I found this picture when going through a box of old photos. It’s a shot of my dad standing outside the old farmhouse. Both the house and the man are gone now but I’m wishing I could ask him a hundred questions about this precious portrait.

How old were you in this picture?  You played baseball?  What team were you on?  What position did you play?  Were you any good?  Who took this picture?  Did you wonder if you’d have grandsons that would play baseball?  No, I don’t suppose you were thinking about grandchildren yet.  Were you happy to pose for this picture, or were you anxious to get to the ball field?  Did grandpa and grandma go and watch you play?  Did you ever hit a home run?  Did your team win that day?  Did you play any other sports?  Why don’t I know?

This is the first year I haven’t bought a Father’s Day card.  As I walked past the cards today, I couldn’t help but hope I had picked out good and meaningful cards all those years.  I know I got it right once.  The best Father’s Day card I remember giving my dad was when I was about seven or eight.  We were on vacation and dad had cut his finger.  My elaborate home-made card to him stated that I would squeeze the lemon into his iced tea each day, so the juice wouldn’t sting his finger.  He probably got tired of drinking iced tea, but he kept ordering it just so I could make good on my pledge.  That’s what I do know.

For many years, I saw my life as a river — a swiftly flowing current, constantly moving, carrying me along.  Well-defined banks kept my life on course, but the river was rolling, incessantly rolling, ever rolling.  School activities, sporting events, concerts, homework, practices, games, musicals, friends, youth group, driver’s licenses, laundry, dating, college, cooking, parties — always a feeling of just trying to keep my head above water.  Surrendering to the river’s energy that kept me moving forward, I learned to navigate the steady stream and keep us all afloat in the family lifeboat.

What I didn’t know was that the river had a destination. 

I wasn’t even aware that the familiar waterway was actually hurrying me along to a new place.

Rivers run to the sea.

Suddenly there has been a great emptying out, a swift deposit from the river into a deep and wide expanse.  Instead of being pushed along by a demanding, coursing current, I now find myself bobbing, floating in unfamiliar waters.  The schedules, the menus, the lists, those rigid banks which were so much a part of river-life, are not necessary here.  I still feel a powerful force beneath me, but in a different sense.  My life-as-a-sea plays out as a series of waves — in and out, ebbing and flowing.  Great tidal waves of family gatherings are followed by even greater times of stillness.  I must adapt to this new rhythm of the waves and discover how to ride them in and out with grace.  I must learn to manage this new sea-life — to become at ease in vast open spaces without clearly marked boundaries, yet endless possibilities.

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea.

Since when did my own kids become “company”?  PB and I have been cleaning like crazy, getting ready for everyone to come home.  We vacuumed the dust bunnies along the walls, we wiped out the crumbs under the toaster, and even Bo got a bath.  PB pulled the weeds out in front of the house, he mowed the yard not once, but twice, and put aromatherapy beads in the hot tub.  I bought enough food to feed the Green Bay Packers, laid out new towels in the bedrooms and sprayed “Italian Linen” room freshener all over.  I tell ya, we’re going all out.

Didn’t they used to clean for me?  I faintly remember the days of making lists of household chores for each of the children.   Alas, we have crossed a line into a new season.  My own offspring are now my guests. 

I’m ok with that, as long as they bring grandkids with them.  (Hub Bud arrives today!)