This week I have been shown extravagant love.
It started last Friday afternoon when My Holly Chamberlain and Sean-Martin, who had been conspiring since August to give me the surprise of my entire year, waltzed casually into my classroom and stopped my heart.
My Holly.
My Holly who said she wasn’t ever coming to Idaho when it was cold because she was a sunny beach person – and she is – and she would wait until it was a respectable temperature to visit. As it turns out, that was a big, fat fib and my kids, who were smack dab in the middle of learning how to insert in-text citations, MLA style, got a reprieve because when I finally came to my senses, I announced that we weren’t doing any more work because My Holly was here and they would just have to inform Mr. Darlinton next year that they didn’t ever learn how to do MLA citations because Holly came and derailed the rest of the afternoon.
Yep. She walked into my classroom and into my life for a whole week because Sean-Martin convinced her to stay for Thanksgiving with us. Holly wrote all about it on her blog.
My Holly.
All to myself. For a whole week. All mine.
How many times have I wished that I could put my arms around her? How I would hug her and I would squeeze her and I would call her George.
How I have agonized over the fact that I live precisely 647 miles away from her and could not be with her. To be there with her. For her. By her. Isn’t that what Hope Givers do?
And this week, I absolutely reveled in being with her and My Little Loosie Wonderpup Extraordinaire.
It was Heaven, I tell you. Heaven.
We ate and we whet our whistles – those of you who know us will know what that means – and we laughed and we did business and we solved all the world’s problems and we ate some more and laughed some more and we whet our whistles some more. So much estrogen in this house that Sean-Martin had to escape up to his man cave to enjoy a sporting event on the flat screen.
When the jokes between Daisy & Holly are so good that Sean Martin has to say, “When are you leaving???
And this afternoon I took My Holly and My Little Loosie Wonderpup Extraordinaire to the airport, and I cried and I cried and I cried. I am so sad and I am so happy. And I am so empty and I am so filled. I am so grateful for the gift of her presence, and I am so longing to have her in my life every day.
Every day.
Every.
Single.
Day.
Isn’t that the way of it? When we love someone with our whole selves, and we so easily glide through the days we are given like birds on the wind? And when they are gone, we dare not be ungrateful for the time we had together, but we humans do not know how to get rid of the ache that is left in the absence of those we love – those with whom we want to do life.
As my favorite author Dr. Gary D. Schmidt has written so eloquently and so painfully:
The days we are given are numbered. Forever is not yet, and I am jealous of those in my hometown of Las Vegas who hold a proximity to my friend – but I am also thankful for the ones who have been faithful to her and have held her the way I long to do.
I held that girl this week, believe you me, and I looked at her straight on. I held her as best I could and today she scooped up her lil’ widdo and got on an airplane and back to her life. I hugged her tightly and watched her walk into the airport terminal. And as I got back into my car with tears pouring down my cheeks that didn’t slow down for twenty miles, I realized something…
…she held me.
My Holly.
She held me.
Daisy Rain Martin is an author, speaker, advocate, and educator as well as a founding member of The Flying M-Inklings Writing Group. Her comedic memoir, Juxtaposed: Finding Sanctuary on the Outside, was Christopher Matthew’s #1 top selling book in 2012. She has a free e-book on her website for anyone who has or is currently being sexually abused called, If It’s Happened to You. Her next book, Hope Givers: Hope is Here, will be out soon. Daisy is also the Editor in Chief of RAIN Magazine, an online magazine that has been a fundraising effort for her three favorite charities and features new, up-and-coming writers. Please follow her weekly blog, SATURDAISIES, which addresses a plethora of current issues including child advocacy, all things hilarious, and matters of the heart. She would love for you to join the Rainy Dais Community by friending her on Facebook and Twitter.