Broad Recap

Tuesday, November 22^nd, 2005

General Journeral :-)

Well, a lot has been going on recently, and I figured I’d better recap a bit so I don’t forget about this weird weird time in all of our lives.

I write from the living room of Grandma Kari and Grandpa Ken’s house in Lansing, Illinois. Mom and Dad are in Orlando with Uncle Keith. But let me back up :-)

Right at the end of Grandma Sweetie’s stay here (~3 weeks ago I think?) we found out that Grandpa Ken most likely had lymphoma. Mom and Daniel drove up to Lansing that Thursday, also to attend the funeral of “Uncle” Bob, a very close friend of G&G’s for most of their adult lives. In addition, Uncle Keith, down in Orlando, was having a knee operation. Grandpa was scheduled to fly down there on Monday to take care of UK during his post-op incapacitation. The docs nixed that plan, so G&G transferred the ticket to Mom, and she flew down to Orlando, leaving Daisy and Daniel in Lansing and Dad and I in Pittsburgh. And all this time Ken has been in Cape May, NJ, doing a hawkwatch / seawatch job there.

So, in my self-centered view of the universe, life now became Dad and I holdin’ down the fort at home with no dog, wife, mother, brother or son. Given the wonderful adaptivity of the human nature, this life soon became normal, and I was happily camped out in the family room on the hard hearth in front of the hot fire doing hard homework in the evenings. Dad did some grocery shopping and I did some cooking, and we survived in pretty good style.

Enter the blood clots. Enter them into Uncle Keith’s legs a couple days after his surgery. Enter their transit to his lungs. Enter instant admission to the hospital on what was to be a routine post-op checkup. Enter a very hard couple days for Mom and the purchase of a ticket for one Paul Behrens from Pittsburgh International to Orlando. Enter yet more fragmentation of our lives and plans :-) Enter a skinny little white boy walking into a rather big and very empty and very very quiet house late every afternoon. Enter God growing us all in new and unexpected and real-life ways through circumstances so far out of our normal lives it’s almost laughable.

So. Daniel lent his ever-accommodating and eminently abiding presence to Grandma and Grandpa, and Daisy lent her ever-warm and ever-so-soft self to comfort one and all. Mom and Dad lent their four able knees to the support of Uncle Keith, and I lent my ever-wandering mind to schoolwork and the procurement and sampling of various lagers. And to the renovation of my drum set and the entire musical setup in the basement. And to the discouraging difficulty of learning the material for One Voice, the Christian vocal ensemble I’m singing with for the advent season.

At long last I finished my stay at home, finished my classes for Tuesday, and drove to the airport for a flight to Chicago. The last class of the day was cancelled, at the big-eyed pleas of the few girls who actually showed up. Stetten’s a sucker for that :-P Thus I had time to walk down to Eckerd and procure a cherry-vanilla Dr.Pepper, and to get a little bag of assorted Jelly Bellies at the chocolate store on Forbes. Sweet. I was also able to avoid the brunt of the holiday rush hour traffic, leaving me several leisurely hours at the airport before my 6:25 flight. I was disbelieving, but it was true – the FRONT ROW window seat was open! Good times, my friend, good times. The flight went very quickly, and it ended up taking nearly as long to procure my one piece of checked baggage at the airport as it did to fly from Pittsburgh to Chicago! It was great to see G&G, and very very good to come into the familiar old house, home of a hundred deeply-ingrained childhood memories, home of some of the best people on this earth, and home containing DAISY! She sits behind me now – soft furry breathing warmness on my back as I flop in the chair and type. *sigh*

So – that’s what’s been going on. Daniel and Mom have been gone from home for I think 2 weeks and 5 days. The weekend after they left was my trip to PHC, and the weekend after that Dad was gone and I had the One Voice all-day rehearsal on Saturday. Suit and tie Sunday, lunch at the food court with Q’s and Harvs. Light-up night was that Friday! Oy – I could write a page just about that! Suffice it to say, we had a WAY too big and disjointed group, but it was still fun, but also cold and footsore, and I got to practice servant leadership, and I caught a bus home at 11:15 after quaffing a Smirnoff Ice in a bar as I waited for nearly an hour after everyone else left. How strange to be 21! The fireworks at LuN were excellent – long, varied, and visually delightful.

I have been staying up way too late every night, and it’s taking its toll on my body. My knees feel like they need some WD-40, and my left foot got some weird pinched tendon or something after standing up for singing through the concert Saturday and Sunday. I can’t take the stairs now to class – my LEFT knee gets sore on the outside side after a flight or two (my right knee always used to be the game one). I feel like my body hasn’t been able to repair itself from the rigors of life and working out. Hopefully this break can remedy that, though I have transport homework, transport Exam II studying, Critical Writing assignment, and transport lab report to work on.

Daniel and I are driving home in the minivan Saturday, and Mom and Dad are flying back the same day. We’ll all be back together, back home! I’ll believe it when I see it :-P

And though it all sounds somewhat dramatic and drastic, it has all proceeded with the exceedingly dry and pragmatic step of REAL LIFE. I wasn’t “reunited with my precious beagle after weeks without her warm presence,” I just walked in the house and petted Daisy as she barked and wagged and ran over to the door to bark at Grandma. Then I stood up and gave Daniel a hug….and I was there. Now I’m here. Nothing dramatic, I’m just here. I watched TV with Daniel for a few hours and ate some food. Saturday will roll around with its nine-hour drive across Midwest America and our reunion with our long-absent parents. Sunday will roll around with its two One Voice concerts. Monday will come with its homework and multitudinous tasks, and Tuesday will come and go, leaving in its wake the dreaded Transport exam. They are all anticipated as dramatic or dreaded or crazy events, yet when each comes it just sorta walks in the door, says hey, and then it’s over. Such is the passage of life as it plods along inexorably, slow in coming yet blusteringly fast in passing. So slip the years through our cupped hands, falling between our fingers, brushing our skin as they pass, leaving memories in our minds to relive their presence. So comes eternity.

And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. […] See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. […] Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

--1^st John 2:28 - 3:3