I was so excited this year that we raced home ahead of ice and snow to arrive safely for Christmas at Mom and Dad’s.  I know we would survive if weather or sickness kept us in KC, but I’m sure glad we made it.  I heard someone I work with tell our students that sometimes you just need to go home and remember who you are.  It fills you back up and readies you for all that is to come.  Things have been changing at such a pace that I am a bit weary.  I’m not complaining, mind you…I know life is change and it just keeps getting better and all that, but I was in need of a refill from home.  I love big…I always have.  I like to be helpful and complimentary and sometimes that overwhelms people, so then I try to edit and filter and dial down my nurturing.  Honestly?  It feels like wearing something that is too tight at times.
This Christmas I was reminded of just exactly who I am and where I am from and how I am meant to be.  We were almost done opening gifts and my daddy appeared before me with a bag and an envelope and told me to read the letter first.  Ladies and gentlemen, my daddy can write and it is always straight from his heart and it is sure to make me cry.  I’m not much for surprises and he knows this.  He is ornery…like me I guess.  I read a story about my sweet Maxee Mae (my first black pug who isn’t here anymore) and her taste for Dala Horses…specifically a Dala Horse that my dad carved.  He hadn’t given me a carving yet so he said Maxee chose my carving for me.  See?  Ornery! 
Don’t you know that I opened the box to find that carving that had been SHREDDED TO SPLINTERS completely (mostly) restored as you can see in the photo above.  He used more than one bottle of glue, tweezers, needles, and surely more than one prayer through trial and error to actually fit it all back together again.  I believe he can do it.  My daddy can do anything…anything at all.  This amazing restoration, his time, his words…it is all amazing.  It isn’t even the greatest gift.  Here it is…when his baby girl is a bit out of sorts with growing and changing, he knows just the thing to remind her of this parachute of big love that she is never without, that nothing is impossible, and that who I am and where I am from is big and powerful love that is not meant to be filtered…not a bit.  The world needs more actually.
And, a little residual gift was that, for the first time in my life, I did that pretty cry where tears just silently slide down your cheeks as you smile…like in the movies.  
Just like that.
Love wins.
It just does.
🙂
DZ