Belonging

Yesterday, our best friends' youngest daughter graduated from high school. These are the kinds of friends that one rarely makes in life. We knew this family in Morocco as missionaries, left the mission field together on the adventure of following God to California, lived next door to each other for five years in Anaheim, and then within 18 months of one another, we moved to Ohio - Columbus for them, Cincinnati for us. This youngest daughter is the same age as our oldest son.

During the requisite slide retrospective of Eva's life, our kids showed up in a third of the pictures. I recognized every home, room, chair; I remembered the clothes and hair styles; I could tell you about the events in more than half the pictures because I was there.

Our two families were in the Vineyard together and both moved to Ohio to work in large Vineyard churches. This is where the paralells end, for our friends have steadily risen in the ranks of their church while we left ours only 18 mos after moving here.

Being around them brings up all kinds of nostalgia - the time Dotty massaged my feet when I was in labor with Jacob, the morning we made the solar system with our bodies, the pony express on bicycles that took the entire length of the cul-de-sac, all our trips to the Pirate's Cove at Newport Beach, late night pie and coffee at either of our homes while we listened to sleeping kids through a baby monitor.

I love their kids. They are genuinely kind, open, and free - free to be themselves while also being terrific to be with. Isn't that what we all want for our kids? I've loved how Dotty and Bill parent. They've been those rare role models of parenting - deeply attentive and naturally permissive... Their kids are poster children for the power of that kind of parenting, I tell you.

Yesterday at the open house, I watched families filing through the perfect party (Dotty appears to throw parties like this one, effortlessly) and remembered being in the vortex of all that connection and good will, history and hope... and keenly aware that this is all gone from my life now. It was rough on me.

So this morning I found myself at the Catholic church at Xavier. School is out for me until the end of August and I just missed the campus too much. I couldn't concentrate on work and thought maybe a dose of church might do me some good. I dropped Noah off at Shakespeare rehearsal and drove to Bellarmine chapel. But once there, I couldn't bring myself to enter the service. I hovered with the crying babies outside the glass and watched the congregation stand, kneel, sit, kneel. I picked at the brochures and pretended to read the bulletin boards, when suddenly, a friend who works there spotted and rescued me. Mercifully, we chatted away for half the mass.

When it ended, I offered to hold a young mother's nine month old "Buddha" baby - so-called because this little pixie is the picture of peace - so this mama could send a letter to our senator telling him to vote "no" on making more nuclear bombs. The baby giggled any time I touched her nose. I fought back tears remembering how I held my babies at church, remembering all the people who brought me meals post-partum, thinking about the way my kids bounded out of the doors of their Sunday school classes to find friends...

I felt sick at the loss. At all the losses.

I felt sicker at what is necessary to rejoin.