Sunday Ugly Sunday

Today the hits just kept on coming, and it was a hard day all around.

I wasn't anticipating that going to church was going to be hard, but sitting there without Will was awful. I missed him more during church than I think I have since he left. Seeing his buddies at the sacrament table, where he was until just a couple weeks ago, was hard. Of course, it didn't help that Dan was working and Audrey was in Logan, so there was only three of us going to church today.  It also didn't help that today was the Primary program, so Olivia was on the stand, and it was just me and Duncan sitting together. It ALSO didn't help that it was Olivia's last ever Primary program, and my last chance ever to have a child in the Primary program.

And then, to top it all off, the Primary did a touching and sweet memorial to our friend Gideon. His 10 year old brother spoke about him, then his little sister came and held up a picture of him while the Primary kids sang his favorite song.  His mom is in the Primary presidency, so she was right there with them too, and I can't begin to imagine how she held it together, but somehow she did.  And THEN, I had to go and teach my Beehives a lesson on patience. Irony is a killer sometimes.

It hasn't gotten any better since we got home.  I have had a headache all day. I'm ready for this day to be over. I just really missed him today. On Sundays, we always used to turn on Sounds for Sunday on the radio on the way to and from church, and Will and I always had a great time mocking the terrible, cheesy Mormon songs they would play. Now those cheesy songs come on and make me miss my boy.

Since life does keep happening, in spite of our blue mood, we got our pumpkins carved for Halloween tomorrow.  I didn't want to very bad, but now that they are done, I'm glad we did it. They look great, and I carved a simplified version of a sugar skull in honor of  Will and Mexico's Day of the Dead. Piper also has a sombrero and poncho to wear tomorrow night. Its the little things, right?

Now the wind is howling up a storm outside, my girlies are watching Hocus Pocus together, and I'm trying to talk Dan into dressing up as a leaf blower for work tomorrow. What? You wear a hat with a leaf attached to it by a string that hangs down in front of your face, and you blow it. How hard could that be?

Halloween almost as usual.

Adios

Today is October 28, which means that the long awaited day of October 25 came and went and somehow we all survived. At least I'm assuming that Will has survived so far. No news is good news is the slogan I'm running with, especially since we probably won't hear from him until NEXT Friday. We got a very brief e mail from him when he got to the MTC, just saying that he was there and was ok, and his PDay is going to be on Fridays, and we got nuthin today. So I'm not planning on hearing anything for 7 more long days.

I'm oddly okay with everything. He was such a rock at the airport, especially after the super not fun false start we got that morning. His flight was originally scheduled to take off at 7 AM so we all got up bright and early and arrived at the airport at 5 AM, as instructed ( okay, they actually instructed us to be there three hours early, but that's just crazy talk) only to find out that he had been put on a different flight, that took off at 10 AM. No biggie, we were only FOUR HOURS early, and none of us got any sleep, and gee, it might have been nice to be informed before then, but whatever, right? So we hauled our you-know-whats  back home, had a nice big breakfast, and took a nap then headed back to the airport around 8:30.  All this changing of plans threw off our groove a little bit, but Will was just calm and collected all morning, cracking jokes and making the best of it.

It finally really came time to say goodbye, and we all shed a few tears, but he was so ready to go, and so happy, it was hard to be very sad around him. I hugged him tight for a few minutes, just trying to soak him in, and that is what makes me cry the most now, just remembering that last hug for two years. You don't really appreciate the physical presence of someone until they are gone. The last few days he was home, I just hugged him and touched him every time I could without it being too weird. My neighbor gave me some good advice about recording him before he left, so we got a few minutes of video, and I'm so glad I did that.  I just miss him being HERE, running up the stairs in the morning whistling.

Three days down, 727 to go.


This picture is the ultimate Will. He is presenting Olivia with his cell phone, for her to use while he is gone.  I bet in two years, there will be some big changes in Olivia's height.

The Beginning of the Beginning

I try to be a straight shooter, so I'm just going to come right out and say that getting ready to say goodbye to your kid for two years really sucks.

We are down to one more day. His flight leaves early Tuesday morning, so tomorrow is the last day. I am a mess. I have been bawling off and on all day at the most random things. I already have my ugly cry headache and I haven't even had an ugly cry yet.  I started bawling in church today when I sat next to my neighbor whose son just got back from a mission. I cried when I talked to my other neighbor whose son will be leaving next year. My only consolation is that both of them were crying right along with me.

It doesn't help that we keep having to say good bye to people, like these people right here.

I have to say though, that I am very proud of my mom. She is pretty famous for losing it during goodbyes, and I was sure this was going to be a bad one. She held it together pretty well though. Only shed a few tears, and made it pretty quick, Will said the only reason he didn't break down was because she didn't break down.  Food for thought for me there.

And then Duncan wants to get his picture taken with his brother tonight so he can put it on the screen saver of his phone.  He is taking a picture of Piper off and replacing it with this one. If you know how much Duncan loves his Piper, you know the enormity of what this means.

