October 31 – “Fractured Family”

Remember that doll I mentioned awhile back?  The one that belonged to my grandmother?  The one we were always so scared of when we were kids?  We ran across that one again.  And its leg was broken.  Not just cracked, mind you, it broke off and was in two or three separate pieces.  Chris gave one of her patented sighs, and quietly added the doll to the stack of "To be repaired's."  I asked her how she planned to attack that problem – with superglue?  She answered, "I will try.  But she is very brittle in a lot of places.  She's one of those that will just have to sit by herself on the shelf – out of harm's way."   We didn't go to Galveston at all today.  Instead we went and picked up my Mom and headed for Mansfield to visit Zakary (and his parents).  It felt very strange to "pick up my Mom" instead of just hopping into the Explorer and hitting the road.  She's just supposed to be with us already.  My brother and sister-in-law have been wining and dining her royally since she went to stay with them.  Manicures.  Pedicures.  New clothes.  New shoes.  Massages.  Hairdos.  She is a pampered woman.  I guess that had a part to play when she said to me the other day, "You and Chris have too much to do to bother with the likes of me.  I'll just stay with Jay and Fran for awhile."  Part of me said, "You're right.  We are at the house every day.  There's nothing there that you can do.  It would be really boring."  But a bigger part of me said, "Ow, that hurts.  You are our family.  You belong with me and Chris – and Betty – and Seaside – and Galveston.  We finally moved into a house where you can join us, and now you don't want to?"  Of course I didn't say anything.  But she is coming home with us "for a few days, at least" after Mansfield.    You know what?  It feels like our little family has a little fracture.  Not completely broken, just a bit of crack.  A hairline fracture.  Enough to know it hurts.  What do you do with a family when it gets broke?  Can't put a cast on it.  Can't rest it.  Can't "take two aspirin and call me in the morning."  What can you do?   I found an answer.  I found it when we went to Panchos and ate together.  I saw it when I went with Josh to WalMart to pick up a prescription for Christi, a clown nose, and six pumpkins.  Hey, it was Halloween.  Anyway, in our haste to get the pumpkins loaded and the clown nose tried on, we left the prescription in the shopping cart.  In the parking lot.  Some nice shopper found it and turned it in.  It was there when we gave away candy while sitting outside, because all the power went off in the neighborhood.  Hey!  That kind of felt like home.  And it was there in force when Zak got dressed for bed and began running through the house, back and forth, and around and around in circles.  How could he do anything else?  He was wearing superman PJ's!   The answer to a fractured family?  Family.  It helps to know I'm not the only one who leaves important stuff in shopping carts at WalMart.  It helps to know that somewhere kids still go trick or treating, so MeeMaw can sit out in her witch hat and give away candy.  It helps to see kids still wearing superman PJ's and getting wound up right at bedtime.  Family helps family when it's time to heal, when it's time to process circumstances, when it's time to … just be there.   Ephesians 2:19 says, "You are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household."  God's household.  That means his family.  He knew.   Father, thank you for my family.  For Chris.  For Mom.  For our boys and their wives.  For our grandkids.  And the two still "cooking."  And our extended family – the others who don't live with us when we have a place to live.  Thanks for our Seaside family and for those in your family who we have been meeting since the storm.  Heal.  Amen.