SCHOOL'S IN SESSION!!!!

Does anyone else but me hear that sound? It is the sound of a school bell and it's getting louder by the day! Now, let me be clear...I realize that "back-to-school" means that my precious ones are getting older - growing up. I do not wish these years away because I can't even think about them being old enough to leave my nest one day. However, I can hardly contain my excitement that SCHOOL IS ABOUT TO START!!!!!!

In just 5 days my home will be mine again! There will be no little people here for hours on end making big messes due to boredom. No little snipped ends of Popsicle wrappers for me to find in the strangest places because someone decided to sneak them. No more paint speckles in my bathtub. (And really, why did they have to use my bathtub anyway? Wouldn't theirs have sufficed?) No more, "She's looking at me and won't stop!" or, "She's breathing too loud!" for me to hear every waking minute.

In just FIVE days (count them and relish..1..2...3...4...5) I will drop them off at school and come back home for a hot cup of coffee...in the QUIET!!! And then, you want to know what I'll do? The moment will be fleeting and then I will realize that 2 extensions of me are not there. I will start to miss them and get all weepy about the fact that they have moved up one whole grade! Then, I'll watch the clock, eagerly awaiting 2:30 when I will pick them up and hopefully hear about their day.

Ahhh...the life of a Mom! Love it!

Numbers

Have you ever stopped to think how much we rely on numbers? They drive the clock. It seems like most of our society today is watching the stock market. We either cringe or sigh when we look at our check book. They make up our speed limit. Houses and lots are marked by them. There are countless ways that numbers play a part of our every day life.

Thoughts like this come to me a lot. The thought of the importance of numbers came to me in my grandfather's hospital room this past Sunday as he was dying. As I was sitting by his bed holding his hand, my eyes were glued to the monitor above me. For a little while the numbers stayed in the same general area but before I knew it...and certainly before I wanted them to...they began to quickly change. With each passing second his oxygen level, blood pressure and heart rate dropped.

So many thoughts ran through my mind. I wondered, here in the moments of his death, what it was like in the moments he was born? What were the most important moments in his life? What was he like as a little boy? Could he have ever imagined so long ago that this day would arrive seemingly so quickly? So many emotions flooded my heart in those moments. One part of me wanted to beg for the numbers to go back up but the other part knew that his faith was soon to be made sight!

Those numbers finally indicated that my Grandfather had been taken from this earth. With his last earthly breath he was holding our hands and hearing our voices...and with the next one he was face-to-face with Jesus Christ! The feeling in my heart at that moment is almost indescribable!

I don't know what the moments were like during his birth...and I only know bits and pieces about his childhood as they have been told to me. But the one thing that I am honored by is that God allowed me to be present for the moment ordained for my grandfather before the beginning of time! I will never forget it...I will always treasure it! I look forward to hugging him again after my moments on this earth are done.