I remember when....

Help! I am a hostage of HOTMAIL!!!!!!!!  Well....hopefully I will be released tomorrow night! Seriously?

Today Ryan texted me to tell me that my hotmail had thrown out a spam email to all my contacts! Oh great, I don't even USE hotmail anymore, as a matter of fact, I am considering not using email at all! No not really but it is just so frustrating when something like that happens. So...I went in my hotmail account and began to work on getting ready to figure out how to delete it once and for all...NOT an easy process.  But IN the process I started looking at emails I had saved. Yep, I had ones from Matty going all the way back to 2004! Nope, didn't save them all but I did go through them and save about 30 of them. 

Here is what one said....

hey mommy
 just dropping a line because i havent heard your voice in a while and i miss it. love you
matty

Yep, made me get tears in my eyes! 

or how about this one?

Another thing I think about all the time is hanging out with my ridiculously 
 fun and good looking family, but that is a welcome thought. I do dwell on 
 that thought a good amount of time also, but I enjoy it. I love you guys so 
 much and I miss you like crazy. I miss ya'll so much I'm really considering 
moving back to Oregon when my enlistment is up. 

Or this email that I wrote when he was in Iraq and I hadn't heard from him in two weeks....Yes, I was freaking out!

 okay, mommy is starting to worry, please write!

 

I love you 

And his response? 

 Sorry, I was gone for little while out and about, we just got back yesterday. I'll tell you about it when I get back. Only a month left! Love you

Matt

So.....I sat and went through 134 emails, some of them full of chatty silly stuff and some of them long and painful and full of love, from both sides. It stuns me how much living, how much loving he and I did in those emails and I feel my heart clench when I read them, knowing how I clung to each word, each sentence, each expressed emotion from a son who, for two years of his enlistment was such a mess, such a sweet and hurting young man and then I lean back in my seat and think...WOW!!! He is NOTHING like that today! OH PRAISE YOU JESUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

I am deeply grateful for our amazing family! I cannot even tell you how often I just sit back and look at our kids and think...wow Lord, what did you do?  And...THANK YOU!!!! because we are so dang imperfect, heck we are still so imperfect we had a huge argument on Valentines day! Yep, but we worked it out and went to dinner and a movie so...hey, not too bad right?  

At this moment, I am not really sure what my heart feels. My mom is getting old and is in and out of the hospital and I often wonder what my little heart will do without her in my world, it is getting harder and harder to hold all of that pain at bay but there is no productivity in "pre-grieving" her is there?  So I am trying to be a better daughter and talk to her more, be more filled with grace and understanding and forgiveness and let bygones be bygones.  My sisters are all growing older too (which leads me to a little issue of "fear of the dark" or being alone) yes, I am the baby and a few years ago it hit me like a ton of bricks that at the rate I am going I will live to be 100 like my granny and I will outlive everyone!!! Not a pleasant thought to tell you the truth.  I often feel like I am in a boat all by myself, rocking around on this stormy lake, not really sure what in the world is going on and thinking to myself, um, well, lets see, how do I stop this rocking and rolling thing cuz I'm getting a little bit seasick! 

I don't know what is going to happen in the future, just like I didn't when our kids were little. But I held on in faith, I prayed and I hung on to the Lord and I kept on going back to Him, even when I knew KNEW i had totally blown it and was so scared out of my wits.  My view of the Lord is so so SO tiny! So small, so incredibly limited, and yet, I know that He cares about me, He loves me and those that I love and He hears my pleas for help when I am inside that bucking boat and you know what? I don't know as He has ever thrown me an oar to get ashore or maybe even calmed the waves but He just sat in that boat and talked quietly and calmly to me, letting me know that I wasn't alone and I wasn't going to drown.  HELLO!!!!!?????  again...Thank you Jesus!!!!

So here I sit, a pile of printed out emails in my possession, now sitting atop the long ago written letters from me to  Matty, a mom, struggling with learning to let go of her eldest when all she wanted to do was hang on for dear life!  

and here is that first letter:

June 28th 1999

Matt,

I was laying in bed last night remembering the time we shot rockets at the Ostlings and how young you seemed, how small, and I came across the idea to chronicle my thoughts and observations of you growing into a man. 

Last night I picked you up from youth group. You were funny. You wanted to stay and pray - you've never done that when I picked you up before. I looked at your handsome face, lip synching a song, the hat from Dick perched on your head and wished for time to stand still. How I wanted to give in to you. let you stay, it was a good request. But I didn't. On the ride home you told me about youth group and said you had some things to tell me - later - you didn't want me to get mad.  "maybe I'll tell dad"  you said. I was almost relieved!! 

Later at bed time, you were in the bathroom brushing your teeth and I walked in. We stood in front of the mirror and compared our sizes, you WERE taller! My mothers heart felt yet another squeeze at the loss of my first-born. Where did all those years go? Years of taming your unruly hair? I haven't combed it for you for three years at least. The years of telling you to calm down...Did the time go when I wasn't looking? Have I locked away enough memories for the times when I will miss you? Maybe that too is the purpose for me to write, so I don't forget. I love you my son, more than you will ever know and yet not even close to how much the Lord loves you. 

So....on and on and on it goes...