Creepy Crawly Guardian

This summer a spider came to make its home outside my closet window. Not just any spider, mind you... A HUMONGOUS spider. She has a gold body with black stripes, and black legs with golden flecks sprinkled up and down them. We have loved her. I have a bench by the window, and Micah climbs up every morning to open the shutters and look out at the spider.

We have talked all about spiders. I have told her that spiders are arachnids, and that they have two body parts, unlike insects that have three body parts. I have also informed her of the differences in the number of legs between a spider and an insect. We have even been able to witness how she caught a fly in her web, only to find the fly mysteriously absent the following morning. (She's truly a humongous spider, so I'm not exaggerating when I say it only took the course of a day for the fly to be injested.) So, it has been educational, as well as a wonderful distraction for a busy two-year-old who loves to "do make-up" with Mom.

The web is absolutely incredible. It is so intricate in its design and covers an entire space between the eaves of the house, the window and the bushes. When we first saw it, Dave and I briefly considered getting rid of it. But, it occurred to us that in Mississippi in the heat of summer there are these horrible, large yellow flies... Yellow, biting flies to be precise. So, we quickly united in our adoption of the spider and decided to leave her alone. Our own personal guard spider...

Friday at school, a bee buzzed its way into my classroom. The kids managed to step on it, but it got stuck to a student's shoe, so I swooped in, tissue in hand, to remove it. Somehow, the stinger managed to poke through the Kleenex, and I got stung on the finger. Yes, I got stung by a dead bee. It wasn't too terribly bad, and I modeled semi-adult behavior by not falling to the floor grasping my finger while heaving in sobs... Which is kind of what I wanted to do. Ms. Leggett and Ms. Jordan (my dynamic teaching team) gave me lots of TLC, so I was able to struggle through the remainder of the day.

When I arrived home, Dave announced his plan to trim the azalea bushes out front. This is a chore he undertakes once a year in the fall, usually at Thanksgiving. This year, we will be in Birmingham for Thanksgiving, so he wanted to trim the bushes a little early. As we were talking, we both realized trimming the bushes would disturb our spider's home.

That night, somehow the two events weaved together in my brain to form a dream... Suddenly, I was alone in a large, grassy field when I noticed a swarm of bees coming. I was terrified, thinking of the swarms of African bees and how people had actually died from bee stings. I stood there absolutely frozen, watching the bees approach. As dreams have a tendency to make all things possible without the pesky interference of reality and possibility, my HUMONGOUS spider appeared and built an ENORMOUS web in front of me. The bees could not penetrate my spider's web. I was completely protected.

Later, it dawned on me this is how God works in my life. He is standing by watchful and ready to take an active part... To save me in an instant... To protect me from anything harmful. The bees of adversity cannot touch me because God is there, spinning His web of protection around me, ensuring I am safe. However, if I decide to get in there in an attempt to manage and control without first seeking guidance, I am apt to really screw it up. Like maybe managing and controlling the bushes? Thus, I'm sure if you drive by my house this afternoon, you will see perfectly manicured bushes, with the exception of one... The one outside my closet window where our own personal guard spider makes her home.

Peeing My Pants

Dan is shake, shake, shaking in her vest. We are in the hospital in Birmingham just vegging out and watching mindless television. She hasn't felt well today, and even began running a bit of a fever this afternoon. Generally, she is better than this after she has been on I.V. antibiotics for more than a week. I know she is frustrated. She wants to feel well. And, I want her to feel well.

I was supposed to come home today, but stayed an extra day. (That seems to be a recurring theme, since that is what happened during my last visit.) But, it's okay. I love my beautiful Dan-Dan and it is an honor to be here with her, shivering in my jacket since she keeps the room like an icebox. I love the Mom-Job. And, most of the time, we have fun together. Even in the hospital... Even with things like lung transplants, and weight gain requirements, and strange fungal infections looming over us.

But, honestly, I don't want to talk about sad CF stuff today. Sometimes I get sick to death of my own drama. I just want to take a commercial break from worrying about Dan's CF stuff, worrying about Sarah and how she is handling her sister's recent turn of events, worrying about how all of this could possibly affect Micah, considering if I am living as a faithful Child of God, and beating myself up for feeling as if I am unraveling at the seams part of the time. So, for the remainder of the time I am typing this post, typical CF fodder is off limits. Instead, I want to focus on some of the more curious and amusing aspects of this life we lead.

The other night, Mom and I were driving up to Birmingham in a torrential downpour. I mean, the water was coming down in buckets. J.R. was following behind us. (Truthfully, I had been upset earlier, so Mom didn't trust me to drive up on my own, so she was guarding me from the passenger seat.) And, I was entertaining her with funny stories about my kids at school. We were laughing, and driving slowly and carefully to navigate the weather. I could only see a few feet in front of me, until lightening flashed intermittently, briefly lighting up the highway and the surrounding woodsy tree-lines stretches of nothing that line I-65. We had planned to travel up because Dan was scheduled to have a G-tube surgery, but the surgery got cancelled and we still wanted to make the trip up to visit. So, I packed my little rolling hospital suitcase, my oversized comfy pillow, and 12 small bottles of oxygen. I packed the oxygen with the plan of giving it to Grammy and Grampy so they can bring Dan home when she is discharged from the hospital.

Now, I'm not sure if the general public is aware, but oxygen is flammable... And, those bottles are kind of dangerous. When instructed on the use of oxygen, one is taught a lot of safety rules about correct procedures for handling oxygen safely. In fact, during the training session, the words "potential missile" and "explosion" were clearly mentioned. Now, initially, it freaked me out. But, now... We're kind of pros. We just chuck those bottles in the back and move on down the road.

But, driving down the road in the torrential rain, with lightening flashing and thunder rolling, I had an acute awareness of the oxygen bottles resting in a duffle bag in the trunk of the car. And, imagine my keen, spine tingling, hair-standing-on-end experience, when a fire ball fell from the sky probably twenty-five feet to the right of the car... My little, red Jetta careening down the road with me driving and Mom in the passenger seat carrying twelve little potential missile-like projectiles with the ability to explode and kill or maim us all, and maybe even some innocent travelers navigating that same stretch of I-65 on that rainy, dreary night. Well, holy cow, Batman! That was something to consider.

I picked up the cell phone and exclaimed to my dad, J.R., "Did you see that?"

He replied, "Yep! I just peed my pants!"

And, it was a pee-your-pants kind of moment. I have never been that close to lightening in my life. It was amazing and scary and comical. Recently, I spend more time than I would care to admit thinking about life and death as it relates to me. I spend more time than I would care to admit thinking about living life as it is, and living life after the scary, miraculous lung transplant for my daughter. And, I spend more time than I would care to admit thinking about what life will hold for me if I have to go on without one of my kids. It's morbid. It's sad. And, sometimes it leaves me frozen. (And, I realize I am violating my own commercial break a little here, but I say all of this for a reason.) As that lightening bolt crashed down hilariously and dangerously close to my car filled with oxygen tanks, it became glaringly apparent that none of us have any kind of a handle on life and death. It could have been over quick as a wink, and I would have been staring at God, hands on hips, saying, "You're KIDDING me, right?!"

So, I was jerked back into the crazy reality of my life, and the almost comforting understanding that none of us is promised anything. Life is a gift. And, it is fun. And, I am ever so grateful for the moments that really make me want to pee my pants.