Last night I was super sleepy and ready for bed on the early side (9:00 instead of my normal goal of 10:00). I had my teeth brushed, my pajamas on, and my phone off. I was looking forward to turning the lights off.
Then I heard it – a knock on my door. “But all I want to do is sleeeeeeep,” I thought.
In walked Indigo, all clean from a shower. She looked at me with her freckled face and her big eyes and said, “Mommy, would you please cut my hair?”
Inside, my heart fell. All I wanted to do was curl up in bed.
But Indigo had been wanting her hair cut for a couple of weeks now and every time she showered (so her hair was wet), I was not in the house.
So I pulled up my big girl pants (even if they were pajama bottoms) and said, “Sure, baby.”
Into the bathroom we went and 15 minutes later emerged with no more split ends.
Not five minutes later, in walked Greyden. The door was open because Indigo was talking to me, so he didn’t have to knock.
“Mom, I don’t know where you want me to plant those new pepper plants.”
By this point, it was about 9:30 and it was still light out. In fact, it doesn’t get completely dark until about 10:00 at this time of year in Indiana. So I grabbed my shoes and headed out to the garden. I showed him which cabbages needed to be harvested and how I wanted him to plant the peppers in the newly freed space and amongst the other cabbages that would be harvested in the next couple of weeks.
I also grabbed a trowel and helped him plant a few since by the time we had the cabbages out, it was quickly getting dark.
Then I headed back into the house and washed my hands and took off my sneakers.
A few minutes later, Brett walked in (my door was still open) and said, “I’m home!” She had been at Bible Study and always lets me know when she is back so I don’t worry about her. She then proceeded to catch Jim and I up on what was going on in her life.
At 10:30, I went out into the dining room to say good-night to whomever was still awake. Emery approached, kissed me on the cheek and said, “Would you read my college paper one more time before I submit it?”
With another inward sigh I grabbed the paper and red pen he handed me and read through the four-page paper, making just a few minor corrections (‘than’ instead of ‘then’ and removing a few superfluous commas).
I handed it back to him and received another kiss on the cheek. I headed back to my room, shut the door, turned off my lights and climbed into bed with a quick look at my fitbit to check the time. 11:13.
So much for going to bed early!
As Jim and I chatted, I had to laugh. It was just that morning that I wrote the blog post, “But What if I Don’t Want To?” Since then I had done quite a few things that I didn’t really want to do.
I said to Jim, “I think that’s one good definition of love – doing things for those you love even when you don’t want to do them.”
He agreed. That’s love.
What about you? What have you done (that you’d rather not have) for someone you love lately?
