(Thoughts on the weekends when our foster daughter is away with her parents.)
I tell myself, it’s a relief. It’s 50 hours that the weight of The System’s Brokenness and The Tediousness of Parenting a 1 Year Old are suspended. Enjoy the return to old norms, like Fette Sau without a high chair and diaper bag. Say it’s good to get a full game of Uno in before dinner’s eaten.
It’s surprising that we’re still a cacophony without the extra instrument. But I hear the empty air in between our notes. The needs I’m used to meeting that aren’t being asked for. Those moments I start to remind the kids, “Whisper please! V’s sleep—“ that end with ,”Oh, ha, never mind!” The doors to this room that I close, enveloping her scent but holding no warmth.
I have to be carful, because sometimes my mind wonders. Maybe one day, I won’t have to say goodbye anymore. But then, maybe one day I will be saying goodbye forever. I don’t know how to do this. We paddled into a lake that turned out to be an ocean, and I can’t see the shore.
But He who “commands the mountains and calms the raging sea” is still He. His promises stand. His character never-changing. So I suspend my thoughts, at least for the night, and kiss my kids goodnight.
this riven bloom 