For Jubilee
Community.
Family.
Love.
In the small rural farm town of Western Colorado, family and community, is the most important thing.
I am always astounded by the ever reaching arms of family and how strong they can be. I have found that a community is just a bigger word for family; and their arms are almost sweeter, because they are not expected to reach, not known to give, but are giving from a deep well inside, that we all know, we have each others backs.
One of my jobs this spring is to be going through data collected in interview form from residents of the valley, that tell the stories of what we love best about living in this remote region of the rocky mountains. Community always comes up.
Whether it is raising funds for our soccer team, bake sales, churches, or praying for families with ailing fathers. We do that here. We take care of our own.
I recently found out that one of my favorite teachers from high school, one of my inspirations and friend, found out that their daughter who is 4, has a treacherous and in all other cases fatel, cancerous brain tumor at the base of her brain stem.
This is heart breaking.
Jubilee is no ordinary 4 year old girl - but who is ordinary at that age? - she is a sprite of a girl, blonde and beautiful with starry eyes and chubby hands.
I remember when Seth and Chelsea first found out they would be bringing her home. The glee and solidness on each of their faces as they told the story of their newly adopted baby girl and where she had come from. The rush and excitement swirled around the community and was contagious, the best kind of plague. Now, 4 years later, it's impossible to tell that she is not their own flesh and blood, so closely does she resemble her beautiful family.
When she was first new, we'd have class up at their house and take turns bouncing her and holding her, cooing at her blue, blue eyes as we learned from her papa, about the the injustices of the world and more importantly, what real people were doing about them.
My boyfriend at the time and I watched each other with her, little Jubilee, the love we already had glowing in our young eyes, growing, testing out the image of the other with a child and letting the idea of our own child, grown between us, sit with Jubilee, as I gently rocked her in my arms, smelling of milk and baby soft skin.
I don't know what to say about this turn of events. I know it hits everyone differently; one of my best friends has been hit hard, feeling anger over her overwhelm.
Others pray.
Others still don't know yet. But as each member of the valley learns about this new turn of events for little Jubilee and the Weber family, I feel it is like a lamp ignited in them, in a soldier of the community. Called to arms to care. To love and to pray for whatever the outcome will be in the coming days.
But the arms that reach out, the letters of hope and gratitude, the meals prepared and dropped off to fill their freezer, the messages on the radio, the fundraisers, the flyers, all of it is an expression of love.
The way we love our people here in this valley.
The way family loves each other.
No matter what the outcome.
We stand together to face the future, because in the face of such baffling uncertainty, standing with each other is our greatest wealth.
I am so thankful for the Weber family. For Jubilee, for Isaac, for Seth and for Chelsea.
I am thankful for the interior knowledge of love and family, of community, here, nestled between these mountains; for all the incredibly real, strong and loving people and families that inhabit my life.
Today is Sunday, morning sun creeps up the unfamiliar walls and the air is soft with Brian's breathing. Sleep still holds him. But for me, I am awake, awake to this day in March, to this intense gratitude in my heart even in the chaos of life, of love,- the tangling and untangling of families, lives and hearts, and the faith I hold inside of me; it is the best church I could ask for on this slightly somber sunday.
I am holding out my hands for work to fill them.
I find I am fearless when I am doing the work of love. Of God, of kindness.
I want to always be doing this work.
I want bodies to comfort, hands to hold, food to make and conversations to have, things to do.
To help, to heal. Even in the smallest of ways.
I am here, even in the weakest beat of my heart. I am a soldier called to arms. I want to be in the battle for the love of my people. Fiercely and without resignation.
