Car Sleeping

Ever since our first road trip with our baby girl, 6 hours to Cor d’Lene when she was 6 weeks old, one of my favorite things that she does when she is trying to sleep in the car is that she loves for one of us to reach back and hold her hand. Almost instinctively she wants reassurance that we are indeed still here, that just b/c she cannot see us does not mean we have left her hurtling through space alone in this metal box. So we indulge her. We reach back and sit with our arm straining awkwardly against the seat until both she and our arm have fallen asleep. It’s peaceful and full of moments that will forever remain with me, moments of connection. I hope that she reaches for my hand for as long as I live, and I hope that no matter how uncomfortable it makes me, I see her reaching and indulge her. It reminds me of mercy, the mercy I seek from a God reaching down to me, seeing me in my longing and indulging my wandering soul with compassion.

We left West Liberty, my hometown, on Monday morning and headed west. Finally pointing in the direction of home we worked our way across the state of Iowa to arrive at my aunt’s farm in the western part of the state. It’s a family farm from her husband’s family and her son and grandsons still farm the land. Warm air smelling of hogs, fresh cut grass, and hard work mixed with the sunshine to greet us as we pulled up her drive. She has a lovely, well kept farm house and my cousin and his family live across the road in their own home to create a wonderful mixture of separate lives, combined with a life of togetherness. My cousin and his sons are your quintessential Iowa farm boys. Polite, intelligent, well raised boys, well now they are almost all men, that reach over 6 foot tall in height they come across as all American boys. The eldest plays football at Buena Vista University, a few miles from home. The second will be joining him there, but on the baseball team instead. The youngest is about to embark upon junior high. They played with the kids as I had played with them when they were the age of my kids. Our little guy had a wonderful time goofing off with them and was so sad to leave only a day later. We saw a large collection of stuffed, taxidermy style, animals that the eldest boy had helped bring to BVU’s biology department. They had been donated by a museum from some tiny Iowan town where the gentleman had received deceased animals from the Omaha Zoo and then preserved them. The collection encompassed African animals to North American animals all lining the halls of this small university. A giraffe skeleton and an elephant one caught our attention in the span of space they took up. I have been lucky enough to see many of the African animals when we went on safari in Tanzania in college, but most of the animals we will never get this close to and to stand next to one and imagine the immense size and potential power of it is amazing. I’m not sure the little kids really understood it, but I was thoroughly impressed.

We left the farm that afternoon after a few gator rides and some good catching up conversation. As we drove away our four year old expressed for the first time that he wanted a dog, just like theirs, I’m thinking with the right space and dog it might be just the thing a little boy needs. The visit, as it always is, was too short leaving me wishing I had more time to get to know this part of my family.