Adventure Mother Driver

A few years ago, I realized why I feel fidgety by summer's end. As the daughter of a Delta pilot, summers often included vacation adventures that started when I was eleven. We traveled to a remote Bahamian island that year where my dad "lost" our passports and later hitchhiked with my sister when our rental car broke down. A few summers later we met Gertrude the Cow in Southern Bavaria when a dirt road ended in her pasture.

I've longed to share those type of adventures with my boys, but have not the resources, or at this point, the body.

So when Sam asked about swimming this summer from 5:45-8:15 am, I struggled a few days before figuring out how to mentally tackle the overwhelming request. I'm not heading to Europe or Hawaii or any other exotic location this summer. No, I'm adventure mother driver, alert in the wee hours, toting my man cub to and from the place of physical challenge. With bra in purse (in case we have a traffic altercation), I grab pillow and blanket and walk bleary eyed to the car. On my more alert days, I brush my teeth and even potty before heading out.

While Sam speeds through currents of chlorine, I let down the windows just a tad, hide my face from the rising sun, and protect the mother ship in the fetal position. When my man cub returns from his morning foray, we travel home for a mid-morning nap.

On day three this week, I woke from said mid-morning nap and proceeded to get ready for a Transforaminal lumbar shot in my back. I made coffee, pulled out crunchy Jif and a power bar, and ate while the pot brewed. Only after the bar was down did I wake enough to remember I wasn't supposed to eat before my Transforaminal shot procedure.

I don't know if the nurses understood how much energy it takes to be an adventure mother driver. But I had no other excuse for my mental lapse and had to wait an extra day for the shot.

I may have a host of mishaps ahead which is why my sense of adventure is heightened when I drive before sun up and sleep in the corner parking lot, communing with nature, supporting my swimmer son.

Green Again

I just opened a daily reading from Ransomed Heart Ministries and read, "Can it really happen? Can things in our lives be green again? No matter what our creeds may tell us, our hearts have settled into another belief. We have accepted the winter of this world as the final word and tried to get on without the hope of spring." (Desire 110-111)

Two weeks ago, I listened as a neurosurgeon offered his assessment of my leg issues. He said there are two things going on. One he could help, the other he could not, since from his perspective, the images from a recent MRI do not explain why my hip is so weak. He concluded permanent muscle damage is the likely cause.

Those words echoed in my head for days, souring my mood--"permanent muscle damage." The finality of it all squelched all hope and left my heart cold.

Four days later, I met with my ankle surgeon. He looked through each image and offered another explanation, speculating that a small protrusion in the disk may be causing the weakness. Both doctors agreed I should schedule an injection from a pain clinic, but only one believes the injection might help the hip.

When I left the second office, I marveled at how much hope helped. Logically, I knew neither doctor really knows why my hip is so weak. But on that Thursday, Dr. Royster took me from winter to spring.

The Ransomed Heart reading from this morning ended with these words, "We make a nothing of eternity by enlarging the significance of this life and by diminishing the reality of what the next life is all about."

If the mere hope of something fixing the weakness in my leg could lighten my mood to such an extent, I wonder what would happen if I anchored my hope in the reality of what's to come verses the tyranny of now. I've not been very good at that lately. But even the Psalmist sang, "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God..." (Ps. 42: 5)

Last night's storms left a sweet green outside my window today. I found these two blossoms in Donna's flower bed hanging heavy from the wet. But even their sweet smelling beauty,as enticing as it is, doesn't compare with the spring that's yet to come.