Weekend Mornings
"Weekends are a bit like rainbows; they look good from a distance but disappear when you get up close to them. " ~John Shirley
I love the promise of a Saturday morning. To wake up to the quiet of everyone sleeping and read my paper knowing my whole family is under one roof.
It hasn't always been this good. There were places we lived where the only Saturday paper I could get was online. We lived too far out in a town in a foreign country where the Stars and Stripes wasn't delivered. I'm not of the generation who can read a paper on my computer. It doesn't feel right. I love having the paper in my hands stretched across my lap with my country's news to chew on. When we lived in Korea, the Stars and Stripes would be delivered the night before. I used to chuckle when I read tomorrow's news. Where we live now, the paper is thrown on my driveway every morning by 5:30 am. It has been one year now, that we have lived here, and not one day has gone by that I don't thank God for the chance to walk barefoot on to my driveway to pick up my local paper.
There have been Saturday mornings when I've woken up and my whole family hasn't been under one roof. During deployment's, I hated weekends. I felt the pressure as a single parent trying to make the weekend everything it could be for our children. I would jam a bunch of family oriented events into two days so the children wouldn't feel the void of their dad being gone. By Monday I was exhausted and acutely aware of my limitations. I secretly wished every weekend to go away.
On Sunday mornings we would try to meet on a video teleconference with Vic. I'd grab my coffee and go online, waiting for some sign that Vic was able to get in to the morale tent for our twenty minutes. For those minutes, the kids would run in and out to talk to dad and I'd get the time in between. In some strange way it felt like we were together under one roof. Our youngest would yell to his siblings that "Dad was home" everytime he realized that Dad was on the computer. It also felt a little weird, like the end of the Space Mountain ride when they are showing you the future and the family is talking over television. When our time was up and we had to get off the computer conference, the weekend would return back to what it was before, go through the motions of a family not together.
As I look around my now bustling house I'm so thankful. We are all in attendance. For this weekend I have what so many of our military families don't, my husband is home. I'll spend my weekend with gratitude and marked steps. I'll bookend my weekend with prayers for those who are around the world wishing their weekend would go away. I've been there and I haven't forgotten.
I love the promise of a Saturday morning. To wake up to the quiet of everyone sleeping and read my paper knowing my whole family is under one roof.
It hasn't always been this good. There were places we lived where the only Saturday paper I could get was online. We lived too far out in a town in a foreign country where the Stars and Stripes wasn't delivered. I'm not of the generation who can read a paper on my computer. It doesn't feel right. I love having the paper in my hands stretched across my lap with my country's news to chew on. When we lived in Korea, the Stars and Stripes would be delivered the night before. I used to chuckle when I read tomorrow's news. Where we live now, the paper is thrown on my driveway every morning by 5:30 am. It has been one year now, that we have lived here, and not one day has gone by that I don't thank God for the chance to walk barefoot on to my driveway to pick up my local paper.
There have been Saturday mornings when I've woken up and my whole family hasn't been under one roof. During deployment's, I hated weekends. I felt the pressure as a single parent trying to make the weekend everything it could be for our children. I would jam a bunch of family oriented events into two days so the children wouldn't feel the void of their dad being gone. By Monday I was exhausted and acutely aware of my limitations. I secretly wished every weekend to go away.
On Sunday mornings we would try to meet on a video teleconference with Vic. I'd grab my coffee and go online, waiting for some sign that Vic was able to get in to the morale tent for our twenty minutes. For those minutes, the kids would run in and out to talk to dad and I'd get the time in between. In some strange way it felt like we were together under one roof. Our youngest would yell to his siblings that "Dad was home" everytime he realized that Dad was on the computer. It also felt a little weird, like the end of the Space Mountain ride when they are showing you the future and the family is talking over television. When our time was up and we had to get off the computer conference, the weekend would return back to what it was before, go through the motions of a family not together.
As I look around my now bustling house I'm so thankful. We are all in attendance. For this weekend I have what so many of our military families don't, my husband is home. I'll spend my weekend with gratitude and marked steps. I'll bookend my weekend with prayers for those who are around the world wishing their weekend would go away. I've been there and I haven't forgotten.
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