Life Archives - Kristen Anne Glover

The Happiest Place on Earth

The happiest place on earth

A surprise is brewing here in the Glover house. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime blow-your-mind surprise for the children.

And they have no idea. If you’re the kind of person who can’t keep a secret, just stop reading right now. You’ve got to keep it in until Monday. If you can do that, then raise your right hand. Take the oath of silence. Got it? Okay. Proceed.

It all started a few weeks ago when my mother-in-law called to tell us that Jeff’s aunt and uncle wanted to take the three older children to Disneyland for the week. They were going to bring Nana along too, just to make sure the kids were comfortable since Uncle Fred and Aunt LaVonne are twice-a-year relatives and the kids might feel better going to California with someone they know better. Besides, everything is better with a Nana, even Disney.

Disney! Ahhhhhhhh!

I was stunned when I heard it. Never in a million years would we be able to take our children to Disneyland. Maybe if we were stationed in California we could take the kids there for a day, but to fly? And to stay for days on end? That was out of the question. It’s one of the realities of having five children. Some things should not even be wished for.

But that is not the way Uncle Fred and Aunt LaVonne think. They have always had hearts big enough for crazy wishes, and even though they have grandchildren of their own to spoil and love on, they have hearts big enough for a few more. Even five more.

But all five children were not going to Disney, only three. I hung up the phone and let that thought sink in. Only three children would be going to Disney, three children when all five were old enough to know what was going on and what was being left out.

I went to bed that night but I couldn’t sleep. What a beautiful gift we had been given. It was so beautiful, it almost hurt. It hurt because all of my children couldn’t have it.

It hurt because my twins would know they were being left out, and I didn’t know how to justify that. We are the kind of family that does everything together. From dawn to dusk, my children share the same space, the same activities, the same experiences. On the rare occasions when one of them is gone, the others languish like they’ve lost a limb.

The one who is singled out doesn’t fair much better. When I took Jonathan out for his birthday, he often paused his constant chatter about birds of prey and knives and speculations about how fast he could run to sigh dramatically and say, “I wonder what The Others are doing now.”

I wonder what the others are doing now…

The twins were going to notice. They were going to feel it. And I ached for them over it.

I ached so much, I almost couldn’t let the other three go. It felt selfish and mean to hold something back from the older ones just because the little ones couldn’t have it too. How could I deny my children the experience of a lifetime? But then I thought of those boys, those sweet boys who practically can’t function without Kya, their social coordinator, and Jonathan, their wrestle-buddy, and Faith, their story-reader and horse. Yes, horse.

I put my head on Jeff’s shoulder and cried it all out.

“Life isn’t fair,” he said in his I’m-going-to-make-it-okay voice. “Sometimes, it doesn’t come out the same, and the sooner our kids can learn that, the better.”

I got that. Really. I did. We have never tried to treat our kids as equals; we have treated them as individuals with different needs and different gifts. Sometimes, that means one of them gets a new pair of shoes and the others don’t.

But this is Disney. This is not just a new pair of shoes. This is the-greatest-thing-that-happened-in-my-childhood kind of thing. This is the stuff that will cause my twins to dye their hair blue and tattoo mouse ears on their bodies when they’re twenty-three. If I ask them why they’ll say, “You never took us to Disney.”

Cut out my heart.

Run away! Run away!

“We need to let them go,” Jeff assured me.

I knew it. I just didn’t know how to live with it.

So, I’ve kept it a secret. I’ve kept it a secret and I’ve poured all my creative energies into making this epic experience even more epic. It is Epic Supersized. I am doctoring my heart by planning the most amazing surprise my older kids have even known. They have no idea where they are going. They do not know they will be spending a week with Nana. They do not know they will be flying on a plane! They do not know they will be landing in California and spending three luscious days at the Happiest Place on Earth.

Here in my little laboratory (pronounced la-BORE-uh-tory), I am crafting up a Disney storm. Wait until you see the pixie dust I’ve concocted. You will die.

Somewhere in all my plotting and scheming and crafting, it has become okay. I guess that’s one of the ways to cope when life isn’t fair: you add glitter.

The other half of my brain is planning a week of precious memories with my littlest loves. Oh, the places we will go! They will not know that their siblings are at Disney. It’s better that way, I think. They will have time enough to know it when their sisters and brother return. They don’t need to be jealous about it while they’re gone.

All they will know is that they are loved.

And isn’t that the best thing to know when life isn’t fair?

Dandelion Bouquets

“Mom! Mom! I have something for you!”

It is Jonathan, charging in to my place in the kingdom where I am wrestling with a vacuum cleaner and thinking about scrubbing toilets. He smells like outside and boasts a green smudge on his knee where his jeans used to be.

