The Lotion in the Piggy

I celebrated my 4th birthday in the old Kruse Apartments. I also celebrated my birth there 4 years earlier when it was the local hospital. In the years between my birth and my birthday party a new hospital had been built and the old one had been converted to apartments. And in the winter of 1967-68 we lived in the Kruse Apartments while My Dad worked in town. Or so I've been told.

The apartment itself was tiny. It had 2 bedrooms, a small bathroom, a kitchen, and the living room, as I recall, was just like a hallway.  I remember the couch against the wall.

I'm amazed now, in retrospect, just how Mom managed to fit my birthday party gang around the kitchen table. Regardless, we did fit.  And I remember who was there. Robin, the girl who lived down the hall in another apartment, my cousins Vince and Laurie, who lived in town, my 2nd cousins Teresa and Wesley, Patti, my very first friend, and Wanda Berg.  I would have known Wanda from Sunday School. I'm not sure how Teresa and Wesley happened to be at my birthday party, but they were. And I'm glad. They didn't live in town, so I'm thinking they must have been visiting.

We had hot dogs and angel food cake. That was, after all, the traditional birthday party menu at our home. And likely there was cragmont pop. And more than likely, the pop would have been grape or orange flavoured.  The pop and the angel food was, in my opinion, the only good part of the menu. I hate hot dogs.

While I don't remember what all my gifts were at my 4th birthday party, I do remember what Wanda Berg gave me. Why I remember is beyond me. But her gift made a lasting impression so I must have really really liked it. Wanda Berg gave me a set of plastic pigs- one of them held bubble bath and the other held lotion. The other day I was trying out some new body lotion. I had picked up quite a few lotions with tantalizing names while at a mall in a nearby city. This particular one was called Sea Cotton, or something like that. When I dropped a dollop of it onto my hand and smelled it, I was transported back to 4 year old me, happily smearing the lotion from the piggy onto my hands. The smell was exactly the same.

It's amazing how different sounds and sights and smells we experience now can evoke memories of the past. I smell Jergens lotion and I can close my eyes and imagine I'm back in the old farmhouse where I grew up. A kitten mewing can trigger memories of playing with the kittens in the old barn loft. The sight of a green kettle on a cupboard brings back nostalgic memories of walking into the old farm kitchen knowing that underneath that lid is rice pudding. And now, after smelling the Sea Cotton, I found myself back around the old kitchen table in the tiny apartment where we lived for one magical winter.

Driving Away

In just a few short hours DS will be driving away. For him, excitement is mounting. For me, my heart is preparing to burst out of the chest cavity.

We've been preparing for this day, in a strange way, since the day we brought him, as a newborn, home.

Every hug given and returned,
every lesson learned,
every mistake made,
every victory,
every tear shed,
every smile,
every step taken,
every moment of every day...

has led Dear Son to THIS day. This incredible, exciting, grown-up, marvellous journey of his life is finally here.

finally.

The roots have been established.
 Wings are taking flight.
The many prayers on his behalf have been and will continue to be prayed.
 Letting go is happening.
Seemingly overnight.

My tears are just under the surface.
Sad tears.
Proud tears.
Happy tears.
They will come,
I know.
But first I must let go.

Roots and wings.
Beginnings and endings and beginnings again.
I take comfort
that my child, now a young man,
is loved by the Lord.
Completely. Perfectly.  Sacrificially. Totally.
Loved.