Seventeen Days

It's 10:02 pm, and the tears keep coming. I haven't seen so many tears in our house since The Russell's moved to England. I actually thought we had made it to the end. We took the Haggard boys to dinner, because we wanted to have some company. Holly fell asleep after telling the kids goodnight, and I sat with them in the Colonel's room talking about our favorite times with Paul and David, and about the chances that we may see the little rascals again. The hope that we may someday connect again seemed to dull the ache enough for all of them, and they fell asleep.

So I snuck out of the room and decided to grab some cereal, as I had passed on hot dogs at Wienerschnitzel. I opened the fridge to grab some milk and saw this...

Clayton had decided, evidently, on returning from the airport, to write their names on a Sunny D (Paul's drink of choice) and on the jug of chocolate milk (David's favorite). He must have thought this would be a way of keeping them with us in their absence, at least until the drinks were finished (or the milk spoiled). Seeing the bottles was enough to make me hear their Korean accents as they each would ask for their drink... and this in turn was enough to turn on my tears again.

Two or three times today I have thought of Jon Foreman's words in Switchfoot's song, Yet, "If it doesn't break your heart it isn't love". We have five broken hearts in this house tonight. Thankfully, these little guys we quickly grew to love are just off on the next leg of their journey, and then they go home to their families. But our hearts hurt none the less. The crazy thing is a few years ago I would never have even let myself think it possible to love someone in less than three weeks. As a matter of fact, a few years ago, I would have made a logical reason in my head why we shouldn't host two South Korean boys for seventeen days.

My tears tonight, as you already know, come from many places. They come from a place of love and pride watching my boys welcome these guys in and then love (and play, and share, and fight) with them like brothers. They come from a renewed love for my wife watching her mother two more boys with her whole, beautiful heart. They come from an ache that says these days are fleeting, and that these seventeen days with these guys (that passed like a blink) are a clear metaphor for the years I get (God willing) with my own guys before my heart is broken again and again, and again. They also come from a nagging voice that tells me I wasted some time, grew grumpy and tired, got selfish and controlling, and let some magic slip away not quite realizing it until it was too late. And lastly, they come from a place that is just a mystery. They are tears that somehow, in all of this fragile, messy, beautiful thing called life... just cannot be held back.