I think I’ve discovered the secret to feeling loved: a horde of nieces and nephews who come thundering at you when you emerge from baggage claim so that within seconds all you see is their heads and all you feel is their arms wrapping around you. Sigh. I adore those nuggets. How do you bottle up that kind of joy?
On my first morning, after the deep sleep that only comes after a 26-hour travel day, I walked out onto the Lanai with my coffee, amazed to find the Pacific Ocean a mere 20 meters from my toes. As I joined Dad and Jen and the nuggets slowly trickled out, we found ourselves watching the morning kayakers go by. Suddenly someone squealed “Whale,” and sure enough, I looked up just in time to see the tail dip back below the surface with a splash. It regaled us a few more times to many oohs and ahs, only to be followed as an encore by a pod of dolphins having a party. They jumped and spun and did that tail-dance thing that I thought was made up in cartoons. We couldn’t help ourselves; we were laughing and clapping and filming and fully present in a beautiful, joy-filled moment.
The two-and-a-half weeks with the family went by way too quickly and were so so so good. From beach-themed gingerbread house building to a surprise Anniversary Dinner for the parents to a hike through a lava tube at Volcano National Park to the candlelight service at Scott’s church to visiting the battleship U.S.S. Missouri, it was all so rich. When the parents took me to the airport, all I wanted to do was find the repeat button. Of course nothing is perfect, and there were times we needed to take breaks from one another. For my part it came on the day I lay in bed with a fever, but on the whole we never got sick of each other. No one ran away, and there were no big blow-ups. In fact, the struggle was often how we could logistically all get to the beach or the Aloha Swap or the sunrise hike. How do you fully grasp the feeling of being wanted like that?
It’s hard not to grieve for those of our students who went home for the Christmas break and didn’t get that feeling. Welcoming a person in is so simple that my nuggets could do it for me, and yet it's not a skill our society is particularly good at these days. It's always been an aim of mine that every student who walks into my office would feel seen and loved. To get a piece of candy from my candy jar, they must “pay” me with a high-five because I want at least one instance of healthy touch for them that day. Don’t get me wrong, the majority of my students come from wholesome families, but communicating the feeling of being wanted? I’m not big into resolutions, but I do believe in promptings from the Holy Spirit, so this is my area for growth in 2024.
