I will be missing you...

I will be missing you, Nana...

It had been a busy day with Matthew, Mason and Mead. Their mother was away at a training program and I was support staff during her absence. School, tutoring for Mason, homework, meals, and now it was bedtime. Bedtime with three boys is not tidy nor neat but it is full of laughter and love. Baths and shampoos are followed by pajamas and bedtime books. Matthew stays up a little later than the two youngest since his ADHD meds make it more difficult for him to wind down. Mason climbed into bed and “read” while I tucked Mead in.
I would be leaving to go home in the morning after I helped with school transportation. Mason, who has a form of autism that is focused on sensory processing issues, had been trying to deal with my leaving all day. His sad face looked up at me on the ride home from school as he said, “ You go to the farm tomorrow, Nana?” This question was repeated several times through the evening as he struggled to incorporate the information and deal with his sad feelings. As I bent down to snuggle and kiss him good night, his cheek, wet with tear tracks, undid me. He looked up at me and through eyes filled with sad love, he said, “I will be missing you, Nana.”
There are many things Mason cannot do as well as typically developing children but he has one gift that is beyond compare. He knows how to love and be loved. He lives in a world where he expects others to love him and offers his love freely to others. “They will be missing me,” he tells his mother when he is late for his school program. His self affirmations are “Barney loves me, Nana... Pop loves me, Nana... My brothers love me, Nana. Love is the center of Mason’s soul. And in a world that often does not see beneath the surface, Mason’s loving heart draws other children and adults to him.
When I lie awake at night worrying about Mason, praying for those teachers who work with him, praying for his parents who struggle to do their best for him, I remember “I will be missing you, Nana”. The Heart of God, Love Incarnate, lives in Mason’s heart. And I hear the echo of God’s voice saying “I will be missing you, Peggy” while I feel far away from Heart of God.
A new hymn written by Hal Hopson puts words to my longing. “Though I may speak with bravest fire, and have the gift to all inspire, and have not love, my words are vain as sounding brass and hopeless gain. Though I may give all I possess, and striving so my love profess, but not be given by love within, the profit soon turns strangely thin. Come, Spirit, come, our hearts control. Our spirits long to be made whole. Let inward love guide every deed. By this we worship and are freed.” Oh Dear One, make my spirit whole and grant me a loving heart. Help me see the world as Mason sees it, full of loving souls yearning to be loved and loving in return. I will be loving you, Lord even as you are loving me.