A Few Shed Tears

Faith was baking buns today. I say "was". I'm not sure if she still is (or can). When she went to let the dough rise in the warm oven, it was turned up to 325. The plastic bowl melted on the racks and all the way down to the element. She noticed a burning smell and sure enough, it was the oven - or rather, the teatowel on the buns in the oven. After she was no longer panicing that the house was burning down, she calmly saved the dough and placed it in several containers with the crust on top (since it had started baking) for loaves of bread. She needed to make buns for the seminary chapel this week and 34 students will be there (plus spouses and children for some), and I won't be around Thursday because I'm helping out a friend at his workplace. We're not actually sure we should eat the bread laced (or is the word "infused"?) with plastic...

Anyway, she is now out of eggs and should likely ask our friends for some and just reimburse them later. We're out of eggs because the lunch Faith was making also required them. But she couldn't use the oven to make lunch until I got home and we together grabbed knives and spatulas. We've scraped off as much plastic as we can from the oven. The rest had to burn off. And by the time the oven was clean, Micah had to go back to school. Everyone else got other leftovers for lunch except Faith (who I trust is eating some of what she had intended to make). Wouldn't you cry?

On Tuesday Judah was a winner and went into Faith's sewing room. He smashed all of Micah's LEGO stuff. All of it. He took pieces down the hallway and distributed them throughout the trailer. It took me until today to find most of it and reassemble most of what had been destroyed by Dennis the Menace.

Just last week, Micah threw his snowpants randomly towards the winter clothes bin in the entryway. It snagged my glass Coke bottle from Mexico that Joy had brought back for me and smashed it to pieces all over the winter clothes, the floor, Judah's carseat, into Aslynn's room, all over the bin, and up the stairs into the kitchen. Coke and glass were everywhere. Judah got in trouble for it at first until we learned the truth more than an hour later from Micah. He then cleaned up part of it and I dealt with what remained: sticky goo. Washing all the winter clothes and the carseat were a real pain. It was good that last week was fairly warm!

The previous Saturday we gave Judah and Aslynn haircuts. Judah is not easy to pin down and keep focused as he has just turned three. I sat with him and Faith managed to not clip off his ears. Then Aslynn got on the stool and told us she wanted her hair cut short. Really short. It was past mid-back on her. I think Faith cut at least six inches off to give her hair that was just beyond shoulder length. Again, Faith shed a few tears.

Then there was the fateful day about three weeks ago that I walked in the door and there was glass everywhere, scattered across the floor, and the two youngest kids were cordoned off in the living room. Apparently the washing machine had spun  itself into a wall and shook the trailer until the remaining contents of the shelf above the table were destroyed. This included Faith's glass milk bottle from England, a very old Sprite bottle, and our antique glass washboard. All smashed. After the clean-up, I took down the shelf. It was a sad, sad day.

I know that these are mostly material possessions that I am speaking of and that we shouldn't be to attatched to them. But all of these items have some sentimental value to us - like Grandma Guynup's popcorn jar. Aslynn's hair will grow back. The oven will live to see another day (after I put some new bolts in the door to hold the handle on properly). We're just tired of losing things. I look forward to the day when there is no more rust and moths, when there is no death and decay and destruction. I look forward to seeing how trivial all of this was one day. We need some perspective. And that comes a lot easier the further away we are from the incident. Don't try telling us that these things aren't that important right now. We know that in our heads. We just don't feel like that in our hearts.

- Mark

PS - Faith did manage to get four batches of buns made, the laundry washed, dried, and folded, and supper prepared. Then she got sent out with some of the ladies from the seminary for a 'spa' night which really just means that they went to soak in a hottub outdoors and frosted their hair in -30 C weather. Just to add to this all, the automatic door on the van quit on me today and Faith was driving for everyone. Apparently the warning beep stopped, but the door was a beast and would not close properly. Going down the highway in the dark, the interior lights kept flickering on and off, blinding her as she drove. Of course, the door works now again this morning as she is headed into town for shopping with Judah and Aslynn. O brother!