Kickin' & Screamin'

To begin, it’s been so long since I’ve written that I just spent longer than I want to admit getting logged on to this site. But now I’m here, and the relief and feeling of comfort I felt as soon as I found my way back told me that I need this. I’ve missed it, but so much excitement has bombarded my life over the past couple of years–I guess I pushed my blog so far back into the corner that I forgot what corner it was in. Just so far this year I have married my wonderful David, finally moved into our new home, put my old house on the market, and sent my baby girl to college. But I digress….as I’m here to share something with you all that happened to us yesterday, because within minutes of it happening, one of my first thoughts was “this is it. This is what I’ll write about.” Not only have I let the craziness of life in general get in the way of my writing, but I’ve also struggled with what to write. I’ve been writing all this time…in my head, on scraps of paper, on the notes app on my phone….just short snippets of this and that. Things I didn’t want to forget. Things important to me. But in this season on life, it all seemed personal. Private. I needed for God to slap me upside the head with something I would be busting to write about, like He used to. And yesterday, He did.

We’ve not been on the lake all summer. We just moved to the lake a few months ago, after a year of renovations, to be with my Mom and enjoy our life in a spot I’ve always called my happy place. This house has been in my life since day one. And I’ve spent the majority of every summer of my life on the lake at this very house, until this year. Every spare moment of daylight has been spent working on renovations, getting settled, painting…you name it. We would gaze down at the dock longingly throughout the summer, but turning right back to our work…talking about how wonderful next summer will be, when all this stuff is finally complete.

But yesterday, we drew the line. It was Labor Day, and we agreed to hit the dock and relax (something we’d almost forgotten how to do) for the first and probably only day before the end of summer.

We had cranked the boat a couple of times over the past few months, keeping the battery alive as it sat down there all alone. Yet it still needed a charge, which David took care of–along with gassing it up, and we were suddenly so excited for our day of relaxation on the water.

TIME OUT –as I go back to about six weeks ago. Ella had turned 18 in the spring. Since shortly after her father died, she’s said that she wanted to get her first tattoo once she was 18, and she’s known exactly what she wanted. She was 12 when she first told me of this–an I honesty figured it was just something that sounded good in her heart, after the loss of her Daddy, and I felt sure that she would forget about it, or change her mind a dozen times about what she wanted her first tattoo to be. But not once in those six, almost seven years did she waver from her plan. It was solid as stone in her heart and nothing could or would change it.

A turtle. It was a turtle. Specifically a red slider turtle. That’s what her Daddy had on his right shoulder. He loved them. He would bring his red sliders home from his classroom on holidays and for the summer, and Ella would sit in his lap as they watched them and he taught her all about them. And that’s what Ella had planned, all these years, to have tattooed on the same shoulder as her Daddy. We discussed the permanency, the pain, and her eagerness just grew stronger. So my baby girl now has her turtle. The pain made her cry. The physical pain, and the emotional pain. I cried, because I love her more than I ever thought possible.

And now we’re back–to Labor Day. Yesterday. The date happened to be September 2. Seven years to the day of our loss. Seven years to the day of Ella losing her Daddy. For Ella and I–our least favorite day of the year. She had come home from school for the long weekend, and we had talked, hugged, cried, remembered…an emotional repeat of each year before–and then we smiled and looked forward to our time on the water.

As we waited for David to crank up, and do a few final things, I looked past Ella and saw a huge turtle in the water. Not an unusual sight, we enjoyed watching it swim around a bit–knowing that once we moved the boat out of the dock, it would no doubt scare the turtle away.

We boarded the boat and backed out of the dock, and the turtle surprisingly stayed put, swimming around, diving down for a snack, then popping his head back up out of the water. David accelerated for us to head out, and the boat said “nope.” It wouldn’t go. It only idled slowly, but would turn off every time we tried to go any faster. We decided it needed to warm up after sitting all summer, and we were a bit afraid to get very far from the dock, in case it completely quit on us. So we circled. Around and around, slow loops behind our dock. We laughed at how silly we must have looked–just making very slow circles in the heat while all the boats nearby were zooming by fast, enjoying the breeze.

After our first loop or two, I saw the turtle again. Pointing it out to Ella, completely shocked that it hadn’t been scared away by us consistently driving by his play area. My entire life on that lake, any turtle I’ve ever seen would skedaddle very quickly if you approached–even on a float, much less a loud boat. A turtle sighting is usually a “look, quick!” thing–because it will be gone just a few seconds later…with no desire to hang out with humans.

This guy wasn’t leaving. He floated around, splashing and playing like a kid in the water, stopping to look at us every time we passed in our slow circles. I was tempted to jump in and see if he would stick around for me to get close, but I didn’t want to chance him leaving us. As we looped by our friend for at least the tenth time, we decided to get just a bit closer. He stopped swimming, with his feet moving just enough to keep him afloat, and he lifted his head high out of the water. Ella and I saw it at the same time. He was a red slider. He stared at us, and something in that stare brought us to tears. He was a red slider. On September 2.

The boat wouldn’t go. That boat would NOT let us leave our little cove yesterday. If it had, we wouldn’t have seen that he was a red slider. We would have given him one more look as we left the dock, and probably not thought anymore about it. But he needed to be seen. And because the boat wouldn’t go, he provided us with the best September 2 we’ve had since that day. That horrible day.

Yesterday was a great day. The boat wouldn’t go. And he was just a happy turtle playing in the water. We were hot and sweaty and didn’t get the day we planned, but God gave us something that we will never forget.

He was still there when we began walking back up the hill to the house. Holding hands with Ella–her hand felt like my tiny little girl…crying happy tears and thanking God for strange happenings that can give us peace and comfort like we never imagined.

God works in mysterious ways. Answered prayers, and prayers that we are incredibly thankful were never answered. Good times, bad times, soul-changing events, moments when we fall on our knees in desperation of His answers. And turtles.

Thank you, God, for turtles.

Now, go hug someone and tell them how much they mean to you.