WAITING FOR THE BOYS

All of us have waited for something or someone at some point in our lives. I am hardly an exception to this rule. I have done quite a bit of waiting in my life. When I was young, I waited for spring, for the pleasant times spent tilling and planting my little garden or pruning my roses. When the planting was over and the garden coming along in growth; when spring suddenly wasn’t hot enough, I waited for summer. And then, when the summer grew too hot, I longed for fall. Soon, I gazed at my idle sled and waited for the snow to come then waited impatiently for the weather to warm once again. I have often waited for the rain to stop. I have waited hungrily for my radishes and beets to be big enough to pull and tomatoes to ripen. I have waited with maternal excitement for chicks to hatch or a calf to be born. I once waited for Daddy to come home from one of his long-haul trucking trips or Mama to come in from doing chores to make dinner and read to us. I used to wait for a baby sibling to wake up from a nap so I didn’t have to stay quiet any longer. In December, I waited for my birthday and then waited eagerly through the following few weeks until Christmas. That childish enthusiasm has only slightly dimmed now that I have grown.

I have often waited impatiently for the mail to arrive, especially when a special package is expected. Whether the post bears bad or good news, there is frequently the fevered anticipation of its coming. Like most of us, I have waited forever for a traffic light to turn green. My father once told us kids that if we stared at it hard and mean enough, it would definitely turn green. Oddly enough, it worked every single time!

I have spent countless hours waiting for a pot to boil, knowing all the while that as the saying goes, “a watched pot never boils,” yet muttering about how slow it is and constantly lifting the lid, thereby cooling it and making it even slower. Sometimes, even a promised communication from family or friends will have me hovering over a silent phone or obsessively checking my email. Rarely does my chosen contact feel my urgency and they often take days to answer, while I wait, clicking in my own private turmoil.

Most of all, as a child, I waited to grow up. It seemed like an eternity back then; those long childhood days. I yearned to have the independence and power that I mistakenly believed came with adulthood. At the time, I was filled to overflowing with immature impatience and longing for my future, little appreciating the freedom and independence that being a homeschooled child living in the country actually did offer me. Since finally reaching that much sought after plateau, I have learned that I am nowhere nearly as free or as powerful as I once thought I would be. I have also learned that the milestones of maturity and parenthood come with heavy responsibility and not surprisingly, their own forms of waiting. The waiting is the same in many ways as that I endured as child, but often bears considerably more gravity. There is the waiting for a much-needed check to come in or waiting for a call back for a job interview, or waiting to hear the results of a medical test. But by far, the most difficult interval for me has been waiting for my boys.

I was divorced from their father in 2008. I can still recall my terror and loneliness when at the tender ages of three and six; they went on their first visitations with their father. The divorce had been extremely difficult and unpleasant for all of us. I had spent those early weeks after we left our home, hardly eating, not sleeping, and bearing the heavy weight of dread, fearing every moment that I would lose everything. Consequently, I also spent many visitations missing my boys terribly, imagining the worst happening and waiting anxiously for them to come home.

Even now, when my now teenage and young adult sons are gone, I feel as though a chunk of my heart has been ripped away. I still find myself calling to empty air. I still find the house far too quiet and have the insatiable urge to turn on every noisy electronic device I own to compensate. I try to keep myself busy writing, doing housework and other projects. In the end, I realize that I am ultimately preparing for their arrival back home, frustrated in knowing that there is nothing else I can do for them in those moments and feeling like I have somehow failed as a mother. But when all is said and done, I find that I have learned something from their absences. I have learned to trust God to keep them safe when I cannot.

Now, instead of imagining the worst happening, I try to picture them protected, having fun and also waiting. I know that they are waiting to come home to their dogs and me. I also know that they are in God’s protective hands and I will have to trust him to always bring them safely back home. Waiting will always be somewhere in my life. But with it, there will always be the assurance that all waiting eventually reaches a conclusion. The outcome may depend on the circumstances leading up to it, but giving in to anxiety and fear rarely, if ever improves that outcome. In the end, the waiting is best spent constructively rather than fearfully. That is what I have learned from my years of waiting.