Sailing

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Facebook needs an emoticon that portrays happy tears.  Reading all my friends' encouraging words in this new (improved!) season of my life, that's EXACTLY how I feel tonight. Happy Tears.

Is this what it feels like to watch your daughter walk down the aisle, away from you, but overflowing with happiness that she has found her other half for as long as they both shall live?

Is this what it feels like to lose a terminally ill parent, mourning the loss of your hero who taught you to how to fish and throw a football and to chew tobacco the right way, but happy and thankful he is no longer in gut-wrenching agony?

Is this what it feels like to watch 'Highway to Heaven' with your very own grandmother, and then you look over at her and she's crying, too, because you both know God has such a mercy on us that he sometimes lets us die in our sleep?  

Is this what it feels like to lose a beloved family pet suddenly after you've witnessed their fight with a heartbreaking medical issue, a dull throb in your chest, but relieved he isn't suffering anymore?

I think yes.

Yes.  This is what it feels like when a loved one battling the demons caused by addiction finally, finally!, agrees to go to rehab.

Yes.  This is what it feels like when you were so desperately short on funds and couldn't pay a very important outstanding bill, and someone whom you admire and love and respect selflessly gives the money to you so that you can bathe your children that night, just like nothing ever happened.  

Yes.  This is what it feels like to watch a fifth grade talent show, and everyone including your own kid is a mediocre act, but then when the awkward, overweight little girl whose shoes are never tied gets up there on that stage and gives it all she's got, and you sit there on the hard wooden bleachers, sobbing, because she knocked it out of the park and you and everybody else felt her passion and courage pole-vaulting off her and onto you.  Onto them.  Onto ​everybody.

Yes.  This is how it feels when you know that you know that you know that your son is not like the other kids in most the conventional ways, but he told you just this morning how beautiful you looked in your new dress and, as he hugged your neck to go catch the big yellow school bus, he told you how proud he was of you, and your heart swells with pride at his gentle, innocent spirit, but breaks a little bit, too, because this world is not as kind as he is, and never will be, but you remind him to always be kind, anyway. 

Yes.  I could make a most efficient and effective use of the Happy Tears emoji, because this is exactly how it feels to step into your own and know with all your heart that while life is not always perfect, it is your life, and it is up to no one other than yourself to make a firm decision to live it according to your purpose.  And, much like a confirmation, you seek to push your philosophy like Play-Doh into every nook and cranny in your life so that you may live it according to His purpose.  It's as if your soul opens its sails big and wide, and there you stand, barefoot and free, and you are grateful but humbled with the profound knowledge that you are so undeserving, and all you can do is just weep at the wonderment that is the airbrushed summer sky.  Breathless, but still breathing.  Alive at this very moment, but realizing the stark  truth that tomorrow is not a promise we were ever given. 

Yes.  Yes to all of it.  And I remain eternally thankful.  <3