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Bittersweet

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Image by KathyBarclay from Pixabay

Bittersweet is a plant. It has bright colored berries that would seem sweet and juicy, but are actually toxic and harmful if eaten. Another definition of bittersweet is, “arousing pleasure tinged with sadness or pain” (Lexico). This is what most people are familiar with.

Life is generally like this. A little bit bitter. A little bit sweet. It mixes together and creates the story of our life. Sometimes the bitter seems toxic – and maybe it is, in which case, seek help – but most of the time, the bitter is just a time of growth.

My son just graduated from high school. Bittersweet was the one description I think I heard and felt through this whole experience.

Bitter – My first born completely finished this chapter of his childhood. That book is completed. It is shelved; to be looked at like a scrapbook full of memories. He’ll be leaving and living across an ocean soon; 12-24 hours away.

Sweet – We’re proud of his accomplishments. This new adventure is just beginning and it is exciting. Who will he become? How will he grow?

These two words together capture the feelings of a parent or sibling – and possibly even the graduate, as well.

But, aren’t most transitions “bittersweet”?

Bitter – packing, saying good-bye to places, saying good-bye to people, watching your children hurt

Sweet – maybe living closer to family, new adventure with new foods & culture, recognizing how many good friends you have

As this summer plays out and the time gets closer to board that plane with my oldest, my emotions teeter back and forth from feeling bitter and sad, to sweet and proud and then back to sad.

I want him to go, yet I don’t.

I want him to grow up, yet I want him to need me, to need his father.

I believe this is the dilemma of many parents. We work and endure those early years to train our kids to be responsible mature adults, but when the time comes to send them off we feel that this isn’t the right time. It’s too soon.

As a Christian, I wondered if the word “bittersweet” was in the Bible. I couldn’t find the word, but I found a passage where both words are used. Exodus 15:22-25. This is the point in the story where Moses had led the Israelites out of Egypt and crossed the Red Sea. They were headed into the Desert of Shur, where there was no water.

The people complained because the only water they found was at the place “Marah”, which was bitter.

Moses cried out to God.

God showed him a piece of wood.

Moses threw the piece of wood into the water.

Sweet water. Drinkable water.

It doesn’t say, but I’m guessing the crowds were happy once again – or at least relieved.

This little word search led me to an old story from long ago, in which God used a stick to make bitter water sweet.

My situation isn’t terrible. It’s not life-threatening, but it has some bitterness that is harder to walk through.

It requires trust.

Trusting my son.

Trusting God.

Right now sitting in my home where my son is just in the next room I can honestly say it’s easy to trust.

But,

I know that when “move-in” day comes and I drive away with him standing in the parking lot of his dorm, my eyes will be blurry from the streams of bittersweet tears as I put that trust into action.

How have you seen “bittersweet” play out in your own life?

Transition: Helping Your Children Through Change

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Photo Credit by Canva

Transition is part of life. People move. Children come into the family. Special people and pets die. For those living overseas this rhythm of transition brings an odd normalcy, which one could easily sway or tap their foot.

In and out.

Come and go.

Up and down.  

Arrive depart.

Turn around and start again.

But, after a few years of this dance our minds stand guard. Emotions must stand against the wall and not step foot on the dance floor. Sometimes transition requires helping children through change.

If we find ourselves either in this awkward dance or stuck against the wall, what about our kids? They learn the dance early. How well they learn it or how to avoid it really depends on a few things. As parents we need to be mindful of them and how they are handling all the transitions, this includes children with special needs. My second child has Cri-du-Chat Syndrome and is mentally delayed. Though she can communicate, she is non-verbal. She has had her fair share of transitions as she spent most of her life outside of her passport country.

Her brother just graduated from high school last week. 

You can read the rest at Multicultural Kid Blogs where I am a guest writer today.

RAFTing: Dreams vs Reality

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You are in the midst of building your RAFT, but you’ve always pictured rafting to look somewhat like this photo above.

It’s calm.

It’s peaceful.

It’s picturesque.

It’s, well you fill in the blank.

It’s suppose to be a time where you enjoy your friendships and your favorite places.

Your home fits nicely into boxes. The junk drawers and overstuffed closets are not to be found, for the moving fairy came and organized them while you were having coffee with the girls.

