Saying Goodbye

Listening to the fog horns - so you can imagine what the weather is like…again, drinking my morning tea to soothe yet another sore throat and writing and enjoying the pink eye I woke up with.  If it sounds like a mixture of pleasure and irritation, that would be about right.  It pretty much sums up our trip.

Our very last day in Seldovia.  We had spent the day before getting ourselves mostly packed up and ready.  Showers for everyone, laundry done and put away.   The boys all tried for one last go at the lagoon that morning while the girls and I cleaned out the van, finished the laundry, and downloaded entertainment on our devices at the library.  I wanted to spend our last evening with Glenn and we also invited Rob and Feliz - two old friends from our Seldovia days that have summer homes up here.  Feliz and his family live in Albequerque, NM and Rob heads to Phoenix for a few of the winter months.  They also attend the Island Church with us and we have had a lot of fun in the past together, playing games, swapping stories and helping each other out on this side of the bay.

We had one last, long conversation with Glenn before we left.  He’s always been somewhat of a spiritual mentor for us, Tim especially, as he keeps up with Glenn during the year.  His advice always points us to Jesus and keeping our focus on the eternal rather than the temporary on earth.  Tough for us humans to do.

I had packed as much as I could Wednesday so that we could maximize our time with the Daigles on our last day.  Thursday we were able to meet them at 10am at the dock for a few hours of Daigle fun.

Ann always has something up her sleeve and today was no exception.  The first on the menu was the Stumpt Game. Each person stands on a stump opposite the other holding a line between them.  The first person to jerk the other person off their stump wins.  We did several rounds of that before we migrated to the swings and another game of Can Jam.

Naomi invited me down to her house for a cup of tea while she laid the boys down for a nap and I headed down with her.  It has been soooo nice to get to know this sweet woman.  Simeon is almost the exact age of my youngest brother and he is probably the one I got to know the best out of the Daigle kids (he’s the oldest of 4).  We left the summer he and Naomi got married and missed the wedding. 

It has been an incredible blessing to come back and find him almost unchanged but now with a beautiful wife and three sweet little boys.  Simeon is still his old self - easy-going, always with a smile and a kind word, and ready for fun and a good conversation whenever he can work it between fishing.  I always liked him.  Naomi is his perfect counterpart, with kindness to match his own and a spirit gentle enough to quiet three rambunctious boys but adventurous enough to meet them in their enthusiasm for life and fish alongside her husband.  She asked me what I thought was the best thing about a big family and I didn’t have enough of a chance to really answer her but now I’ve had a chance to think about it a bit. A big family is full of fun and chaos.  It is full of extremes.  At one moment we are thrilled at an adorable moment with a toddler and the next in a fiery disagreement with a teenager  Our home is never dull and always full of life.  There are days that I both wonder how I’m ever going to be successful as a parent spread so thin and then couldn’t possibly imagine life without a teenager to have a heart to heart while I bounce a baby on my hip.  The pleasures are so varied, the work never done, the solitude nonexistent, but I wouldn’t change it for a second.  I said I would never have more than 4 and now there are days I find myself wishing for just one more… If there is anything I love the most about a big family is that it keeps my life varied and interesting and full of surprises.  You might have guessed by now that I have a heart for a little adventure now and then and honestly, having a big family was one way to do that.  I also enjoy going against the grain a bit and having a lot of kids is one of those things - moving to Alaska, running a small farm, homeschooling my kids, being a Christian.  If it’s something that is a little atypical, I’m all about it.  Maybe nothing super revolutionary but enough to keep from feeling mainstream and too “normal”.  My oldest, Abbey, has such an extreme measure of this in her own self that we often butt heads over things she thinks are too common and unnecessary and I think are just basics (ie: putting on nice clothes to go to church and such.)

Anyway, we had a quiet tea time and I was summoned back up to Ann’s for lunch.  There I was met with a sweet little surprise party thrown by Ann and the kids.  They had taken my tea time to make a few cards for me and Ann had made a cake.  I walked in to the tune of “Happy Birthday” and was warmed by their artwork and birthday wishes. Trust Ann to pull this off - she was always throwing together little things like this for as long as I can remember.  Her desire to love on people and make them feel special is enormous. I’ve never met the like.

We enjoyed the impromptu party until the guys came in from fishing.  Then it was off to take Tim back to get on the ferry and to hustle the rest of us off to Homer with Pat.  I was trying to bite back tears but it wasn’t helping that Moriah was sobbing her little heart out on Caleb’s shoulder.  Then Hannah started sniffling.  Sitting at the table eating cake a little while ago Pat had said, “It’s a little strange having you back after all these years.  In some ways it’s like you never left.”  And he was right  - it was exactly how I had felt since that first Sunday.  When we had planned to come back to Seldovia for a visit, I had only wanted to stay for a week at the most.  It had been 10 years and that is a long time.  My children were little when we left, they don’t remember anyone and no one really knows them as people.  People move on when you leave a place.  Make new friends, forget about you, fill that hole with something or someone else. I expected a friendly but maybe cool reception of “we no longer really know these people, but it’s good to catch up for a moment.”  It took me by surprise to be engulfed back into their lives like we were still a part of their family.  Because we had truly lived life here with them.  Years of being across the bay and needing help from the other side - groceries and other supplies brought over, rides across the bay, we spent many a night at their house in Homer.  There is something about spending a night in someone’s house that really draws you closer.  Anyway, I was emotionally attached again and that was what I had been afraid of - the sadness of leaving them again, never knowing when the next time might be.  Life is full of meetings and partings, didn’t some famous person once say?  I suppose it’s true.

The fog that had laid on the water since morning was still heavy.  Our original plan for a picnic on Grass Island that day had been cancelled because of it.  Thankfully there is GPS on the big boat and so making the trek across the 16 miles of water was not a big deal.  He just took his time so as to be careful of any oncoming boats.  It was strange to suddenly see a boat come out of nowhere.  We peered into the cloud, looking for the 5 miles of Homer spit that should be RIGHT THERE according to the GPS. Looking, looking, slowing down the boat, then BOOM!  Houses at the end of the spit suddenly appeared.  Pat cranked it hard to the right to keep from hitting the beach front and puttered into the harbor. 

Another sad goodbye and we spent the next 20 minutes hunting for Feliz’s van I was borrowing for the evening.  I called Tim who had parked it last and he was frantic, trying to get to the ferry dock in time to “hurry up and wait…” we always said.  But he did make it in time.  And we finally found Feliz’s van. No seats in the back so I told the kids to keep their heads down as they piled into the back. We weren’t going far - basically just changing parking spots down the road a bit. 

Once we ran our errands and said our goodbyes to a few more friends this side of the bay, we met Tim at the ferry dock and prepared to head out of town.  By now it was 8pm and by the time he pumped gas, dumped the camper, filled the water, filled the tires, and I found food, it would be almost 1:30am before we would crash at his friend’s place.  We decided it made more sense to park at Randy and Bernadette’s Homer place and have dinner and go to bed.  Which is what we did.