school reeking of different, and that will lead to bullying, low self-esteem, resentment toward me.  If they haven't had swim lessons by age 5, did they miss out on important childhood memories?  If I buy their shoes for $4 at a consignment sale, will other people be able to tell?  If our idea of family fun is eating popcorn and watching movies, if I buy them Skittles or let them drink Sprite, am I setting them up for obesity and isolation?  I just want to fit in, to blend in the crowd so my kids will be safe.  But that's not good parenting.  I know it isn't.  I was taught from such an early age to do what is best for me, to clear a path if none existed, to go where I need to go.  And why should that be any different for my kids?  I confessed this to my friend, and she laughed and said, "Oh, you SO don't fit in."  Wow, and that was when I was trying.  So I decided to shut out all the noise, all the websites and commercials and statuses that made me feel like I wasn't measuring up.  I called to mind John Mayer's young adult anthem, the song I identified with so well as a 19 year old nontraditional student.  Because my boys don't fit in boxes.  They are so much more than a list of grades or accomplishments or failures.  They are little people with passions and hopes and dreams.  And I want them to learn what I learned, how to create a life of one's own choices, how to arrive at one's own destination.

I wanna run through the halls of my high school
I wanna scream at the top of my lungs
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world
Just a lie you've got to rise above

My Heart

 "And in my heart I find a need
Of Him to be my Savior

That He would leave His place on high
And come for sinful man to die
You count it strange so once did I
Before I met my Savior"

-Aaron Shust "My Savior My God"

 

When I was very young, my dad sat with me and explained that I could ask Jesus to live in my heart.  This would make me a Christian.  It was something that Mom, Dad, and my older sister already were.  And it made sense to me at the time to do this thing which was obviously the right thing to do, but for all the wrong reasons.  So I would be like my family.  So I wouldn't go to Hell.  I lived my life as a "Christian" on the outside; I never stole, never killed anyone, got good grades and didn't have sex with any boys.  But on the inside, my heart wasn't really in it.  I hated people, like full-blown if they were injured on the side of the road I would walk right by or maybe even kick them HATRED.  And so I talked about these people with my friends, and we exaggerated things that were true about them to the point that we created almost a legend of false gossip in our high school.  And when I planned for my future, I sat God down and told him what I was going to do and where I was going to go and then gave him the green light to make it happen.

But he didn't.  My life after high school didn't look anything like what I had listed off to God in my Christmas List prayer.  And so I had to wonder, who is this guy?  What do I actually believe about God and heaven and hell and being a Christian?  And there were years when I struggled to figure it out, and I tried letting my outside match my inside and skipped church and failed a class and went to a bar and drank alcohol.  But this didn't get me any closer to feeling like I understood anything.  So my fiance (who soon became my husband) found a church for us to attend together, and we went and we sat with a pastor and we asked questions.  And week after week, he answered my questions.  I began to realize where I had gone off course before, where I had made God in my image, instead of the other way around.  When I was 23, my husband and my pastor baptized me in a lake, and I can honestly say I walked out of the water a new person.  I was now on a mission to change my heart.  I didn't know how exactly, but I realized that gossiping about people had to go.  That was a tricky one.  I borrowed some steps from AA...I stopped reading "gossip" magazines like US Weekly, I stopped hanging out with those friends who loved to talk about other people.  I focused on having conversations about Ideas and Places and Themes and went cold turkey off People.  Once I got the hang of that, I saw other things that I was doing, things that began deep in my heart and welled up out of me, things that someone following God shouldn't do.  I examined the people I hated, and found a new way to see them that was full of love and grace.  I dug deep into my heart and grabbed hold of the secret shame I carried and pulled it into the light and refused to carry it any longer.

And just last night I sat in a church, surrounded by moms who were looking for encouragement and comfort, and I remembered what my dad had taught me all those years ago, about how Jesus lived in my heart.  And maybe its because I'm really getting the hang of this homemaker stuff, but I realized that I hadn't given him a very nice place to live.  He was crowded out by anger and shame and jealousy and hatred.  But letting that go, emptying all that darkness, made room for Him.  I gave Him a place to fill with His love, His peace, His kindness and goodness.  I'd like to think that my outside matches my inside again, that all this light that fills my heart shines out.  I'd like to think that God is giving me the marching orders these days, that what I do and where I go is part of His plan, and that this world is becoming a better place to live because of it.