Your new destination is going to be like paradise.

My sunglasses are rose colored. I promise that the world looks SO much better with them on. I’m not joking. We’ll be driving along the coast and I’ll ooh and ahh about the ocean color or the sunset, but then I slip off my glasses and reality is nice, but it just isn’t as nice. Building a RAFT requires you to not put on rose colored glasses, but instead to be real. Doesn’t RAFTing as a family look more like the photo below?

And if you have children with special needs you are tied to them, possibly pulling them along.

Boxes are stacked all over the house.

“What do you mean you want to take ALL of your stuffed animals? Didn’t we agree that we’d only take 10?”

“What do you mean you’ll be home late again? You know the shipping company is coming to measure how much space we will need. I can’t comprehend what they will be saying while wrangling mini-you and feeding mini-me.”

Kids are crying. You are crying. You’re out of tissues.

You’ve given all your food away to friends and now you are hungry for that bag of chocolate covered almonds.

You get the picture. Nothing has gone the way you planned except that the airline tickets are set for you to leave in a few weeks. How are you going to get it all done and build that RAFT, let alone help your kids with it?

First take a deep breath, or maybe take a few. Relax.

It will get all done. I promise that the important things will get done. Remember to keep it all in perspective.

Prioritize your list of things to do and people to see.

Recruit help. Friends want to help. They can watch kids, clean house/rooms at the end, and even provide you with a meal. But, you have to let them know what would be the best way for them to help.

Have take-out more often. Invite people you need to see “one last time.” You need to eat. They need to eat. So eat together.

Keep that bag of chocolate covered almonds. Don’t give those away. You might need those.

Breathe.

Fill box and tape shut.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Breathe.

*Image by judithscharnowski  at Pixabay

** Image by julianomarini from Pixabay

Yellow Light Moments in Life

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Sometimes your heart needs more time to accept what your mind already knows. ~ Author unknown

If you’ve heard this quote, most likely it had to do with a relationship that just ended unexpectedly, but this quote came to mind a few weeks ago and it seems very fitting to various scenarios of living and raising kids overseas.

Can you relate?

Yes? No? Maybe?

How about….

  • On the airplane, seat belt clicked in place, announcements drumming in your ear, tears slip down your face as the plane begins to push away from your family and everything known.
  • Or, maybe you’re the one staring at the empty seat across the table wondering if your loved one made all the connections okay and adjusting to their new home.
  • Or, maybe graduation is fast approaching and you know you should be celebrating – and you are, but there are moments of grief.
  • Or, maybe you just said rushed good-byes to friends who have become family…

Our heads take note of plans. We might highlight them on the calendar. We might post a countdown on social media. We might plan good-bye parties, sell our possessions, and do all the things that our head tells us to do. 

But, what about those times when it is all unexpected? Like last week.

We went to the foreign agency to renew our daughter’s passport. We donned our masks, took our temperatures, sprayed our hands and went through security. As we waited in the lobby, our daughter sat on the floor and opened the purple plastic tub full of treasures. She lined up all the small cars. She found the doctor’s equipment and checked her stuffed dog’s heart and gave him a shot. I was so thankful for the simple treasures to entertain her while we waited.

Our number was called and after the lady behind the counter looked at all the documents announced that she qualified for her first adult passport.

WHAT? 

YELLOW light – SLOW down. What do you mean “adult” passport?

While it is true that our daughter is 16, she is mentally more like a 2-4 year old. So, yes, technically she does qualify, but boy was my heart not ready.

Just a few months ago, I took our son to get his first adult passport. He’s 18 and I was totally expecting this. It was still bittersweet, mind you – but the heart was a bit more prepared. 

This was different. I went through the motions and paid the fees. 

This year has been quite the shake up. Who would have thought that life as we knew it could change so drastically. Kids are home doing what my husband at first coined “crisis school”, people are working from home, and others have been forced to leave their host countries within days. 

Just a few weeks ago as I was hugging a young lady who had just found out that she would be leaving in a couple of days, I whispered in her ear two thoughts. 

You see, even though I had just experienced this minor dilemma, I have had other heartwrenching experiences in the past that left me thinking “what now?”.

Like when my daughter almost died of pneumonia and later diagnosed with a mental and physical disability.

