On being needed...

While I was doing my Christmas grocery shopping the other day, stocking up on the items I would need for baking Christmas goodies, I had an overwhelming sense of missing my mama.  I thought about how much she would have liked to come over and see our new home, how she'd be happy for me that I now have the big open kitchen/dining room I always wanted.  She would smile that I no longer have to try to function in the wee little kitchen of our former home.  I wished she could come over and just sit and visit with me while I did the Christmas baking, even if she wasn't up to helping much. With the missing her, came the knowledge that, at age 58, I was needing my mama, and I wondered if I'd ever told her that.  Did I ever tell my mama that I'd never outgrow needing her?  I didn't need her help with the baking, I didn't need her for what she could do for me, I needed her for what she was to me.   I fear that in her later years, when she was the one needing my help, that I lost sight of all this.

Knowing that we're wanted is, I believe, a fundamental key to emotional health.  I'm fond of telling my grandkids, of all of the six year olds, (insert age of whatever one I happen to be talking to at the moment), in the whole wide world were lined up in a big long line and God said, pick whichever one you want as your granddaughter/grandson, I would always choose you.  But, as we age I think there comes a time when it's nice to know that we're not just wanted, but that we're still needed.  Now, obviously there's an unhealthy needing.  If my grown/independent kids still need me to pay their bills and clean up after them, that's unhealthy.  However, to know that you're a valuable and necessary part of someone's life, in the family circle, in the church, is important in my opinion.  Mama's been in heaven five years now, so I can no longer tell her that I need her, but there are a lot of people in my life that it's not too late for me to tell that they are a much wanted, much needed, important part of my life.

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