Josh

"Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle
Everything I do is stitched with its color."
~W.S. Merwin

{Josh: 2010}

Oh, I am missing that boy today. And yesterday.  It really hit me when I went to visit my mom & sister on the camping trip that the three of us had planned for our families back in February.  As I loaded the car, put in the DVD players, got the kids ready & hit the road all by myself, I couldn't help but think how much easier it all is with Josh by my side.  As I pulled into the campsite, I felt sad that we weren't there "together as a family" as the boys would say.  I felt sad that we hadn't spent the drive eating junk food, drinking Dr. Peppers and singing badly along with the radio.  I felt sad that I hadn't spent the drive diffusing fights from the passenger seat with my feet on the dashboard.  I wanted to be sitting shotgun with him.  I wanted to be sitting around the campfire with him.  I wanted to hear him encouraging the boys on their bikes, squealing in the freezing lake water and baby talking to our sweet eight week old.  I wanted him.

{The twins: 2011}

 Then Logan's training wheel broke. My dad fixed it.  I felt like a failure because I knew that I wouldn't have known how.  And Josh would. He knows bikes.  He loves them. They're his "thing".  We spent the whole camping trip last year watching the boys on their trikes going over the speed bump by our site again and again.

{Logan: 2010}

Last year we were there.  We had two year old twins and no plans for a third.  Then, the last night, we left the boys in the care of my parents to go down to the lake and look at the stars. We lay on the grass, holding hands, looking up at a clear navy sky, filled to the brim with shining orbs.  That night, we saw three shooting stars.  Together we pondered what that may mean.  During that camping trip, I didn't cry about Josh leaving me with our children to go teach in a village far, far away. I cried about his inability to find work, I cried about my having to go back to work, I cried about lost dreams.

{Jack: 2010}

Friday night I told the boys we would be going to see Nanny & Papa at camping Saturday.  Logan said, "But Daddy won't be there.  Daddy will be in Alaska." I just started crying. What else could I do. His tiny voice was trying so hard to understand why Josh, who so loves us and loves camping, wouldn't be there with us.  As I cried the boys just hugged me.  They really are my sliver lining.

{S'mores 2010}

Camping with my family was my dad's best friend Art and his family.  Watching Art with his daughter Kate makes me want a daughter for Josh.  The tenderness with which he watched her was so sweet to witness.  When I left, my dad told me he was proud of me.  It really meant a lot to hear that from him. Because this is so hard.  Doing this by myself is the hardest thing I have ever done.  He hugged me, and told me he loved me.  And that felt good.  I so miss being hugged.
 

After the last week with these little ones,
I have realized I can do it myself,
but I don't want to.
I don't want to.

{together}

I can't wait to be together again. I can't wait to hug him. Smell him.  Hear his voice & see his face.  He arrived in Marshall yesterday and said it's breathtaking.  He said the river is just beautiful.  And he said the new housing is in a great location.  I am growing more anxious everyday to find out when exactly our family will be reunited. 

"Love reckons hours for months, and days for years;
and every little absence is an age." 
~John Dryden

{Cougar}

We have been able to talk on the phone two or three times a day each day.  And while that sounds like a lot, it isn't nearly enough.  I am used to having him here and available to me without any interruption.  With the phone, I have the kids screaming in the background, or the baby crying, and then there is occasionally a delay in hearing each other, which is frustrating as all get out.  There are things happening all the time that I think, "Oh, I have to tell Josh about this", but by the time we talk again I've forgotten half of them or they seem trivial.  Mostly I just want him to call me every hour and e-mail, facebook & text every ten minutes.  I want to feel like he's not even gone.  Unfortunately he is indeed gone.  And it's killing me.  Today anyway.
Tomorrow, however, is a new day.

"Remember me when you're walking;
When snow falls high outside your door.
Late at night when you're not sleeping,
And moonlight falls across your floor.
... Please remember me."
~Tim McGraw