Driving

There's a highway that heads out of town.  I've been down it so many times, going away, off to do or see or be somewhere else.  Its the road I drove when I was a senior in high school, with special permission to visit my sister at college for the first time.  Alone.  Overnight.  I sat behind the wheel in our family's giant van, excited by the freedom and independence I was given, and a little terrified that I would get lost in the cold, dark backwoods that I had to travel once I got off the highway.  I made it, remembering the route I had driven when we dropped her off in the summer, when mom and dad decided to sit in the back and remember every special moment of my sister's life, crying and laughing, and I rolled my eyes up front.  I got to go a few times over the next couple of years, although visiting a college dorm is a little less exciting when you also live in one.  But that first visit...I still remember the excited feeling of being on my own, driving my sister and her roommate to a Mexican restaurant a few towns away for dinner, the flowery smell of a girl's dorm (who doesn't have college flashbacks when she smells that cheap air freshener they sell at the dollar store?).  It was on that road, returning from one of those visits, when I got my first (only?) speeding ticket.  The trembling fear of being pulled over, not knowing what to do or say, and of course, the sinking loss of freedom once mom and dad found out.  Except the cop gave me a ticket and a fine to pay, and I had a job and a checking account, so I mailed off the payment ($140 people, it set me back!), thinking I was free and clear from having my driving privileges suspended.  But I didn't know that the insurance company would send Mom and Dad a letter a few months later, informing them that their rate was going up because their daughter had been pulled over.  Trust me, its worse trying to explain something after many months have passed than to just fess up right away.  Because not only did I get caught, but I lost trust.

I hit the road again when my boyfriend (now husband) started college.  The first time I visited him was on September 11th.  Classes were cancelled, and I sat in my friend's dorm watching the news for about an hour, until the newscaster said, "This is a time to be with the one's you love", and I didn't think of my parents only an hour away, or my sister at her college further away, I thought of the man I loved, four hours away, and I hopped in my car and went to him.  I should mention this was right around the time that we each had gotten cell phones, but I was young and impetuous, and calling to make sure it was a good time (even calling my parents to let them know what i was doing) seemed crass and unromantic.  So I showed up at his dorm and met a cast of characters that I would grow to resent for being idiots and influencing the most important person in my life.  This was the first of many trips, each fueled by an excitement to get there, every love song playing on the radio communicating to my foot to press a little harder on the accelerator.  Each trip was also marked by a tearful goodbye in a parking lot, surrounded by people heading to the cafeteria, feeling jealous that they were so close to him, able to see him whenever they wanted, full of heartache as I drove home, the love songs causing a new wave of tears.  Eventually, we both lived in the same place, the goodbyes were short-lived, lasting only the night, until they were ended altogether by the exchange of rings and vows, the cutting of a cake and the unloading of all our possessions into the same home.

But still, I went down the road.  Because my best friend went to a college and settled into the city and married the love of her life, a native, and every few months, a trip was made to see each other.  Sometimes I had company in the car with me, my husband cracking jokes and finding the station playing Backstreet Boys so he could be cheesy and sing along, or a baby riding in the back, crying for 60 straight miles, not wanting to stop because that was just more time in transit, but also not wanting to listen to him cry.  As soon as I crossed the threshold, it was a race to speak all the words I'd stored up, share all the stories that had built up in my mind, listen to hers, laugh and be together, because its only ever a visit, the time for long discussions and silent camaraderie are over.  We are both wives and mothers who have houses to clean and relatives to spend time with, children who demand our attention, more attention than we thought we had to give, jobs and chores and errands that don't care if we are seeing each other, won't let us have a week off.  Sleep is seen as optional, and I always drive home with a caffeinated beverage in hand, slapping my cheeks and cranking the A/C, because if I've learned one thing on all these drives, its that heat makes me sleepy, so no matter what the weather, its cold air blasting through the vents.

I went there again this weekend, to see the new baby and support my friend, but I went alone.  I drove in peace and quiet, and remembered all the drives that had come before.  I noticed how the curve of the road caused an emotional reaction, how my heart remembered the signs and filled with longing at the memory of what used to wait for me at the end.  But its different now.  Because my home is actually at my home, where my family sleeps and eats, and the world beyond doesn't beckon me like it used to.  Home used to be a place to escape, a boring place where time stood still and everything I wanted required a drive down the road, out of town.  For the first time, its the drive home that makes me press a little harder on the accelerator, the image of my boys waiting at the door, ready to jump on me all at once the second I walk through the door, my husband smiling and pulling me close despite the small bodies wrapped around my legs, the house that we have made a home protecting us and keeping us together.