WEEKEND AWAY
There was this date way out there and then suddenly it was here and just as suddenly ... it is now all over. Finish and done with.
All I have left of the weekend away ... the memories. The memories of moments with beloved children and grandchildren.
A beloved son at the airport. Ready and waiting. All clean looking, handsomely healthy and young. His calm relaxed and well thought out conversation all the way home. His great generosity of heart. How wonderful is God to grant children this generosity of heart towards aging parents.
The moment and the face, the sheer joy, the screams and the laughter. A two year old in a little ballet tutu and tiny little feet trying to form small dance steps while clinging onto a mother's dress.
The hilarity on a regular Saturday afternoon when a trampoline becomes a waterpark. The laughter in my ears and the " look at me ... look at me ouma". Splash! " I can jump and crash land on my stomach at the same time ... look at me!"
All too quickly a time for bed and the moment a little face peered round a corner asking for milk so as to prolong the moment and ward off the sleep. Ouma and grandchild in a sweet embrace together for one night and everything is alright.
What wonderful moments around the table. A family that prays and eats together stays together, I say. Oh! How good is good. How good how wonderful when families can spend time together. It feels to me, like a blessing. It feels to me like being annointed with oil and the oil of annointing dripping from an old man's head and beard!
All too soon the moment we subconsciously, inwardly dreaded arrived. That moment when finally we had to open the car door at the airport departure gate. How we wanted to avoid it at all cost. The pain the longing and the tears. Moments when small little bodies pressed deep into old bodies and little hands reached up to old faces:"Dont' go ouma don't go" felt worse than the pain of my old and arthiritic bone.
We will have another weekend away I assure myself. It is somewhere out there in the future at the end of the tunnel ... I know. I pray for the strength to keep my tears from flowing and my heart from breaking.
How blessed we are to have had a weekend away!