And, on a cheerful note, we finally finally finally got his visa! By the skin of our teeth, but we got it. He had to make an appearance at the Mexican consulate and was rather embarrassed when I insisted on taking his picture out front.  Hey, I worked hard for that visa. My own son and the lady at church travel seemed to be doing everything in their power to keep that visa out of my hands, but we got it done in spite of them.

So I'm going to be brave like my mom and hold it all together for one more day.  And my consolation the next day will be that at long last, we get to start the countdown to when he comes home. 730 days my friends, but really, who's counting? (me. I'm counting.)

Winds of Change

Remember that big windstorm I mentioned a few posts back?  It's been haunting me.

Maybe because I'm extra touchy feely these days, what with Will leaving and all, but I see life lessons all around me now. I'm full of gooey sentiment. I could be a Hallmark card.  It's kind of gross really. But still, that windstorm taught me some stuff.

We were lucky that the wind did no damage to our house, but just a few blocks up the street, several homes lost huge old trees.  I would guess there were somewhere between 12 and 20 huge old pines that were uprooted in that storm.  Trees that were probably 30 feet tall and 40 years old were completely taken out, lying on their sides with their roots in the air.  A few other big trees got hit hard too, but mostly it was the pines.  They fell on roofs and smashed them in. They fell across the street and shut down roads for hours and hours that day. For several weekends afterward, cleaning crews were working non stop with chainsaws to get those trees cut up and moved out. The first few days after it happened, the road looked so bare. The homes and yards that lost trees looked lost and naked. There are still huge stumps in places that mark where the damage was. When  you drive down that road, you will still see folks out there working, digging up stumps.   There is one house in particular that lost three trees right along their property line that abuts the road. Now there are just three stumps there, and the house and yard sit there exposed to all the traffic, noise and lights.

The funny thing is that as a casual passer by, it only took a couple days for me to get used to the trees being gone. The first day or two, everything looked so different. People were out en masse, cleaning and clearing, helping each other, directing traffic around the trucks and equipment they were using. But within a few days, most everything just seemed normal again. If you looked close, you would notice the stumps, and there are still a few roofs that are not repaired yet, but just driving down the road, you probably wouldn't notice anything different.

But isn't that crazy? Those huge trees were there for years and years and years. It is easy to see where they used to be. They were big and beautiful and lined the road and gave shade and coverage to traffic and homes alike, and yet after a few days, it's hard to remember what it was like when they were there.

But that's only for the casual passerby. I know the people who live there, the ones who maybe planted those trees, and lived with them and took care of them, miss them a whole bunch more than those of us who just drive by on occasion. I bet every time they look out their window, or every time the sun shines into their living room in a new way, they miss those trees.  There are still a lot of old pine trees lining that road, and who know why one tree survived the storm and one didn't. One day they were there and the next day they weren't and there is nothing anybody could have done about it.

Isn't that just how life is though? You are just going about your regular life, and everything is good, and then all of a sudden, without warning, it changes. Somebody dies, or you lose your job, or your health, or you have to move. At first everybody is there to help, but then, eventually, they go back to their regular, unchanged life and you have to get on with yours by yourself. And you have to put it back together. And maybe you plant new trees, but they will never be the same, or maybe you just live with things the way they are. Life moves along, and other people forget, but you don't. Even though things can be good again, you won't ever forget what used to be.

Nothing lasts forever. Even big old trees that should have outlived all of us. The wind comes up  and changes everything. And then, we adapt to what is left after the storm.

A Couple of Tough Ones

We are down to eight more days of Will.

His farewell was today, and he did great. Really really great. He said some tough goodbyes today to some of his life long friends, and that was hard.  The looming change is getting more real all the time.  I'm glad that mission farewells no longer include the whole family speaking in church. I am especially glad that mothers no longer speak at farewells. I would have been a blubbering mess.  I am a blubbering mess most of the time.

I am expecting that each day from here on out until the day he leaves will get a little messier than the one before. We have so much to do that this last week is going to fly by, and I really wish it could last forever. Why does everything have to change all the time? Why do these rotten kids always steal your heart and then grow up and move away just when they are turning into the most spectacular of people?

So yes, this week will be hard. Next week will be worse. Call me a pessimist, but I'm just planning on two sad, gut wrenching, downward spiraling weeks. We all know that I don't handle change well. Even good change wreaks havoc in my heart.  Normally, I would just throw in the towel on my life for a few weeks- over-eat, over-sleep, Netflix binge, under perform at work, and let the laundry and dishes pile up at home. But in this case, knowing that Will is at the MTC, aka Mormon Boot Camp, in a foreign country, surrounded by strangers, learning a new language, in a new schedule and new routines, AND dealing with all the same emotions of change that I am dealing with, it makes it rather difficult to feel justified in throwing a pity party for myself.  We are all just going to have to pull ourselves up by our dress socks and get on with life.

I don't expect that it will all be better in two weeks either. It's just that two weeks is only as far down the road as I can see. In two weeks, he will have made it to his first Sunday at the MTC. We will have survived our first Sunday without him here. Halloween will be staring us down, when that's over, we will have survived our first holiday without him here.

Those airport goodbyes though, are going to be so ugly.