Heart's Desires...

If you all have read some of my previous posts... you know that I love clouds and rain and wind and a good storm makes me want to run around outside and play in the mud puddles... get soaked... then just sit out in the yard and watch it all... kind of like being touched by God... in a wet sort of way!!!

You also might already know that I hate being hot. A fat lady like me...(who would hate being hot as a skinny lady)... really enjoys cool weather. The past week we have had dry heat in the upper 90's. YUCK!!! My friend, Thelma, always asks me when we have a good storm... "Did you pray for this again?" I usually reply... "Oh prolly!" (with a sheepish grin slathered across my face).

Well... today... I woke up to those glorious strokes of shaded grays blanketing the summer sky!!! Today... is an awesome day! It is about 70 degrees! It rained a little. Everything smells... SO GOOD!

Hey... what can I say? Someone has to like the rain... right? I know people that despise the rainy days. They want full on hot sunshine. There is nothing wrong with that... if you are in somewhere where it is airconditioned! 5 days of solid heat... is well worth having a couple days of glorious grays! Kind of like God... is sketching with pencils!!

When we lived in Newport, Oregon... I used to love to watch a dense fog roll in. Everything would get so quiet. Like... shhhhh... look at what God made. You could feel the fog on your cheeks. You could hear the foghorn from the bay. I miss that. My family misses it too. We had such an awesome time there.

It is not that I regret moving back to Washington... but I do question sometimes. I believe that God has had a hand in our lives as to where we have lived. There is a reason we were brought back to Washington. I'm not sure what it is yet... but there is one. I was out of a job in Newport... and I have one here. Rich's original heart transplant doctors are here... and that is a comfort to him. Hannah gets to graduate next year in the schools that she started out in.

I know that Rich misses his family. He was born and raised in the southeast corner of Ohio... in a little ((and I mean little)) "village~town" called Beallsville. I say village town... because I don't even know if it is big enough to be called a town! He hasn't been "back home" for about 10 years now. The last time we went back for a visit was when Hannah was about 7 or 8. She was in his brother's wedding. She is now 17. Rich's mom has come to visit us twice in that time. Once was when he was in the hospital getting his mechanical heart pump surgery. The second time was 2 years after his transplant when we lived in Newport.

He keeps talking about how much he cannot stand all of the pine trees around here. I know what he longs for. He longs for the rolling hills of "bushy trees". He longs to see the humidity hanging like a fog over the countryside. He longs to drive down the highway along the Ohio River and see the sights from his youth. He longs to go fishing in that old man's pond... somewhere back behind his mom's house in some farmland... that I have yet to see. He longs to help his mom out with things around the house. To mow her yard...and the field across the "holler" with her big tractor mower so she doesn't have to anymore. To see Nanny before she is taken to heaven. To be an uncle to his nieces and nephews. To be a brother. To be a son. He longs to have dinner with his mom once in a while. To have iced tea on her back porch on a hot summer evening and watch the fireflies and run down over the bank of her yard and watch the evening primrose open up for the night. He longs to watch the planes at night fly over the sky.... there are a gozillian of them because she is under a major air traffic area. He wants to go to the "Fish Market" in Wheeling, West Virginia and get the best tasting fish sandwich thrown to you in a brown paper bag! (kind of an odd thing... but they are good!!) He longs to stick his feet in the creekbeds that trickle through the hills. He longs to drive the long and winding roads that buckle from having tunnels of old coal mines deep below their surface. He longs... to spend Christmases with his family. He has not spent Christmas with his mother since he was about 18. He is 41 now.

I am not completely sure... but I think my heart is telling me that sometime... we may be moving eastward. There are other Supercenter Walmarts around there... I am sure I would be able to transfer. I have asked Rich... when he stares off across the valley... which faces towards the east... "Where would you pick to live if we ever moved again?" He quietly looks off to the east and says... "My home is with you." I ask him if he missed Newport, Oregon. He says "Yes... some things." I ask him if he is happy being back here in Washington. He says, "I am glad you have a good job here that we needed. And my doctors are here." I agree with those two things... but there is something else there that he is thinking... I know it... I can feel it.

We lived here before... because my mama was still alive. He wanted me to be near her. He gave up spending his life with his family... by his choice... so that I could be around mine. Then he got sick... and we are both thankful that he had such awesome doctors to take care of all the things he needed for so many years. Then, we chose as a family, to move to Oregon for a fresh start together... which we all loved... ((but was a huge dream for me because of my love for the ocean)). Here is my dilemma... and I know that I shouldn't think of things this way... but... Rich isn't going to be around forever. ((I know... I know... we could all wake up tomorrow and not wake up))... but... don't you think it would be fair... to be able to spend some time with Rich's family... while he... and they...are still around? Don't you think I should pray about it? My heart feels kind of like I need to get him there. I am uncertain about it all. And... I hate the thought of moving again... but... ???

I'm in need of scripture. Been searching the bible. Been searching my heart. Will be praying.