Dear Cam and Scott
If I could paint this half-year, the canvas would be wild
happy smudges of bright. There would be bold contrasts and barely discernible threads
and shades of anything but grey and way more than fifty. There’d be a landscape
of streams running new furrows down green slopes. We’d be standing on a
watershed between change and the unknown. Out of breath from the climb. But the
view would be worth it.
I can’t paint, so I’ll record for you here with
words-on-screen for as long as there’s an internet that it’s been a while since
we’ve had a year so rich with change. And I get that we’re only halfway through.
I’ve changed careers and started writing a book and said
yes to some dream opportunities, like swinging with you in parks and speaking about
you at conferences. Dad will be changing seasons and time zones later this month
when he flies across the equator for Lachlan and Analia’s summer wedding in
Oregon. We’ve changed a little how we see ourselves and the world because God
has lit up for us some Word-truths. We’ve changed church communities. We
changed priorities in the time that Uncle Marc was so sick. We’re in the
strange exciting limbo of changing homes and praying that all the chickens hatch
healthy at the deeds office though we’re trying not to count them. I’ve even changed
from Blackberry to Android.
I’ve changed your undies, Scott, dozens of times, because
you’re changing out of nappies. In a few weeks you’ll change from a Heavenly
Baby into a Heavenly Tot. Our conversations have changed, because the wordgates
have opened and you’re gushing unstoppable verbal-ness. Yesterday you and Cam
were trying to climb into the car at the same time and Cam kind of bashed you. You
said, ‘Easy, Lennie.’ Dad and I say that all the time. It’s what Chandler says
to Joey in a Friends episode when
Joey is clutching a baby chicken a little too enthusiastically. And it’s from
Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men which
Joey probably hadn’t read and neither have you. But today it was just doubly
hilarious and an exquisite example of grace – that dimension in which we
confidently live into things we don’t fully understand.
Cam, a couple of weeks ago you changed some of your core beliefs.
After a visit to the Eye Institute we had a spontaneous Mom-and-Cam lunch date.
You were super chuffed. I had coffee and a chicken mayo. You had chips, a
bubble-gum milkshake and the slow dawning of a new world view. This is how the
conversation went:
(Silence. Chewing.)
Cam: Is there really an Easter Bunny?
Me: Ummm… (Desperate
thinking and praying for wisdom because we’ve vowed always to tell you the absolute
truth so that you’ll know you can trust us when others might trick you but we’ve
justified Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny through intricate philosophies
about the importance of imagination in the texture of a happy childhood.) Do
you want the truth, or do you want the fun-pretend-pretend-imaginary-game answer?
Cam: (Thinking.) I
want the truth.
Me: No. There isn’t really an Easter Bunny.
Cam: But then how do we get Easter eggs in the garden on
Easter morning?
Me: Well… Dad and I get up earlier than you on that
Sunday…
Cam: But then where do you get the Easter eggs?
Me: We buy them at the shops.
Cam: But how could you go to the shops to get Easter eggs
‘cause then you would have had to leave me and Scott alone at home.
Me: No, no. There are times when you’re both at school
and I can go to the shops alone… you know... and get the Easter eggs.
Cam: (Thinks) Oh.
Ok!
(And that’s that. Cam
resumes happy focus on the tomato sauce. And somewhere in my heart the door of
an era closes quietly.)
And Cam, I do really believe that Jesus is changing your
heart. I see how you’re growing in kindness. You didn’t want to tell me that
cake sale was your favourite part of the day – as opposed to me fetching you
from school – because you didn’t want to hurt my feelings. And when Aunty Kirsty
whatsapp’d me to share that Ben had invited Jesus into his heart, I said to
you, ‘Cam, you’ve invited Jesus into your heart, right?’ You said, ‘Yes! And I’ve
invited him into yours!’
So there it is. Kaleidoscopes of change in all the
colours of thanks and shot through with God’s glory.
All my love,
Mom
xx
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