Picture In Your Mind...

It's been a month since I last wrote .... I've been well-aware of this. I've thought of blogging several times, but not having the right picture has dampened my little light of inspiration. However, today is a day to post, to think, to ponder, to reflect....but this time, the picture will be from your mind and not from my camera.

It has been a pensive time; many irons-in-the-fire and things to do......and, yet, a time where the focus of people that I dearly love keeps seeping through my crazy days.....like a quiet little rivulet of water, salted by tears.....

Tonight I will be attending the rosary for the beautiful, young mother of one of my students. This woman endured a very long, painful fight against an illness which eventually took its final toll on her 3 days ago... Thursday, I maintained normalcy in my classroom and guided my kiddos through a pajama/pizza party and a ride on the 'Polar Express' as my heart quietly hurt with the knowledge that my little student would soon learn, herself, upon her return home that afternoon that her beautiful mother was no longer there. I thought about her all that afternoon and all evening long. Friday morning...greeting my kiddos outside the door upon the chilly morning's bell ring, this little girl was the last one to come running across the grass towards the line. I had the other children go on inside as I walked back through to greet her and give her a hug. Instead, as I bent down, she jumped onto me - throwing her arms tightly around my neck and her legs around my body....

and she sobbed..."I miss my mommy."

She sobbed into that soft spot between my left shoulder and neck....with a tightness in her arms and legs around me that I have never felt from a child before....ever.

She didn't let go for over 20 minutes....clinging to me like a bear cub to a tree...her grip never easing up, as if she was afraid that she would fall if she did....

We were needing to walk over to a holiday show at the neighboring junior high pronto...
but there was no way I was going to interrupt this child's moment of grief....
so a wonderful staff member took my class over for the show....

...and J and I sat at my desk....

...and I held her for those 20-plus minutes and let her cry.... and cry.... and sniffle..... trying to comfort her and her heart while the horrible reality of what had happened in this precious child's world settle down around the two of us in the silence of my classroom like soft, cold, winter snowflakes....

Later that morning after the show, J sat with me in my rocking chair and she and I told the other boys and girls of the news.... that her mother had passed away. A child-like gasp answered back.... and then tears fell from classmates who had known of J's mother's illness months ago, but, as children so wonderfully do, had held out hope for a happy ending to this story, too.

Cards vividly illustrated with crayons, colored pencils and markers soon came to be.... floating pink hearts with scalloped borders, yellow flowers on green stems, stick children holding hands and hugging with smiling faces under rainbows..... words like 'love', 'sorry', and 'friend' danced across the white card stock with invisible hugs of love folded inside each one. A grosgrain ribbon of spring green tied the gifts of love into a bundle that J would take home and, hopefully, remind her of how much we love her and how sorry we all are for her and her family. Her deep brown eyes were finally dry and a beautiful smile bowed between her dimpled cheeks as she carefully tucked the bundle into her pink backpack and zipped it closed.

Tomorrow I will attend the funeral service for her mother. And I am lost....lost as to what to say, lost as to whether I bring her something.... a teddy bear? a bracelet? Or what about the picture of her and her amazing family taken at our flag ceremony last month when she won the bike for the 'Character Counts' award that was just given to me a week ago...her beautiful mother smiling with a bouquet of pink-tipped cream roses in her arms? I've been planning on buying a frame for it and giving it to her.....but now I wonder if it's too soon to give that picture to her??? Will it make her feel even worse? Make her cry even more?? Miss her mom even more?? I don't want to cause her any more heartache....

..... I don't know....

I just don't know.

I sat quietly in church this morning - looking like a bump-on-a-log....staring off into space as 'Angels We Have Heard On High' surrounded me.... trying to hold back unexpected tears and trying to be still enough to hear what God wanted me to do... hoping for direction...an idea... a "That's it!!!' epiphany as to what to do. All I could come up with that didn't seem like a feeble attempt at helping was calling Dad and asking if I could help with anything today... Maybe the kids needed to go shopping for new shoes for their mother's rosary tonight. Did the girls have dresses or did the boys need some dress pants?? Maybe there was an errand I could do for them, or was there something that I could bring them...... Dad was wonderful and family members were there helping him out so all was good. But he did tell me that he would probably need help later on....after everyone leaves and goes back home...

Concurrently, two women whom I adore and admire in so many, many ways fight the fight of breast cancer and my thoughts, love and prayers fall on them daily. Updates, hugs, happy hours, .... each encounter is a precious one for me.

I find myself feeling the focus of this next week or so is not a flat screen t.v., a wii, or diamond jewelry or whatever the store ads try to entice us to buy. I find myself, in a bit of a panicky way, wanting to gather my family and friends into a tight, tight circle....and hug them and hold onto them...and feel their body warmth and hear their laughter in my ears and see their twinkled eyes...... I want to hold onto them all so very tightly...

like a bear cub clinging to a tree.....

...for they are the gifts in my world this holiday season.

May Christmas blessings surround you and your loved ones this week.