Losing my Marbles

I asked my people not to get me a Mother’s Day gift this year. I was not wanting to really celebrate Mother’s Day, this first one without my mother. I wanted to ignore the day altogether. I wanted to wake up and pretend that it was just a regular Sunday, yell at my family to hurry and get in the car for church, pray that we did not get a speeding ticket on the way to church, get out of the car and pretend that I had not just screamed and yelled at my children for the past 1/2 hour, and then argue about where to get after church lunch. I don’t usually get my way. As it would be, my brother and his wife decided to have their baby dedicated to the church on Mother’s Day. Because my mother lived a faith filled life, it was the perfect day to celebrate her and her much loved first granddaughter. My boys (all 3 of them) didn’t listen about the no gift thing either. They purchased me an extremely special locket that I will cherish like no other. As the day was winding down, Rosebro1 texted me (yes...the 21st century) to come to his room. He had a gift for me. He handed me a jar filled with marbles. 208 marbles to be exact. I’m realizing every single day how much he is like me.  He had read something in his daily devotional about Moms losing their marbles. He told me that he knew he and Rosebro2 (and if he were telling the truth...their Dad) make me lose my marbles most days. He said that I would get them back and he handed me a second container that was empty. He told me that each of the 208 marbles represented the number of weeks I had left with him until he graduates from high school and each week I was to take one marble out of the full jar and put it in the empty jar. When he graduated, I was to receive all my marbles back. The weight of the jar had been burdensome until he told me that. At that moment the jar seemed almost empty and light not because I was soon to be free of him, but because I realized what little time, influence, and guarding I have left with him. My weeks-my days- are numbered with my children. Painful, yet sometimes exciting, thoughts. Rosebro1 was trying to be funny-and I allowed him that. It was later that I cried (sobbed really) and realized that I may be doing an okay job with him after all, but how I wished I had more marbles to give away. When I remember that my days are numbered, it reminds me to make the most out of every day-every moment. I remember to leave the paper work on the desk until the next day, help with homework, to play basketball in the driveway rather than watch TV, plan mom/son dates, go to church as a family, stop stressing so much, eat our meals together, and continue to tuck them in at night. 

As I contemplated my marbles, I thought of our marble losing at school. The last two weeks of school feel like an eternity. They are hard. We have so much to do, the kids are on shutdown mode, and we’ve had a full MOON for goodness sakes! But our marbles are so limited with our students. Our time really is so short. 180 days seems like an eternity in August when your new students don’t yet understand your rules, routines, and procedures and appear to be miles away from where you want them. But 180 days in May seems to have flown by faster than a jet and all we intended to accomplish didn’t happen. So few marbles to give away. Do we intentionally plan to give them away by giving all we have every single day? Or do we stress over the amount of work we have left to do and give them away by being less than our best in order to just make it through the day. If we are going to lose our marbles-and it is bound to happen– should not those marbles matter?