Cold Coffee

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The beginning of school means I no longer have to worry about locking (or shutting) the door when I go to the bathroom.  I don't have to worry about interrupted phone calls or sharing a bite of my treat. I can sit and drink an entire cup of hot coffee. To many moms the beginning of school is a celebration.  Not for me.

The beginning of school means I get to live in complete and utter silence, or the noise of my choosing!  However, it's in the emptiness of these walls that echo the voices in my head.  The memories and conversations are louder than ever.  I can hit repeat on the conversation I had with one of my kids (or the conversation I should have had with them).   I also get to play out every possible (or impossible) scenario of what my kids may be dealing with at that given moment.  Im certainly not at home celebrating.

For military families the beginning of school isn't celebrated with the pomp and circumstance that many civilians enjoy.  There aren't end of summer barbecues, going to the pool with friends, having sleepovers with buddies.  Our summer wasn't spent sipping lemonade and sleeping in; rather it was spent unpacking boxes and finding our way around our new home.  The end of summer marks the beginning of another beginning.  A beginning we all know will come to an end in a few short years.  Fresh on our minds are the tearful goodbyes.

Summer often marks a period where we lost our home, our friends, our school, and in a sense, our identity.  We mark summer as another transition period.  We grieve the place we once were and anticipate the place we are now.  While mourning the end of a time, we anxiously await the beginning of another.  We leave a space that was comfortable and full of friends and life and enter hallways that are empty and barren.  Schools are not welcome places in the middle of the summer; at best they feel like a clean prison, how's that for the welcome wagon bus!

 Summer means we do a lot of waiting...we wait to get orders, we wait for our movers, we wait to get unpacked, we wait for school to start.  We wait for this to feel like home. We wait for the emptiness of our hearts to fill again.  We wait for the hallways to fill with familiar faces.  We wait to get to know teachers and we wait to get to know neighbors and we wait for this feeling of loneliness and emptiness to subside.

Our "end of summer celebration" doesn't come at the end of summer, it comes later, when we can celebrate the end of waiting. I will celebrate when my kids get home and can tell me about their friends. I'll celebrate when I know that my kids can go to school to learn and I'll celebrate when other kids know my kids' names.

Im so grateful for a God that knows my name, knows my kids, and knows our needs.  I know for this they will be better, but in the meantime...


I'd choose to be interrupted while drinking my cold coffee.

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