It's Part of the Life

Father and Celeste at the hospital!

     “If you’re sad, play us a song,” Celeste says, swinging on our porch swing in the evening heat.

          

     I fumble, “No, I can’t! I don’t any songs by heart.” I realize that this isn’t exactly true, but being put on the spot makes my brain stop working…

     

     “You don’t know any?! What about… oh be careful little eyes what you see…” Celeste sings in English.

               

     “Well, I do know that one but that’s a children’s song. Ah, I have an idea just hold on a moment!” I say as I rush into my house. I find my mandolin and walk back outside.

                

     “Ah, you have a mandolin! Our choir doesn’t need to accompanied by a piano if you have that!” Celeste exclaims.

               

     “Well, I don’t want to play in front of the whole church, I can sing but I don’t want to play. I don’t mind playing for ya’ll. You’re my friends,” I explain to Lila and Celeste.

               

     I pluck the starting chords of a Kat Edmonson song, if you haven’t heard her work, it’s great. I sing it although it’s rough, I was nervous and I’ve never been good at performing solo.

               

     For the longest time, I didn’t understand fully why Congolese culture put so much importance on music, but Thursday night it finally clicked into place. Music can be so many things: it can be a way of expressing what you feel, it can be a way to turn off your brain, it’s a getaway, it’s a simple but wonderful gift, it’s a way of worship and it’s the perfect way to communicate and connect. Thursday night it was a goodbye gift from me to my friends. The song didn’t catch all that I was feeling, but it’s a pretty song and one that I wanted to share.

               

Lilas preparing and teaching me how to make Congolese food!

     It’s those words, “You’re my friends” that makes leaving on Tuesday morning so hard. Lila and Celeste are my two best friends here in Vanga. It was only two weeks ago that the three of us started to spend quality time with each other. I only truly got to know Celeste 2 weeks ago, but I’ve been friends with Lilas for ages and I am so thankful for that. (Here's the post I wrote about her when we first met: http://nancytheblog.blogspot.com/2015/09/when-lonely-meet.html) We’ve had movie nights, we’ve cooked and eaten together, we sing all the time, and just laugh so hard, like tears rolling down our faces laughing. I have been so blessed.

                

     

The goodbyes this time are especially hard because I don’t know when I’ll be back in Congo. It could be at Christmas, it could be in a year, it could be in several years. In the past, I’ve known when I was coming back. Isn’t that so true? The unknown is so much scarier, so much harder to deal with and I for one don’t like it especially when it involves people I love. Vanga has truly become home to me. I have so many people looking out for me, from our household workers to hospital staff to my friends in the Caisse to my best friends to the missionaries and my family. It’s hard to leave so many good people behind. As a missionary friend said to me last year at New Years, “Goodbyes are part of the life we’ve chosen.” It’s true, so very true. Part of my heart will be left here in Congo, part of it is in France and parts of it are scattered in the States. Goodbyes are hard and even as I get better at them there’s still pain that comes with it. As Winnie the Pooh puts it, “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

A House of Memories, Not a Home of Family

        Have you ever felt stuck? I don’t mean the kind of stuck like being stuck underneath the bed, although I’ve been there totally, I’m talking about being stuck emotionally. The trapped confusion between different contradicting emotions. Walking through a house can do that for me, specifically our past missionary partners, the Potters house. Today was one of the days I had to brave walking around in the shell of their home. A feeling of desertion flows through me, memories flash in my mind. There’s the rocking chair where I held tiny newborn Zachary the day he was born, where I fed him his bottle. That’s where Sydney and I would read books together, where I would protect her from the big, scary storms outside. I smile, they are good memories, they are ones I treasure greatly. I see that the collection of children’s books are mostly gone though and reality settles back in. I turn away. The rest of house is the same way, memories of good, joyful times and the hard reality that they’re will be no more memories made here with the Potters. Don’t get me wrong I am so thankful for these memories, so glad to have the time I did with the Potters. I think I have finally accepted the fact that the Potters may never set foot in Vanga again, they may never visit, they may never live here or move back. It makes me sad, I would love them to be here with us, with my family. Everyone misses them. I understand though that it may never come to be and as hard as that is, I am okay with that. I truly felt that calmness of acceptance as I walked through their house today. That house is full of memories that I don’t want to lose. I will see the Potters again soon, I will be in Togo with them and my mother in a month. I am very excited to see all of them again and make new, wonderful memories. But right now when I am in the Potters house I feel stuck. Stuck between being excited for the future memories to be made in Togo, the past memories that will be forever stuck in that house but never relived, the acceptance of them potentially never coming back to Vanga, the sadness, the grief, the thankfulness. It’s a hard place to be and a very peculiar one too.