Every couple of days I pack up the computer and head to McD’s for some quality WIFI time, catching up on reading my favorite blogs as I sip coffee and upload the latest pics for my Flickr page. My first stops are always Amy’s and DK’s blogs and Flickr pages before I start in on my blogging buddies whose words have come to mean so much to me over time. Most make me laugh as I read the words… some make me think and feel… one in particular never fails to make me do both.

The RunaMuck… precious Amber…her husband Seth and 3 boys… whose words, unconditional love and friendship have reached out to touch and minister to my heart more deeply than I could possibly imagine. Since the beginnings of the Mother Letter Project they have been a blessing in my life.

Yesterday morning I chose to start with RunaMuck first. As I read this post, I sat with tears rolling down my cheeks. Her observations of a grandmother and her rather “unorthodox” grandson, the incredible unconditional love between the two of them, and her realizations that you can’t and shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover rocked my heart. I am guilty of the same thing quite often… as humans we all are. I packed up to head back to the camper, my heart and head full of her words, vowing to remember what had touched me that day reading her post, not realizing that they would come back full force to become very personal in a few hours.

Being campground hosts, Joker and I meet people of all shapes, colors, sizes and walks of life. As the summer progresses, we see a lot of the same people come back every few weeks (and often every weekend) to camp… most are wonderful people yet there are some that will set your teeth on edge every time they appear and it is hard not to reach some (probably often) unjustified conclusions about them.

Such has been the case with a couple that Joker and I had dubbed “Dennis the Menace”. They come to the campground every other week and stay for a week at a time, ALWAYS parking in the site directly behind us. When they come in they bring the world… extra refrigerators, ovens, screen shelters, chairs, yard games… which takes them almost a full day to haul in and another full day to pack up leading us to wonder if it’s really worth all that effort despite the fact that they live only a short distance away. He often wanders around with a slightly goofy smile on his face, stopping for what seems to be hours telling the most incredibly awful jokes. She has one of those loud, rough, gravelly voices that carries for miles and can often be what people would consider obnoxious, making it a point to know everything that is going on with everyone in the campground. There isn’t a week that goes by as they leave that they stop by to say “see ya later” with the question of “Ya gonna miss us?” They are people who place themselves in your life whether you think you want them there or not, much like puppies or small children who attach themselves to your leg leading you to want to shake them off after a time.

In the course of the season so far, it stands to reason that they have been aware of the hours we work, Joker’s surgery, and the struggles we’ve been facing. Two weeks ago I came back to the camper for the night after being at the hospital all day and into the evening with Joker during surgery. I was looking forward to the time to decompress with the dogs and just be with myself and my thoughts that night before getting up the next morning to bring him home. Lo and behold what did I see as I pulled into the camper??? Yup! You got it… and in their favorite spot behind us too!

Hoping I wouldn’t offend them when they stopped by to see how Joker’s surgery had gone (for they had remembered that it was to be that day), I gave them the short version and then asked that they understand that I needed the alone time to decompress so I was going to cut the conversation short. “Don’t you think a thing about it honey cuz I know just how that goes. We’ll see you tomorrow”. And off they went with smiles on their faces.

I got Joker settled in at home the next day and headed out to start writing permits for the campers that were coming in. When we work evenings or weekends it’s often difficult to get a decent supper fixed at a decent time so we often grab what we can as we work and eat in between writing permits. Sometimes we don’t even get to eat until just before we go to bed. So it surprised us when we heard that gravelly voice coming around the camper loudly proclaiming “SUPPERTIME”! Plates of roast beef, potatoes, cabbage, and carrots were placed in front of us with the stern admonition to eat despite our protests of “you didn’t have to do this but thank you so much” And they stood over us beaming from ear to ear until we dug into the feast, then leaving us to our supper and beaming even more when I took washed dishes over to them with our thanks. There were no more suppers that weekend – not for lack of their offering but because we were busy with other plans and away from the campground when our hours were over. Just like clockwork as they left came the question… “gonna miss us”? And the usual polite answer… “well of course we will” as we watched them pull out, not thinking much of it after that.

Back they came the last weekend, choosing to brave the crazy July 4th weekend in the camper and landing…. you got it… in the spot behind us! Since we worked evenings all weekend, we were TOLD I would not be cooking all weekend… I do too much as it is in their opinion to even worry about that. The weekend was a procession of feasts… roast and pork steaks and chicken with all the accompaniments. Their trips to the produce stand outside of town yielded delicious sweet corn and peaches that were shared for snacks. All shared and served with smiles.

As they were leaving, we both thanked them for the weekend feasts… telling them that it certainly isn’t anything we expect them to do. In response we were told that they love doing it and that it makes her feel good to be able to do something like that for us. As she gave me a hug, I heard “Love youse”, then… “Ya gonna miss us?” Joker and I both admitted to each other later that we kinda would, though still a bit uncomfortable about it all because neither of us is used to many people in our lives who do things “just because”.

Yesterday I read Amber’s post… and last night it all came home.

As we wrote permits for the onslaught of campers last night, I spied a shiny square parcel being slid into the sideline of my vision. We looked up to see two beaming faces proclaiming “We wanted to bring you lasagna”. The usual “You didn’t need to do that but thank you” brought the answer “We wanted to… we love youse two”. We sat together for an hour, eating and talking and laughing until they left, having ourselves a fine time and a grand old reality check for Joker and I.

For we saw God’s face last night, personified in books who’s covers didn’t look like we’d normally want to read. We’d missed it earlier.

We both talked about how mistaken we were and how we WOULD miss them until we saw them again… not because of what they feed our bodies but because of what they feed our hearts.

We love youse guys too!

Thank you Amber for the reminder.  Thank you God for showing us!