From that experience I knew what needed to be done. It is what I whispered in her ear.

  1. Survive these next few days. Do what you have to do to pack up and say good-bye to all those people and places you can.
  2. Grieve when you get to your new destination…grieve and process.

Survive and Process (which usually means grieving). 

Survive…

  • Pack, clean the house, sell what you can.
  • If at all possible say good-bye to people and places.
  • Get through those online classes one day at a time. 

Process…

  • Grieve the losses, take time to grieve
  • Journal your thoughts and emotions
  • Write letters to people you may not have had a chance to properly say good-bye to.
  • Talk to others who may also be going through the same thing – you are not alone, I’m sure.

For me, when my daughter was going through her health crisis – I did what I could to survive each day (ate food, talked to doctors, went to appointments, and took care of my almost 2 year old son). I processed by journaling, crying and praying to God for help, and I met with other parents who had children with the same diagnosis as my daughter.

At the government building, I signed the papers and paid the fees for her “adult” passport. When we got to the car, I looked at my husband and said, “Well, I wasn’t prepared for that.” Then we went to an authentic Mexican restaurant. 

Sometimes surviving and processing takes months, maybe even years. That morning it only took a few minutes.

Survive.

Process.

And if possible, later celebrate. (I highly recommend this.)

Image by klimkin from Pixabay

Book Review: KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON, CHILDREN

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After the review be sure to read the author interview and find out how you could win a copy of this book.

Keep Calm and Carry On, Children by Sharon K. Mayhew

Genre: Middle Grade Historical Fiction

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I’ve added this book on WWII to my book list for a couple of reasons. First, it is about WWII and we should not forget. Second, the author is a TCK. She grew up in England and moved to the US when she was eight. Be sure to read my interview with Sharon at the end of the review.

Keep Calm and Carry On, Children is set in England during WWII. It follows the lives of Joyce and her sister who live in London during the time of air raids, bomb shelters, and death. Their parents make a hard decision to move their children to the far countryside away from danger. This move is what is known as Operation Pied Piper. WWII is taught in many schools around the world, but I believe that this part of history is not well known. As the story unfolds, Joyce and her sister make friends on the train and have quite an adventure of their own in the quiet village of Leek. It is here they learn that black and white is more of a grey when times are hard and the country is at war. War has changed the lives of all – no matter where you live or how old you are. Sharon creates adventure that any reader is bound to keep turning pages to see what becomes of Joyce and her friends.

My Take: War is hard and this time period is something we don’t want other generations to forget. Sharon has brought to life a hard to tell part of history. She created characters who struggle and endure making Keep Calm and Carry On, Children a memorable story that will cause you to want to research more about Operation Pied Piper.

Insights from the author…

Where did the idea for this book come from?

That’s a great question! It all started with the seed. I go to England once a year, or twice if I’m lucky, to visit family. I’ve taken my daughter on several of these trips, so she could connect with her English roots. My grandparents, one of which passed away six years ago, have played a huge role in my life. That kind of sounds funny as I only saw them a couple times a year until about 2008 when they stopped traveling to America. But Grandad (yes, I spell it that way) is now 98 and still has a wealth of wisdom and stories to tell. And I’ve been listening…

So, the initial seed came from them tell stories about days gone by. His family, like so many patriotic families joined the war effort in any way they could. One thing his mum did was take in two evacuees for the entirety of World War II. They didn’t really talk about war time until about 2010, at that point I would sneak back up to my bedroom and write down notes of his and Nanny’s stories. As the years went on, I started taking notes on my Iphone while they were telling me about their youth’s. When they saw how interested I was in the history of the British people during that time period they started taking me to historic places related to the war and I started buying books, fiction and non-fiction, purchasing reprints of wartime documents, and doing independent research on Operation Pied Piper. As a former elementary school teacher, I read THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE every year, but just considered it fiction until the conversations began with my grandparents. I was shocked, amazed and a bit horrified that people sent their children to live with complete strangers in the countryside in the north of England. Those children had to be incredibly brave to persevere through the Blitz, through the uncertainty of their future with strangers and if or when they would reunite with their parents. 

The title of your book is somewhat different, isn’t it? I did some research and found that it is from a British WWII poster. Can you elaborate on that some? 

