bedtime for boys

Tonight as I tucked littles into beds it was just me as Huz was still on his way home. 

It just seemed like so many hands and hearts to snuggle warm against, so many half-begun conversations, skipped foot rubs and prolonged stroking of foreheads to undertake all on my own. Somehow three little hearts to love on in that quickened space of time loomed too large just for one mama.

But I did know he was on his way home. I knew Huz was coming.

It's just that one day it will be him tucking three little hearts into bed, and it won't be me on my way home, it'll be him, alone with the work, the joy, the tucking in, head stroking and foot rubs all for his own. And it made me deeply sad. Deeply deeply sad.

Maybe I was deeply sad to think that after all these many nights it will no longer be my job to do so. I think it was more the idea of him alone in the task - one we both love and linger over - but this task is joyful in the sharing it together and the talking it over after it is done, in the, 'did you hear Soul say so-and-so' or the 'how funny was it when True....'

In the sharing, we linger over these little loves given to us and somehow we make sense of it together after they are tucked in, tucked up in the mummy and daddy love we blanket around them.

I've always loved the ritual of bedtimes, with the soothing rhythm of dressing all snug and warm, layers of bedding wrapping up small limbs and over rounded tummies, and no need for an excuse to scoop in my arms the golden hair and smooth smooth of youthful skin. I love to trace the outline of noses as we quietly whisper secrets from the day, and I memorise again the minute freckles and long eyelashes that True won't let me mention.

It's a reconnection after mad busy days of school and rushing home and cancer treatments and waking up sick to my stomach that my days are ticking.

But in the routine of bed its the quiet thrum of togetherness I love. And I'm here for this. I'm here. I may not be able to do the school drop off, but thank you Jesus that I am here for this ritual of bedtime.

And when my thoughts tumble onto how it will be when I'm not here for this, it's a sadness in the deep places that stops me in my tracks. It's hard to think straight on it. How is it that the little things are really the big things, and that the boys bedtime is really not so much about bedtime but about the 'us' that is our little family. And I've seen the grace of God meet me in the very moment I have come to need it, I know that I have, and I know He is faithful to meet my boys, my big boy too in that hour. I want to touch this grace ahead of time and know what it will look like. I'm tactile. Let me feel the texture of how you will meet my boys after I have flown away Jesus. I want this so very badly. To know the grace ahead of time.

But I think I know that the grace will be there when Huz needs it, when my littles need it. When I am no longer here for the bedtime. 

Grace will meet them just as it is needed, and not a moment before.

I guess this is the moment before.

And I'm still here.