Time is Fleeting

More often than not I catch myself feeling anxious, desperately clinging to every word, facial expression, and nuance. It doesn't matter that we will have more children, I don't want to forget anything about Waverly because I'll never get these moments back.

A Breath of Fresh Air

Depressing note: It's a little too quiet around here without Fenway. Waverly has asked about her a few times in the past week which makes it hard, but we're working through it.

Moving on: Speaking of the past week, as exhausting as ours was, it was equally as encouraging and enjoyable.

We just got back from Nashville and our appointment week. Honestly, I was not really looking forward to  the week; the schedule looked intimidating and I wasn't super pumped about meeting new people. Praise the Lord, His ways are higher than my ways (Isaiah 55:9) and the week was absolutely refreshing. We immediately connected with a couple we had met in Malawi last spring and other couples we had met at Expo last July; as well as, meeting new families walking the same path.

The daily meetings were grueling for someone like me who has a hard time sitting and listening for hours at a time. A few times I caught myself wishing I was a doodler. More than a few times I realized I had no idea what the speaker was talking about. Bad habit. However, the sweet, life-breathing times were those spent with new friends, families at the exact same step of life, leaving it all to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. We shared stories and histories and were all in awe of how the Lord takes different people, from different walks of life and different experiences and brings them to the same place, only to send them out on similar, yet completely different journeys. These families will be our lifelong friends. We will always have a connection to them, despite the thousands of miles that will separate most of us.

It was a breath of fresh air, I tell you.

Anyway, all of the meetings (and hotel food... :/) culminated in our official appointment ceremony at Brentwood Baptist Church Wednesday night. Both of our families, as well as, my grandparents and a few aunts and uncles, were able to come, despite the fact that Thursday was the last day of school and my siblings had to take early finals and/or speed home early Thursday morning to get to school. Crazy. But we are so grateful for them and their support. We absolutely understand that none of this is easy for them, so their support and blessing is paramount in our peace (not the God-provided peace that surpasses all understanding, but the peace of knowing that our families love us and support us in following His will).

So, now the real work begins. We're officially appointed as missionaries and we have 8 weeks before we leave for FPO at the ILC haha (Field Personnel Training at the International Learning Center) with so much to do! Like, so much that I don't even know where to begin, so we haven't done much of anything. Lovely. Can you believe we actually forgot that Waverly needs a passport?

Pray for us. "We have a long way to go and a short time to get there". Name that tune.

Four years.

It was an impulse buy; not a habit we entertain on any kind of regular basis. I was vulnerable. It was a bad day, like I-skipped-class-to-lay-in-the-office-floor-while-holding-my-childhood-blanket-and-listen-to-ballads kind of bad day.

Chandler called to let me know he was heading home, but wanted to go to Elizabethtown. What did I have to lose? I said okay.

We pulled into the driveway and rang the doorbell. I can still remember what the house looked like and the big chain-link fenced in kennel in the backyard, separated into three compartments: one for the male, and one each for the females and their respective litters.

The owner opened the left-most kennel and six of the cutest, grayest puppies clambered out, nipping at each other and eager to explore. It was kind of love at first sight.

We had actually talked about this purchase for the whole three months of our marriage, but could not agree on exactly what we wanted. I caved; Chandler won and here we were "checking out" this litter of Weimaraners, writing the check and taking the biggest one home with us just a half hour later.

Impulsive, I tell you.

I immediately named him Atticus and carried him in my lap all the way back to Lexington. We took pictures and I called my mom to stop by her office on our way in.

I remember Mom laughing because he peed like a girl, squatting in the grass. That's just what all puppies do, I told her. From there we took Atticus to the vet. Dr. Gilpin kept referring to him as a female while Chandler and I exchanged glances, but were too embarrassed to say anything.

Yeah, Atticus wasn't a boy. She was a girl. Fenway.

It's Chandler's fault. He was the one who looked before we picked her. I still bring it up every once in a while for a good chuckle.

All was well and exciting until it hit me that we were actually raising a living, breathing animal and I had never had such a responsibility before. I call it "post-partum" what I experienced over the next couple of days. Not to make light of the real-life disorder, but I was a little depressed and I did cry over this decision we had made to take a 2 month old puppy into our family.  Chandler gave me the option of taking her back, but one look at the pads of her paws, callused from the cement slab in her kennel, and I just couldn't do it. I knew I had to suck it up.

But we fell into a routine and things got easier. She became less of a burden and more a member of the family. We started taking her places where she could run and be around other dogs. I remember we took her to Chandler's Grammy's house and she fell in the small pond in their front yard.

That was a good laugh.

Before she got old enough to shed her "puppy smell", she would lay on our bed, right between us stretched out as long as possible from the head to the foot of the bed. We didn't let her do this very often.

Then, in 2009, I got pregnant with Waverly and finished school in December. From January 2010 until Waverly was born in March, Fen and I were the very best friends. Well, I mean, I talked to her all the time because, really, she was the only being I spent time with every day.

We were worried about how Fenway would receive Waverly, so Chandler gave Fen one of Waverly's hospital blankets to snuggle with before we came home. And the afternoon we walked into the house, Fenway was so excited. She wanted to be in Waverly's face all of the time; hence the common phrase, "Fenway, go!"

One of Waverly's first words? "Go go" and she has called Fenway by this nickname ever since.

They've really not had much to do with each other the past couple of years, but Waverly asks about her and tries to involve Fenway in her play.

I am desperately trying to hold on to these sweet memories, since we will be saying good bye to Fenway on Friday as she goes to her new home.

It's the first big "letting go" in this process. Pray for us.