LOL! It is! KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON  is iconic! But it was true to the British spirit…You’ve heard of having a stiff upper lip, right? I wanted to show that attitude in my title. Thankfully, KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON was never copywrited, so I was able to use it in the title.  I think Black Rose Writing did an excellent job with the cover! They even let me have some input on it. My main requests were to use the KEEP CALM font and to have an English flag in the background. 

You were born in England and moved to the US at the age of 8. You were not much younger than your main character, Joyce. You both moved to different cultures and had to adapt. How did this experience help you understand Joyce better?

This is a really interesting question…I hadn’t thought about how my immigration affected my writing in this book. Some of Joyce’s story is my story. I lived in a rural village in England before I moved to the States. We didn’t have an indoor toilet and we bathed in a big tin tub with water heated from a coal heated stove. I think I must have compared that to what a change it was in America for me. I tried to put myself in Joyce’s shoes for each scene/chapter. I think you are right. I used my emotions for the unknown and uncertainty in my childhood to help create Joyce and move her forward in her journey. Wow! Lightbulb moment!

How else did being a TCK influence you as your wrote this story?

I really wanted to write a book that showed children (or adults) that they could overcome anything, if they just pushed forward…persevered. Facing the unknown is hard. Knowing that others have done it, hopefully, is helpful to readers of any age. 

Where is “home” to you? 

That’s a really hard question! When I get to England I am home, because of my grandad, but when I get back to the States I am home because of my husband and daughter. I’m still holding a British passport. That will change when my grandad passes, so looking deeper…I’m at home in America. I love going to England but there are so many people in such a small land area…and the roads! OMGoodness the roads! They are so narrow!!!

Fun Question….

What is your favorite British dish that you had to learn to make as you live in the US? Or what is the first thing you want to eat when you go back to England?

So I’m definitely not a chef, but there are two things I must have when I’m in England: fish and chips and a scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam and of course a cup of tea.

Thank you for inviting me to share my story. I’m humbled by every person that reads my book and reviews it or reaches out to me. I’m so blessed in so many ways.

And thank you, Sharon, for such a delightful interview. I love hearing from authors about how they created their characters and the background information. I’m so glad that your grandad got to read it.

And thanks to Sharon, you all have an opportunity to win a copy of her debut middle grade novel KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON, CHILDREN. For those of you living out of the United States, you will have a chance to win an e-book and a signed bookmark. For those within the 50 states, you have the chance to win a signed copy of the physical book.

I’m keeping it simple…simply comment about why you would like to have this book or a question you have for Sharon. I’ll enter all the names into an online random name picker to choose who wins. The name will be drawn on September 26th at 9pm Eastern Time Zone.

Book Review: GETTING STARTED by Amy Young

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GETTING STARTED helps cross-cultural workers manage their first year better. It is written with missionaries in mind, but I believe that anyone that is moving abroad would benefit. Amy doesn’t just use her experience from living in China, but the experiences of countless others from around the world. GETTING STARTED touches on so many preconceived ideas a person can have about culture or language, to even daily living and working with teammates. Amy doesn’t gloss over the difficult, nor does she spotlight the magnificent. She keeps it real. GETTING STARTED isn’t a self-help book in that if you follow each step perfectly your first year will be a breeze. Amy is passionate about helping people be successful their first year – but from reading this book you will realize that her idea of success is not a year where everything is smooth, easy, and problem free. That’s just not how life works. I think Amy summarizes the idea of this book best in her introduction, “This book is designed to help you begin to release the ‘shoulds’ and allow yourself to be wherever you are in the process of adjusting to the field.”

My Take: I believe that this is an important topic for missionaries or Christian workers going on the field – or even those who have been on the field for that matter. It would be a great resource for sending organizations to have as they prepare their people to go out.

Amy also has a new website, Global Trellis, that offers help for cross-cultural workers. Check it out here.

My Mother’s Day Surprise

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Celebrating holidays while living overseas and far from extended family is hard. I come from a large family who once a week regularly sits at my mother’s large table for the Sunday meal. Most holidays everyone is there – it is how I grew up. So, I love hosting get-togethers with other families, especially when they become like family. It makes me feel at home.

