The Spin: A Bigger Roof

It has been 4 weeks since we helped Elizabeth move in to her dorm room.  I couldn’t write about it until now…and now I have so much to say that I feel almost paralyzed. Where to start?  If I try to tell it all, in proper order, it will be a garbled mess.  There have been many, many things that have helped me deal with having her “not here.” Today I’ll share just one…

Last Fall, I met a sweet friend, Jessica, for coffee.  Her son had just moved to college and I had set up the meeting expecting she might need a sounding board or maybe even a shoulder to cry on.  She surprised me – she was almost “chipper.” Honestly, in that moment, I wondered to myself if she was delusional.  (Jessica, if you’re out there, please read on!)

When she explained her take on things, it made sense.  I accepted the wisdom she offered and have had it tucked away in my arsenal since.  She told me that she did not consider her son “gone” now that he was living in a dorm anymore than she had considered him “gone” when he started Kindergarten.  “He is just going to school in another place.  His home is with us.  We are still a family, just like we always have been.”  Genius.

So, last month, as we drove toward Boone, I clung the idea that it was “sort of  like Kindergarten.”  When we arrived in her dorm room and looked out her window, I decided, “I have a place in the mountains with an amazing view.” And every day since, when I open my bedroom door which is right next to hers I have thought to myself, “she’s just down the hall in her other room – it’s just a really long hallway now.”

The “roof” over my family has gotten bigger.  It is very much like when the second child arrives, and after worrying that we can’t possibly love another as much as the first, we find that God has expanded our hearts.  So what if my arms cannot reach all the way to the mountains?  My heart is big enough to be in both places.  And God is certainly as present there as He is here.

It’s All Good.  Thanks, Jessica!