Aching for Christmas

Last December about three days before Christmas, Sunnie, my granddaughter, brought me a game piece that was a multi-sided die with letters of the alphabet on it. When rolled or dropped one letter would be on top. Sunnie wanted to make up a game to play, so we started rolling the dice and then thinking up three words about Christmas that started with the letter we rolled. We went through several letters fairly easily, and then I rolled an A. I said "angels" and then went blank. I said, “Sunnie, I'm stumped, what begins with an A concerning Christmas?” With very little hesitation Sunnie said, “how about ache?” I wasn't sure that I heard right. "What did you say?" She replied, “You know, ache, like when you're aching for Christmas to get here.”

I had almost forgotten what it felt like when weeks seemed like months and a month seemed like an eternity. I had forgotten what it was to ache for something to come to pass. Waiting for our little girl from China is the closest I have come to that feeling in many years. I can tell from reading the blogs of the many waiting families that they are experiencing this feeling more keenly than I am. Perhaps many of the young waiting moms feel almost pregnant. Its not that I am not impatient, it is just that when you’re my age and as busy as we are, that the time flies even when something is delayed. I am starting to reach that age when we truly realize that time is THE MOST precious commodity that we have. Partly because we don’t know exactly how much we have and because it has finally become clear to us that we have a limited supply of it.

I guess it is the aspect of the limited time that we have that makes me most impatient to get our little girl. Even though we look forward to the trip to China and all that we will see, if I could have my way, she would already be here. If we could have her teleported here like in Star Trek, that would be even better because it would be faster. I expect that China will be awesome, but it’s not China that I want to see most, but the little girl waiting there for us. So, I suppose that for the first time in a long time, I am aching for something to get here.