Mother’s Day was no exception. We had a potluck lunch after church. People ate between conversations and laughs. Kids splashed in the small pool. It was just a beautiful day.

After everyone left and I had a lovely nap, my husband asked if I’d like to try a new coffee shop nearby. “Bring your writing stuff,” he says.

I grabbed a notebook, my draft of my novel, and the book/handbook PLOT WHISPERER by Martha Alderson (if you are a writer, I highly recommend them). I glanced at my laptop, but decided time was too short for that. I noticed Uwe’s bag bulging, and figured he would work, too.

Oh, well, my Mother’s Day has ended.

I sat at a sidewalk table while he went inside to order. It wasn’t too hot with the shade of the umbrella. It almost seemed like we were in Europe, sort of. We talked about the day and the upcoming things that we were going to be involved in. I wondered when we were going to pull out “work”. Okay, honestly, I was thinking about when would I get to pull out my writing.

Uwe then looked at his watch and mentioned that we should probably go. I looked at my unopened bag and sighed.

“Wait, I think you should see the inside. You want to see this funny/cute French style hotel, don’t you?” he asks.

I followed him in. We checked out the restaurant.  We took the elevator, which has a ceiling to floor Eifle Tower painted in it. We got off on the 7th floor. While I looked at the view, he entered an empty room. I peered in nervously because he just entered without knocking as far as I could tell. I mean, who just wanders into hotel rooms without a key? 

I stood in the hall peering into the room. “What are you doing?” I yelled in as much as a whisper as I could without actually yelling. My mind told me this was all wrong, but my feet seemed to have a mind of their own and pulled me in.

It isn’t your typical hotel room with one bed, desk, TV, and carpeted floor. This room has wooden walls and flooring. All the furniture had a dark wood, including the tiny wardrobe. It had two beds facing each other, not side-by-side. And to top it off the two windows, one long and narrow and the other short and set low to the ground, had wooden shutters! It was mesmerizing in a cheesy cute sort of way.

Uwe rested his bag on the bed and began empty out the contents.  I watched as my toothbrush, toothpaste and brush bounced on the bed. He continued with my clothes and a few other books.

“Did you get us a room?”

“No, I got you a room. You have your writing books. I brought your Bible and journal. One night for you,” he said as he handed me the keys (which had an Eifle tower key chain).

“What?!? Excuse me? Uhh, What? Man, you are good. I had NO idea.”

With a kiss on the cheek he vanished out the door. I’m sat on the bed and stared out the window. I love my family and I love spending time with them – but sometimes as a person, a writer, I need to break away with no distractions. No guilt. Freedom to be creative. My husband knew this – he knew I needed a surprise.

So, that is just what I did. I began deepening my characters and hashing out scenes – all are steps to finishing this novel I started a few years ago.

And that was my Mother’s Day surprise.

Have you ever been surprised by someone? Share your story in the comments below.

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Home

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It’s that time of year when ‘good-byes’ are being said for expats around the world. Today’s post is by guest writer Dion Bos. I met Dion a few years back at a workshop. She is fun, insightful, and I love what she wrote about her transition she is going through. This post is copied (with her permission) from her Facebook status.
I recently received an IMessage from a friend living in the U.S. that read, “I heard a rumor that you are moving home. Is it true?” It caught me off guard as we had not publicly announced that we would be ending our expatriate experience in Taiwan and returning back to the Chicagoland area within a few months. As I stared at the message considering how I should respond, my eyes locked on the word HOME.

Was I moving home?

Or was I leaving my home?

I started to get a sick feeling in my stomach realizing I wasn’t sure where home was. I mean, at times when I’m going to visit my parents in the farm house I grew up in, I still find myself saying, “I’m going home for the weekend.”

So what exactly is home?

