On Family

You guys, I am so excited I can barely breathe.

My family...my big family...my Utah family...is packing up tomorrow morning and making the drive across three states to come and spend a week with us in Iowa! I've even arranged to be able to take some vacation while they are here!

I haven't seen anyone in my family for one year. The last time I saw a family member was June 14th, 2009 when I watched my mom and little brother, who had helped us move and work on our house, board the train for Utah.

I haven't talked much about my family coming...well, because I was worried they wouldn't. There is a lot of people, and trying to get that many schedules to work out can be next to impossible. And then there might have been car problems, or financial problems, or health problems...a million different things that kept them from coming.

And I wanted to see them so much. While I've already mentioned that I'm not "homesick" for Utah in the least, I am desperately "family-sick." The idea that they might not come was so horrifically depressing, that I've just gone into my emotional protection state, where I try not to think about things too much, or want them to much, or plan for them too much, because then, just maybe, if things don't work out, well, I hadn't thought about it that much, so maybe it won't hurt as much.

But, come on, who am I kidding? I've been geeked for this for over a month! I've thought about what foods I want to cook for them, where I want to take them, about all the great changes we've made to the house (and, oh, we've made even more! I'll share those soon.)

I've talked to both my mom and dad tonight. And they are definitely coming. They are all coming. (Okay, not all. My "eldest" sister (my sister who is the oldest, but still younger than me...does that make sense?) and her two darling kids are not coming. Sniff*)

So, I think it's finally safe to be excited. And to share the news with you all! So when you get slammed with a million posts next week about a variety of Iowa adventures, you'll know what hit you.

There's something else I'd like to share. Since it's been a year since I've seen my family, I want to share the poem that my dad read to me at my going-away party last year. It touched me. I read it often.

Enjoy.

On Children

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
for they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
And He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let out bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

~Kahlil Gibran