“These are for you, Mom!” he says, thrusting a beautiful bouquet of spring flowers into my hands. His fingers are grubby because he’s been collecting worms again. They match the muddy spattering of freckles that are just beginning to make their summer pilgrimage across his nose.

Jonathan smiles. “I picked them for you,” he says, using the same phrase he has used every year when the earth wakes up and flowers grow where the snow drifted deep.

The same little hands—bigger now—have picked countless bouquets, and little feet—bigger now—have run up countless steps, eager to share the breathtaking beauty with me.

This time, it is a wild assortment of dainty bluebells, snow-white camellias, restless dandelions, and one cheeky blue pansy from the flowerpot by the back deck. I notice he’s included a few specimens I’ve never seen before.

“Those are from Mrs. Smith’s yard,” he says, pointing to some flowers I hope grow profusely.

“They’re beautiful,” I say, and he nods because he knows.

“I’ll put them in a cup!” he says, grabbing the flowers back and charging out of the room.

I come down a minute later to find Jonathan with a jam jar, carefully arranging the flowers so the blue touches the yellow and the pink settles in against the white. “I like arranging flowers,” he says with a shrug, because an eight-year-old boy with a birthday in two days can’t very well say he likes arranging flowers without a shrug that says he doesn’t.

It is beautiful.

I stare at it a moment and marvel. Dandelions and bluebells, a wisp of a white-flowered weed and a pretty pink camellia, all nestle in to the same cut glass jar because they are beautiful to a boy who has not yet been told any different.

I realize I am partial to dandelion bouquets.

A bouquet like that means there is a child in my life who hasn’t been taught what beautiful is, and isn’t. It is the priceless kind, brought in by grubby-handed boys with green smears where their jeans used to be. It is the kind that is selected by sweet-smiled children who forget not to pick the neighbor’s flowers because they are filled up with the happy task of gathering all that is beautiful and bringing it in to the one who is the most beautiful to them in all the world.

A few years from now, the world will try to tell that boy what beauty is, and isn’t. But for now, I have a jam jar on the kitchen table and the dandelions and camellias are keeping company. I have a boy, two days shy of nine, who brings me beautiful flowers because he thinks I am beautiful.

For now, I have a boy who doesn’t know any different.

*100 Beautiful Days of Motherhood: 37

God Showed Up

The wind was a little wild this morning, and the clouds hung low. I peeked out from under my covers and saw a sliver of silver-gray daylight and the cedars dancing through the storm.

Today was the day God was going to show up.

We have been wandering up and down and all through this wilderness, going where we believe God has asked us to go, but the strain of it has nearly wasted me. The hills are steep and roll on one after another like waves so we can barely catch our breath on the way down before losing it again on the way back up.

Then, at what we hoped was the very end of the journey, we came to a river. We did not know there were going to be any rivers.

It was too wide to swim.

It was too deep to cross.

And we didn’t have a boat.

I stood on the shores of this great big river and I wanted to shout up to the heavens. “Why did you lead us here? We cannot cross here!”

Because it seemed a little personal, right then, when I had prickers in my socks and blisters on my toes. No one had said anything about rivers.

A few other people joined us on the shore and contemplated the water with us. “There might be a way to cross,” someone said.

My heart skipped over that little bit of hope.

“I think someone upstream has a boat.”

A little whisper came into my mind, “Have faith. God will show up.”

So we set up camp and we waited. We waited through one day, and another. It was dark in the night and it was dark in the day. I fought against the impossibility of crossing that little slip of water. Fat, salty tears dropped into the waves, and I ate too many of the frozen cream puffs someone sent over for consolation.

Surely there had to be a way! When was there not a way? For heaven’s sake, I could see the other side!

But there was no way the first day, and there was no way the second day.

This is a test of faith, I reasoned. Other people said it too, and we all nodded wisely and said faithful things and I stoked up my belief because this was going to work, this faith thing.

That is how we came to the third day. This day.

And God showed up.

But God said no.

Maybe it was a “not yet”–it’s hard to tell with God– but it wasn’t a “yes” and it certainly wasn’t a bridge or a boat or even a life vest. It wasn’t anything my faith could conjure up.

The river remained, wide and lapping at the shores. And we remained stranded with the great big wilderness behind us and the impervious waters before us and a God who said “no” and not much else.

But at least we were there with God.

And I thought to myself, on a grey day when the wind was wild and the cedars danced, that if all I have in this life is a great big wilderness and a river I can’t cross, it is enough if God is in the midst of it.

*This past week, my husband completed the long and arduous process of applying for Active Duty as an Army chaplain. His paperwork (which was lost once) was resubmitted on time. But due to a random computer error, his recruiter team was unable to submit his packet by the deadline. All attempts to fix the problem failed, even though they stayed up until 3 am working on it.

There was no boat.

But we are here at the shores of a great big river with a mighty God, and that is enough.