Two Days

And just like that...she's gone.

My niece was picked up by her family last night.  That two days went so fast.  Too fast.

I thought I had until Sunday, but plans change like that.  We had a good time.  Since my husband works so many hours, it was her and I most of the two days. 

My heart is sad for how attention craved she is.  Her hesitancy to react or relax makes me heart sick. 

When I got up this morning, there was nobody to feed and nobody to plan my day with.  It was a startling reminder how little value my everyday life has and how few reasons I have to get out of bed.

I can't think of anything I am more ambivalent about than having my little brother and his family last night.

The short 45 minutes of visiting was wonderful.  Conversation, awkward silence.  It was all fine with me.  There's nothing I wanted more than to just keep them all there with me.  I want to sink in the precious moments of just having them all close to me. 

It was sad, difficult.  The avoidance of any deep conversation stings.  I want them to care about me and yet the reality is they don't.  These are people who share my same struggle to love others or show affection of any kind. There is a distance between them and me, one that is so obvious and so painful. 

With so little contact with each and an inability to develop more than surface relationship, we are all strangers to each other.  Nothing that resembles family and yet, eerily familiar as only we know it.

What I wouldn't give to go back 12-13 years to hold those tiny, innocent little babies who had not yet been changed by the world they live in today. 

I'm so thankful for the short two days.  My niece left a beautifully, bright heart sun catcher behind.  It hangs in the kitchen proudly, while I do my best to look at it with only fond memories of her two days here.

Watching them all leave seemed so final.  I felt that way the last time I saw them this summer.  This is only the third time I've seen them in six years.  Of course it feels final.  I never know when or if I will see them again. 

I never know what kind of crazy will creep into their lives.  I never know what kind of crazy will creep into my life.  I certainly don't know what plans God has in this.  I never know how long this crazy life will last.