Small Joys

The girl and I, we've had a good holiday weekend.  Not that we did anything "holidayish"?  But we caught a movie and made a prayer room under our stairs and I later found a post it note of encouragement my girl had left for me to find. We went shopping at the mall, something we rarely do, and went to girlish stores and tried things on and bought her dress for her very first high school dance coming up.  We stopped at the food court today and ate Chinese and took silly selfies and then went to help out a little old lady at her house.

We came home hot and tired and drove the a/c down to blizzard conditions and took naps, me on my couch, her on her bed.  And now we're making ready for school tomorrow.  Each of us with our clothes arranged just so, our coffee pot set to make black gold so I can walk into my kitchen at 5 a.m. and not have to think past pushing the on button.

The girl and I feel happy tonight because tomorrow we get to go back where most everybody else would be happy to have another day free from.  But maybe most everybody else hasn't had the miracle of school in quite the way we have been gifted and we can't quite seem to get over it. I'm looking so forward to my little guy who comes in every single morning and every single afternoon and gives me a hug and makes the sun shine right there in the room with his smile.  I can't wait to watch the tiniest ones labor over which color Jolly Rancher is the best after breakfast choice on their way to class.  I've grown to look forward to my prayer times out in the dugout for the kids I know and those I don't yet, whispering for the Father to be as real as the air they breathe.   And as the bell rings for first block, sending them off with a "have a good morning, you guys!"....I watch my girl, all knee socks and backpack, join the crowd and disappear happy down the hall.  I love you, I say, quiet inside my heart.  To the moon and back.  

And it occurs to me, I'm whispering it to all of them.