Helping family...

I have spent about a week to week and half of my time here in Oregon helping my grandmother. During this time I cleaned, organized, tried to help sort some things out, and hopefully encourage through love and support. In the process of this time, and the entire month that I have been away, my prayer for this month has been that the Lord would move me towards something. It has been that as I follow Him, not only would my pictures bring glory to Him, but that He would clear some things up in my mind that seemed to be dim. I did not know what these things were specifically, but I could feel them there. Somewhere in my internal, moving and speaking. I think that those things are beginning to be answered.

Through talking with my grandmother, or Granny Grump as I effectionately call her, I have started to see something in life that I so simply missed. Love. In a way that has never been defined in me before. You see, my grandfather died suddenly right before his 70^th birthday and although it has been 3 years, we still talk about him as if it were yesterday. His fingerprints are all over this place, this family, and our minds. We can spend our entire lives living, talking, and working with someone… and then one day they are gone. And what are we left with?… memories and emotions. A mere shadow of the things that once were. No more touch, no more voice, and no more presence… And is it not these things that we miss the most when someone is gone, but totally take for granted while they are on this earth? The old phrase absence makes the heart grow fonder points to this very truth, because while we are away those are the very things that we long to have again with our family members. Not only to see them, but to touch them and to feel their spirit… and when we get back to them our thankfulness for them is rejuvenated for a time. I feel sorry for those people who are dead to this, or have never felt what I am talking about.

We all seem to fall into this trap though, not everyone but many. We spend so much time with a person, that for some reason we get used to them and they lose value. And although they never lose value in our mind, because we would lay our lives down for them in a heart beat, we seem to lose value in them emotionally. It is as if we show joy for everyone else but the ones that we live with. And then, without us realizing it, that connection is gone. Unlike a child who eagerly waits for his dad to come home, day after day, we merely greet them with an unemotional hello. We ask them how their day was, and although we are interested somewhere deep within, we emotionally do not care. It is like a car that we have had for years. We still take care of it, we still value it, but we are not excited about driving it like we were the first month that we had it. We get used to it.

Even in the movies we see actors showing this affection for each other. After watching this heart moving movie, our hearts are rekindled for a night, or maybe a day or two, and then we wake up and go back to the same emotional death among our family-members… and don’t really know why.

I have at times fallen into this same trap. A mindset passed down to me by my forefathers… For this I am sorry Kristi. I do not have a desire to be unemotionally interested in you. I do not want to share my spirit with everyone around me… and you get the rest of what is left. I do not want my time and energy to be poured out to everyone else around me… only to come home tired and uninterested. I know that we cannot really be close living that way, and I will try my hardest to not do that. I want to greet you with interest everyday, and show you that I value you. I want to show you that I want to be a part of your life…

To all those reading this… if it has touched you or moved you… open your eyes. Look at the people closest to you and love them. Realize that one day all you may be left with is memories and emotions. That’s it. No more touch, no more voice, and no more presence. Make everyday with the ones you love like it is going to be your last day on this earth.

Love… with many other definitions… to be emotionally interested.