what's next?

Dad keeps asking what's next.

It's a White Family trait. We can't help it. We're planners, we are not resters, and we always know what is next. My whole life, every time we are together, the last night consists of calendars and late conversations, because until we know when we're going to be together again, we can't head back out there.

What's next Dad wants to know. What do I do now? What are we waiting for? he keeps asking Matt. 

It's proving hard to plan on heaven, at least not the way we all like to...and what is he supposed to be doing? What are we all supposed to be doing? And how are we supposed to be doing it well when all our hearts are around a little hospital bed in a dark room, inhaling sadness and exhaling prayers, inhaling suffering and exhaling hope?

So I took Nora for surgery, Emma and I, because that was next. What grace they allowed me to take the baby. What wrestling, attending to Nora and nurses two days and all night while battling a 7 month old to stay off the floor and to sleep in my arms between nurses and Nora crying. 

All went well, though she is a sore little thing. She was throwing up all night, so we had to stay all day as well to make sure it wasn't an indication of a complication, but after mashed potatoes and cornflakes today, we got home at 5:45 and got her medicated and fed and showered and OUT.

Hannah...Holly...Brooke...Bex....Susan, many were the women tucking kiddos into beds and doing the school runs and math homework. I have needed a lifetime worth of help this past six months, and mighty women have surrounded every need.  Better yet, mighty brothers and sisters have lifted up Nora, the kids, Matt and I, our family, again and again and I am grateful.

I am grateful Nora's final surgery is behind us. She has two weeks to recover and a final checkup and three good incisions to heal.  Little tough nut never wants to go to the hospital again, but how brave she was as they wheeled her away yesterday, strangers in a strange place for an unsettling surgery, fighting off every tear.  

As Nora went into surgery, Dad went into next stages...unable to swallow, unable to continue his meds. All the hospice care and medications changed, and today as we were discharged, Dad was admitted into a hospice facility...Matt sleeping beside him tonight in a hospital chair as I did next to Nora and Emma last night.

What's next? is a hard one to swallow. How are you? an impossible question. When will Matt be home? the dear ones want to know, and I don't have anything to tell them except that all the ways we are missing dad, and give him freely to carrying and shepherding Grumpa, we are loving Grumpa well....the one things we all so deeply desire to do.

I slept about 16 crooked minutes last night and am heading to bed, because what's next is two girls off to school at 7:15, Ben at 8:30 and three more to homeschool and a baby full off schedule. What's next is a harder day for dad, each one following the other.

When we'll be together again, I do not know, except we will...and won't quit planning on it until it happens.

What's next Matt tells him, is more of Jesus than he's ever known...more joy eternal than he has ever imagined. Whatever he has always thought of God, He Is MORE, and that is next, for dad. That is next.