We went on a weekend camping trip to visit my relatives and just arrived home an hour or so ago. The girls had a great time playing with their only cousins and took over the campground, jumping in the river, running though the woods, all the things you would want your children to do and keep memories of. I often think that...these times with these small people seem so intense, how could they not remember all these adventures, the tastes, smells, feelings? But, of course, I have few memories of my time when I was that young, so chances are good we will all be saying in s few years "weren't we here before? Was that six or seven years ago? Was that the time you saw a fox?" and so on. Insert melancholy sigh here, because we wouldn't want it to be a happy little post about a beautiful flower or a ripe garden or forever young and innocent children.
It did grieve me to see my uncle growing so old. Here are my children visiting my uncles and aunts the exact places I did so many years ago, and until this weekend I so appreciated how their childhood was, in some ways, some very good ways, mimicking my own. But, of course, it is many years later and these same parents of my cousins whom I thought of as old 'way back then' when they were not much older than I am now, are indeed old and growing closer to the end of their visit here on earth. I could always make myself feel even worse by remembering that we never who or when someone will be lost, and I say that in the most sarcastic of ways, but, if all goes as it 'should' my children will be losing people they love on a fairly regular basis on their trip through childhood. I have very few options to offer them...I am a child of a youngest (by far) daughter, Brent is the youngest (by far) in his family. The cousins the girls are growing up with are actually third, fourth, maybe fifth or 'removed' (what does that mean?) and the aunts and uncles are either their great aunts and uncles or are really old enough to be (in some circles) their grandparents.
And here I am wanting another baby to live among the wrinklies of our family...parents included, to judge by the mirror some days. I draw a lot of comfort from Antique Mommy.
Anyway, it really was, overall, a wonderful, tiring trip. The girls barely made it into their beds tonight before falling asleep, the nighttime prayers were all ones of thanksgiving for the weekend of joys and family. God is so good, he's so good to me.
It did grieve me to see my uncle growing so old. Here are my children visiting my uncles and aunts the exact places I did so many years ago, and until this weekend I so appreciated how their childhood was, in some ways, some very good ways, mimicking my own. But, of course, it is many years later and these same parents of my cousins whom I thought of as old 'way back then' when they were not much older than I am now, are indeed old and growing closer to the end of their visit here on earth. I could always make myself feel even worse by remembering that we never who or when someone will be lost, and I say that in the most sarcastic of ways, but, if all goes as it 'should' my children will be losing people they love on a fairly regular basis on their trip through childhood. I have very few options to offer them...I am a child of a youngest (by far) daughter, Brent is the youngest (by far) in his family. The cousins the girls are growing up with are actually third, fourth, maybe fifth or 'removed' (what does that mean?) and the aunts and uncles are either their great aunts and uncles or are really old enough to be (in some circles) their grandparents.
And here I am wanting another baby to live among the wrinklies of our family...parents included, to judge by the mirror some days. I draw a lot of comfort from Antique Mommy.
Anyway, it really was, overall, a wonderful, tiring trip. The girls barely made it into their beds tonight before falling asleep, the nighttime prayers were all ones of thanksgiving for the weekend of joys and family. God is so good, he's so good to me.
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