According to the Webster Dictionary Home is: “a place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household”. This simple definition seemed so off to me, when here I was, almost 40years old, holding back tears and completely struggling with the realization that I no longer knew where my home was. So, I quickly shut down my computer and closed my eyes to take a few deep breaths and think about MY home.
I realized “Home” is not a building or structure, nor is it the name of a certain city or state where you physically live. Rather…
  • It is everything and everyone that surrounds you.
  • It is everything you drive by on a daily basis.
  • It is everywhere you shop.
  • It is the school where you drop your kids off every morning.
  • It is the teachers you trust with the minds and hearts of your children every weekday.
  • It is all the friends that you can count on to help protect your family.
  • It is the coffee shop where you always meet people to share your stories.
  • It is the restaurant you love to eat at.
  • It is the park you love to sit at or the mountain you love to hike or the route you love to jog… and so on and so on.
Webster also defines Expatriate as: “a person who lives outside of their native country”. Once again I felt so let down by Webster. That this book could downplay the craziness of packing up your family, moving to a foreign land and completely altering the way you have been living your life up until that point. To me living as an expatriate is so much more.
  • It is the people that take you under their wing immediately that you can call when you are lost.
  • It is the Facebook groups you can ask where to find whatever it is you are looking for.
  • It is the community members who take on the challenge of making homemade goods and selling them because you can’t find them easily at the local stores.
  • It is the parents and teachers who volunteer to coach every sport, substitute teach, chaperone culture trips, lead Chapel, and so much more.
  • It is the abundance of people who choose to accept everyone around them instead of looking for inadequacies because we know we need each other.
  • It is taking a challenging and scary situation and instead of calling it what it is, everyone reassures you that it is just an adventure.
  • It is the confidence you gain when you accomplish a task in a foreign language.
  • It is the thrill of exploring land or even countries that would have terrified you in the past.
  • It is the remarkable ability of placing complete trust in tour guides or local people to take you out into the middle of the ocean, or the jungle, or in sidecar rides down the busiest streets in town.
  • It is gaining a true understanding of WHY another culture acts, reacts, believes or denies WITHOUT discrediting them or immediately telling them they are wrong.
  • It is putting complete trust in God that no matter how difficult things may seem, no matter how often you have to play charades to communicate, no matter how much you think you can’t live without real bacon, Reece’s Peanut Butter cups and Dee Dish Pizza, no matter how many stores, markets and fruit stands you have to shop each week for your weekly groceries, no matter how long or short you have lived there or how many hard goodbyes you have had to say, it still becomes your HOME.

Home.

It is not a simple noun. Home is the most complex word that encompasses the entire life of any individual. Now, when people ask where I AM FROM-that is different. Sometimes I’m from a small farm town, sometimes from Chicago, sometimes a suburb of Chicago, sometimes I’m just from America and sometimes I’m from Taiwan. I may always give a different answer here and hopefully I even add more replies as my life continues. But one thing I have definitely learned through this process is that where you are “from” is not the same as where your “home” is. Home is not a single place.

Home is your life story. I am not moving back home and I am not moving away from my home. I am simply adding to my home. The experiences I have had, the memories that are ingrained in my mind, all of the people who have infiltrated my heart and embraced me and my family at the different stages of my life are all home. And those things will never be taken from me. Each place I have called “home” brings me comfort in many different ways. Memories resurface and familiar faces fill my mind. Life will continue to evolve and people will come and go, but I will always be home no matter where I end up. My only wish moving forward is that I never settle in one place. I pray to God each day that he just keeps adding to my home and that I never forget those that have helped make each physical place I have lived a part of MY HOME.

Dion Dillavou BosBio: Five years ago I packed up my two daughters (age 4 and 7) to move to Taiwan for my husband’s expat assignment. I was terrified at the time, but soon realized It was one of the best decisions I have made. My girls know so much more about the world,  my marriage has grown in amazing ways, I have jump started a fitness career. Our faith and walk with God has grown in so many ways. Now the tables are turned and we are facing repatriating. Once again the feelings we face with change are real and I know so many of you out there feel or have felt the same.
Your Turn: Let us know what you consider part of YOUR home? How do you process this change yourself? What are some things that you have done or will do before you get on that plane for the next destination? Please share in the comments below.

The Art of Letting Go – “Letting Go”

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Today’s guest post is from a new friend, Jodie Pine, that I’ve “met” online through Velvet Ashes, but then realized that we have MANY common friends on Facebook. Jodie has offered to re-post this article from 2013 from her blog Jodie’s Journal. 

