Life Is A Treasure

I just spent a week in Pensacola visiting my daughter and family.It was a long overdue visit (over 4 years) but trips to the other side of the country are not easy to come by. When my daughter and I hatched the idea for me to visit it was back in September and I had no idea how I'd pull it off. But God did. Shortly after I set a visit date of January 2016, I was offered the part time job at Family Christian Store. It was an answer to prayer. Still, it took awhile to save enough funds for the trip, because as soon as I started saving other things came up. Things like a major car repair, an unexpected medical expense, a higher than normal electric bill. In other words, life. Funny how that happens. Still, by Christmas I had the money to buy the airplane ticket.

We had some grand plans at first. A trip to Atlanta Georgia to attend a Women of Faith Conference. A side trip to Alabama to see my son. As the date got closer and reality set in we had to trim things back and then I got an upper respiratory infection that almost made me postpone the trip. It was with a resigned spirit that I boarded the plane last Wednesday. I say resigned because I really was disappointed that the WOF Conf wasn't happening. A visit to my son was probably not possible either and while the Rx was kicking in, I still felt exhausted and wimpy due to all the coughing and sniffling. And did i mention I had laryngitis? But as the plane carried me through the air I thought about how blessed I was to take this trip at all. The whole purpose of the visit was to spend time with my girl. It didn't matter what we did, just that we did it together. As for the laryngitis, didn't God give me the word "listen" for the year? Well, I'm still chuckling over that one because with a raspy voice it was certainly easier for me to let my daughter and grandkids do all the talking while I sat back and just listened!

The week went incredible fast, as vacations are always prone to do. I saw where my daughter works, met some of her co-workers and friends, surprised my granddaughter at school by showing up for lunch, met my oldest grandson's 'friend-girl' (not girlfriend he says) got reacquainted with my step-grands, watched my grandchildren play, took them on a field trip, went to the beach (in spite of very cool temperatures and threatening skies) and went clothes shopping with my girl. In between, we just enjoyed each others company, shared secrets, laughed, cried, and laughed some more.

My grandkids are growing much too fast! The boys are taller than me! Their voices have changed. There's facial hair!! My granddaughter is wearing a bra! In less than 2 years the oldest will be 18 and graduating. For crying out loud! Stop!!

 Life goes on, whether you are watching carefully or not. I've been home for just a couple of days and as always, in retrospect I think of all the things I had wanted to do but didn't. But I look at the pictures of all the things we did do and I recall the conversations that took place and the memories we made. There will be more trips. We'll fly the kids up for visits over the next few summers. We'll skype and text and facebook. It's not the same as having them down the street just 10 minutes away but this is life. It's not perfect but I'll treasure it.