Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

Thisi morning is very cool (48 degrees here at 9 a.m.), sunny and peaceful.  We all had good a night’s sleep and David and I are enjoying talking and drinking coffee this morning together while the boys eat their cereal (Pirates of the Caribbean) and milk and set up "battles."  David, being the ex-military man, had to buy them some little plastic soldiers Saturday to play with and they have been having a ball with their army men all set up neatly (surpirisingly enough) all over the breakfast table.  They may only be 4 and 2, but they seem to be military stratigists already.  I guess they take after their Marine Corps dad.

We will be leaving here about 11 a.m. to take me to the airport to fly home.  I will be flying to Dallas, which is way past Mississippi, but that is American’s hub.  I have a four hour layover in Dallas, so that will be boring, but I have some Newsweeks to catch up on and can grab an early dinner somewhere (real exciting, I’m sure, like McDonald’s!).  I will arrive in Gulfport, Mississippi at 9 p.m. and hopefully won’t be late. 

David has been feeling much better since about Friday and we’ve had a good end of the week.  He took me to lunch at Outback on Saturday for Mother’s Day and we went driving around the country yesterday, going down to Front Royal, Virginia, where the Blue Ridge mountains begin to the south.  We entered Shenandoah National Park and drove up on Skyline Drive which extends for miles and miles dow the crest of the Blue Ridge all of the way to south central Virginia.  We drove about 25 miles along Skyline Drive, stopping at many of the overlooks both directions to the east and west.  There are lesser mountains and hilly country for as far as the eye can see, past valleys that are inhabited by farms.

David, being the military/history stratigist he is, gave me the entire history of the Civil War beginning with the political climate that led to the southern states seceding.  He is also very familiar (from his days at Quatnico in training to be a Marine Corps officer) with Virginia’s geography and topography and where all of the state’s Civil War battles occurred, and there were many.  Virginia is and always has been a key state in the Union.  David’s knows its history well from the time Europeans first came to this country.  In fact, this weekend the state celebrated the 400th anniversary of the settling of Jamestown, and Queen Elizabeth of England was here for that this past week. 

History plays a major role in the state’s psyche and it is evident in even the content of the local daily newspaper, the Winchester Star, which I’ve been reading every day. 

So yesterday was a good day. 

Today is shaping up to be a good one, too, and I am glad I’ve had the opportunity to be here this week.  I’ve enjoyed it very much and have loved being able to care for David and to be his "mom" once more.  Being a mom of my three kids is the greatest thing I have ever done in my life, bar none.  I would encourage all of you who are mothers out there to spend time with your kids while they are growing up and to raise them well, in the Lord.  That is what I did and I have no regrets about staying home and being a mom for years and years before I went out and worked at all or got my education.

I was very young when David was born – 18 – so that I was double his age long ago when I was only 36.  I was 36 (and very young, still, looking back) when he turned 18 and he was already in his first year at the U. S. Naval Academy.  Now looking back I realize how young I was raising my three children, but I was fiercely determined to be a good mom to them and to get to know each of them, even as children, for the "persons" they were and to help them achieve all they wanted to do to the best of their abilities.

I think I did that and I am very close to all three of them now.  I don’t always see them a lot, but we talk on the phone and I love them dearly.  So this has been a good week for me.

Pray for me as I journey home today that I’ll have a safe trip home back to Tom.  I’ve been taking pictures while I’ve been here, so will download those when I get home and will try to post some here for you later this week, if I got some good ones. 

Cheers & Blessings to you all today!  Dee