Yesterday I watched my boys run off into the rain. One of them caught sight of a bus ahead and said, “That’s us. Do you want to run for it?” The other one immediately responded, “Let’s go!” And the next thing I knew they weren’t beside me anymore. As the distance between us grew, one of them turned around to yell, “Bye, Mom!” over his shoulder, while the other was so focused on the bus he never looked back. One of them was balancing an umbrella as they jumped and splashed their way through the puddles in hopes of reaching the bus in time. The other one didn’t want to bother with a silly umbrella. Because it’s manly to get wet.

My boys. The bookends of my life. Strong and sturdy. One on each side. So very different from each other. But so close. They’ve always been together, and they just seem to belong together. But one turned 18 yesterday. Soon he will go off to college in America and life is going to change. And as I watched the two of them, stride for stride, turning the corner together my heart ached. For them and for me. It’s hard. This leaving behind business. Because it involves letting go. And sometimes I just want to hold on. But time passes through my fingers like water. And I can’t stop it.

When I reached the end of the street and turned the corner, I smiled to see them huddled with the crowd at the bus stop. They told me, “It wasn’t the right bus.” And I thought about waiting with them until the right  bus came, just to get a few more minutes together. But I decided instead to encourage them to have a good time and to continue on in my wet walk (even with an umbrella) to the shopping area of our old neighborhood to get some things they needed for camp. And this time I was the one leaving them. But it was ok. Because I knew they would get on the right bus that would take them where they wanted to go. They would have a good time with their friends. And I would see them after dinner.

But this morning the boys left on a 40 hour train trip with three of their best friends to a TCK camp in southern China and it didn’t feel ok to me then. Because it wasn’t just this goodbye. It was the projected big goodbye and the reality that they will be gone for two weeks. After they get back to Lanzhou, our family will have less than two weeks together before CJ leaves for a month wilderness program in the US. And then we’ll have just about a week together in mid-August when we take him to freshman orientation at Notre Dame.

This morning, it seemed to me that during our past two weeks in Tianjin, I have been like a trapeze artist. Able to catch the outstretched arms of whoever is out there in a choreographed kind of rhythm. What activity is next. Who needs to be where. Graduations. Meetings. Medical appointments. MUN. Times with people. Kids’ sleepovers. Parties. What can we fit in. What needs to wait. How to coordinate. But this morning I couldn’t catch the hands out there anymore. My emotions hit rock bottom.  God, this is hard. I don’t want to do this. If I can’t go back in time and can’t stop time, could I push the fast forward button to get past this pain of letting go?

As I’ve been battling both migraine pain and emotional pain today, I’ve felt like my physical body and my heart have been like a wet towel in someone’s hands, who is twisting the ends in an attempt to squeeze all the water out. And all my energy and capacity have been drained.

Jordan decided to have a final sleepover with  her friends tonight before she leaves for the same TCK  in southern China tomorrow night (she’s flying instead of training) and I will be on my own here for another week of various activities, as Charly is already back in Lanzhou.

My rock bottom emotions today have brought me to a place of deep sadness. But even as I am typing this, I have a sense of renewed hope because I know that God will meet me right where I am, in this painful ache of my heart. He already has. It is comforting to know that I have heart friends close by who are praying for me, and that I can easily arrange to spend time with someone if I need to. But I really want to turn to God and hear from Him in this time of being alone right now.

I asked Jodie how things were now after four years. Here is what she wrote:

Four years after I struggled with CJ leaving for college on the other side of the ocean from us, we attended his graduation at Notre Dame (amazed that he had the honor of giving the valedictory address). Our family of 5 had grown to 7, through God’s fulfillment of our 6 year long adoption journey by bringing our Chinese sons David and Daniel to us just after CJ left for college. We then moved from Lanzhou, China to the US two years ago and launched Joshua into college (he chose Notre Dame as well). One year later I helped Jordan move into her dorm room at Calvin College. Through all these major changes for our family these past four years, God has remained faithful. CJ shared in his graduation speech that the song “Your Love Never Fails” really helped him through the transition across borders. “Your love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me.” God has continued to hold my hand through the ups and downs and it’s been a blessing to see each of my kids, both at home and on their own, develop their own personal faith in the God who never changes.

Thanks Jodie for permission to repost!

If you have a story about “Letting Go” you’d like to share, please email me at mdmaurer135(at)gmail(dot)com.