Last night, I jumped on the computer to check out the weather predictions for West Virginia over the next week so I'd know how to pack. From our home page, Don has the weather report to Warrington, UK, as well.
After I looked up the temps at my in-law's, I scrolled down to Warrington and looked at a 7-day forecast. It's going to be getting down to 34. Don walked into the den and I looked at him with weepy eyes.
"I miss England so much, honey. It's going to be 34 there - cool weather. I miss my friends and the smells and the rain, and everything about it."
"I know," he responded. "I've been watching the weather there myself."
It's just this - everything there for us was good. I'm sure, if we lived there, we'd have some bad times and may even find we didn't like England if we lived there long-term. But we didn't live there long-term and our 3 months filled us with nothing but good things. Our family grew closer, we fell in love with the people and the land, and we made deep friendships. We had a mountaintop experience for 3 months, and it's hard to give that up.
As I sit here now, remembering, I'm choked up. I miss the church bells. I miss Kim, Anne, and Monika. For dinner tonight, Dane did the cooking as one of his requirements for Cub Scouts. We planned tortellini with creamed marinara sauce and a vegetable. He chose brussel sprouts. As we ate, we remembered England - Miss Jane at Salinger's Restaurant at the Village Hotel in Warrington (where we first ate tortellini with a cream marinara sauce, and loved it so much it's a regular addition to our menu), the hardware store in Culcheth by the Butcher's where there were baskets out front filled with stalks full of brussel sprouts ( we'd never seen sprouts on the stalk before; apparently, that's how they grow and we never tired of seeing them), and Lee at the grocery store who was the one who always got stuck helping us Americans find what we needed - we got to know him very well. Deanna misses Lucy and Meg and the cool weather and the cul-de-sac, and the bus drivers who were so kind to us, and the daily walks. Dane misses George, Lewis, and Lucy and the grocery store, Sainsbury's. He loved walking to the grocery store and home again and misses the time with his family. Daelyn's memory is already starting to fade. We tried hard to help him remember Jane and the other things we missed, but they're already fuzzy to him.
Monika, if you read this, tell Jane how much we miss her. And you and Chris, how about coming to visit. Kim and Kevin are planning a trip next March. I don't know how I can wait that long. We've only been home a little over a month and I ache for my friends and the land we came to love.
As we go into Holy Week, I'm trying to remember to lift this all up to the Lord - to thank Him for the tremendous gift He gave us and to recognize that the emptiness I feel sometimes is a poignant reminder of His sacrifice for us.
I keep expecting life to get back to normal, but it doesn't seem to happen. We long for England, long for all the things we remember the most. When we talk about it, it gets very quiet around the dinner table, each of us lost in our own deep thoughts.
A somber, grey Post today - just how I'm feeling right now.
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