Through the Night

And maybe now
with the space of days
i can whisper
that parting hurt

That night
when they left
and you realized
you wouldn't see them

Your tears
scalded little streaks
down your face
and didn't stop soon

It was late
and they still needed
to come
so we welcomed them

In the dark
we climbed under
our mosquito net
and huddled together

The four of us
with your quiet sobs
The only thing I knew to do
was sing

I sang the old songs
the ones that lulled
my babies
to sleep

I sang
shaking voice
shaking heart
shaking sobs

Your brother slipped out
and you slept

You found me
in the morning
curled at the foot
of my own bed

Rather than wake you
I let you be
and found a place
where there was room

You felt so bad
And I thought, "Really?
You think it bothered me,
that flickering sleep?"

Rest is relative
and on that night
there were bigger needs
to be met

We unpacked your things
at boarding school
just a few days
later

And it was hard
But, honestly,
it was easier for the way
we passed that night

-lisa, 11 September, 2012

Heading Out

4:44 a.m. and I have that pre-trip wakefulness. Getting up in an hour anyway to make sandwiches and do a last minute list check. Looking forward to joining the fam and a little team. They've been helping at a very rural elementary school many hours off the road. Now they're shifting camp and going to spend a few days hiking and adventuring. Off line now till next Wednesday. Hurrah!

The Wuthering Wind, The Blathering Words

I was in Kenya over the weekend to visit Colin at Kijabe. The place certainly lives up to its name with the way the wind wuthers around the old buildings every morning and evening. I half expected to see Heathcliff out on the moor when I looked out the window. What a noise!

I bought a winter jacket when we first moved to Portugal in 2000 and I was glad I had it along for that little strip of Kenyan highland that runs along the top of the escarpment. The vastness of the landscape with its steep drop to the broad Rift Valley floor would have, no doubt, inspired Ms. Emily equally as well as anything she ever found in Yorkshire.

The wuthering and the blathering... These two words have been on my mind. I think they have a lot in common.

I hope, some how, that as I continue to grow, I'm learning to listen more and more.

(Colin, by the way, is doing nicely. He smiles his boyish smile, the one that squeezes his eyes up into little half moons, and the world around him seems to settle and sigh as if reminded that "all manner of things shall be well.")

I Continue to Grow Up (or so we hope)

Colin sounds good these days. So good.

I love to hear the smile in his voice as we chat on the phone. I love to hear the plans he's hatching with his friends at boarding school. I love to hear that he got high marks on his recent poetry writing efforts, though he's never attempted poetry before. I love the way it surprised him. Colin the poet--who knew?

Colin's successful adjustment is good reason to celebrate.

But wouldn't it just be great if he missed us so badly that there was still a little tremble of a tear in his voice when we spoke?

No.

Colin's love for us, for home, is not measured by pain levels. His coping well at school does not mean he's glad to be away.

I know this absolutely. I rejoice in the achievements of transition this (beautiful) 16 year old has made.

(But secretly, I guess there might just be a little part of me that misses the feeling that he can't live without us.)

September Brings Change...

It was good to be in Loita. Yes, Byron spent a lot of the time working but living by a campfire meant that good things were built in. Good things like zebra, waterbuck, duikers, bushbuck and dik dik around our tents at night. Good things like 5 elephants displaying their indignation and mistrust as we pulled back into camp one evening.

In all the years we lived there, I never saw a single one of the Loita herd. Byron and the boys stalked them on foot but I was always home with a baby :-) I saw the damage they did to trees and the mounds of grassy dropping they left on the trails, but I never got to view them. They are skittish and wary up there and they melt away into the trees. Our large visitors skirted the clearing that night, but trumpeted from the cover of forest several times as we ate our dinner under the stars.

One of the surreal things about returning to Loita is that Andre has a satellite connection to the internet from the house we built back in the 90's. Because we needed to make sure we would receive any news that might suddenly arrive from the school in Kenya that Colin hadn't gotten into, I would drive the 20 minutes over to the house most days to quickly collect mail.

On Thursday there was news. And that's when everything changed.

The filled-to-capacity 10th grade class had settled and shuffled and Karen, the Director of Admissions, had managed to work out how to make room for a few more students. Colin was in.

I remember that I cried as I read the mail to everyone.

Curtailing our time in Loita by a couple of days, we headed down to Narok, across the Rift Valley and up to Kijabe on Sunday. Because we had come prepared for a last minute opening, we had a duffle bag of Colin's things already neatly labeled and ready to go. We moved him into his room, made his bed, and met the family that hosts that dorm. Next morning, bright and early, Colin jumped into 10th grade. He was a week late and it's been a scramble to catch up. I guess God thought a week in Loita with the family was more important for Colin than the first 5 days of classes :-)

So this has been quite an emotional week all the way around. Leaving a high school graduate at college is one thing. Leaving a 15 year old at boarding school is another. I don't mind letting the whole world know that we all cried as we left him after lunch on his first day of classes.

All of us feel really peaceful and positive about this new development. We can see God's hand in it and there are so many good things to embrace about being at a good school with great sports and lots of friends to be made all around. Still, we can't help being pretty much a mess. We're thankful that Colin will be home for at least a month after every 3 up there.

Less than 5 weeks now till he's home for a four day weekend. You can bet your last dollar we're counting the days :-)