Face Value...

The days pass by, they flow into weeks, and now even months. It is a very tangled web. He is gone, yet still here. He is absent from our home, yet one our minds every minute of every day. We spend our weeks trying to function without him, yet our weekends trying to find a way to function with him. It is very confusing. It is complicated. Life continues to move forward, yet has frozen. We still have hope, yet have to deal with reality. A friend sent me a card with a quote from Eckart Toele "There are two things you have no control over, what happened in the past and what happens in the future." You can only live in the present. I know it is true, but it is still a hard pill to swallow. We spent the weekend with him. I saw him Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The girls got to come to see him on Monday before we headed home. As usual, he had a little surprise in his hands for them to find. They love to see what he has found for them, and of course the great thing about kids is that they take it at face value. It is an amazing gift to be able to accept simply what is in front of you. Children have it, we lose it as we grow up. We ask so many questions, challenge what we see, try to predict what is coming next. Of course as we grow and take on new responsibilities, we have to lose some of it. We discover what it means to be let down, disillusioned, unprepared, and taken by surprise. We try to prepare ourselves, and our loved ones. To protect ourselves from unexpected events. It is amazing how tenuous that illusion is. What an elaborate game of smoke and mirrors we erect for ourselves, and spend so much time in our lives trying to maintain. Then you see a moment. A child taking a simple gift from her father's unmoving hands. She never asks where he got it or how he got it. She just smiles in delight and thanks him. Curls against him and looks at him with loving eyes. Taking it all at face value. It is humbling.