GREATER GOOD

I'm going to go out on a limb here and "suggest" that Cheetos may not be A) Nutritionally sound B) Free of additives and C) Made of actual food. However, and this is really all that matters, they ARE A) Scrumptious B) Alluring with their 'come hither' crunch and C) On sale 3 for $5, which means I MAY HAVE bought...and POSSIBLY ate...all three bags by myself. But you probably can't prove it, unless you perceive the suspicious orange tint on the end of my nose. But I'll just say it's from eating too many bottles of carrot baby food.

Course, I can fix it with almonds, people, and I am in the process of doing so, if you'll just quit questioning my intent. Yes, this brown slobber is from Hershey's kisses. But what you DON'T know is that there are almonds inside of them and I'm just doing whatever is necessary to get that goodness in me.

Sorry for the long pause~

I was just interrupted from my musings with a collect phone call from my first born son. He's in an airport in Los Angeles, waiting to climb on another plane and settle in for a 12 1/2 hour flight to Brazil. Good times await him, friends. Good, comfortable, head bobbing and leg stretching times.

And forgive me if this blog is sopping wet with angel mother tears, as I feel as if he's lost to me all over again. I didn't want to hang up the phone~even having "toll charges" running wild and threatening to tattle-tell in my brain. Funny how I didn't find his voice nearly as endearing when he lived here. Probably because it was usually demanding something...like gas for his car, or a later curfew, or for the Earth's axis to go directly through him. But now...well, now he's gone. And I would give my last bag of Cheetos and handful of chocolate coated almonds to hold him once again in my arms...and swing him in the tree swing in his summer pajamas...and run my fingers through his wispy bowl-cut hair...and listen to him talk about tools and trucks and biting baby brothers with fluffy baby-lip lisp.

But I finally did hang up the phone, with a lump in my throat and a crack in my voice as I told him to "have a wonderful mission."

Then closed my weeping eyes tightly and immediately told the only person I could think of about my sorrow...My Heavenly Father.

He knows. He gave his son up for a greater good, too.

And so I say goodbye all over again.