{"id":448,"date":"2013-08-08T19:18:14","date_gmt":"2013-08-09T00:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/?p=448"},"modified":"2016-11-02T19:19:47","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T00:19:47","slug":"i-wish-someone-had-told-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/2013\/08\/08\/i-wish-someone-had-told-me\/","title":{"rendered":"I wish someone had told me"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wish someone had told me\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before I watched\u00a0Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont-<\/em>\u00a0that I would need Kleenex, that I would cry at the very end, that feelings that were rooted deep would rush to the top like fresh cream on milk.<\/span><\/p>\n

As we grow older we start to wonder about our own mortality. It has become real. We can be consumed by avoiding the thought that we are the oldest generation alive in our family or by dwelling on that very thing from the moment we wake till the moment we climb into bed at night.<\/span><\/p>\n

If I avoid all thoughts about aging I\u2019m fooling myself. If I dwell on all aspects of it, those thoughts will crush me. I try to keep my distance from the age issue most days but sometimes, when a movie like this expresses aging in such a touching way, those thoughts escape the shadows and come out into the day where they can be seen by me. And I have a Monty Python moment-<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Run Away! Run Away!<\/span><\/p>\n

Because I really have had a distinct dislike for what it represents-the loss of one ability or another, the increase of illness, the difficulties in communication between the old and the young. My apologies here for those of you who really love \u201cold folks\u201d and enjoy their company. My own experiences scarred me for life. Now I\u2019m facing the fact that I\u2019m teetering on the cliff of Senior Citizenship, my family might say I\u2019m already sliding down the slope.<\/span><\/p>\n

So there I sat in the dark. Alone. Watching. I got to the end of this movie that is so touching and endearing and so full of the reality of aloneness as we age and leave this world and the need for someone just to be there with us as we go. And I was fine until\u2026. The second feeling rose to the surface.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is something that I don\u2019t quite know how to come to terms with. Have you ever been so homesick that you thought your heart would break if you didn\u2019t get there in the next 24 hours? Let me explain:<\/span><\/p>\n

As a child I never lived in one town more than two years, many schools (14) are in my past. Old friends. No friends. New friends. Rinse and repeat.<\/span><\/p>\n

But there is this-<\/span><\/p>\n

This once upon a time moment in my life. I had the opportunity to go to England as a child. I went to a summer camp there and for three days before camp started we saw London. For an 11 year old it made an indelible impression.\u00a0I never thought I would see it again<\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But God is good and He knows what He\u2019s put in my heart. For our 25th\u00a0anniversary, my husband and I celebrated well. We took a 16-day trip to England. We backpacked and crammed in every possible experience we could. We figured we only had the one chance. We came home and\u00a0I never thought I would<\/em>\u00a0see it again<\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I relived every moment of those 16 days over and over. It consumed me. Homesickness had set in. Only I didn\u2019t know that was what it was until almost 2 years later when we got a bargain basement rate and went again. When I got off the plane in London the feeling was something indescribable.<\/span><\/p>\n

Until that moment I had never understood that it\u2019s the same feeling I get when I think of Heaven and all that\u2019s waiting for me there. Because I know I don\u2019t belong here.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0The last scene in the film is a view from the south side of Westminster Bridge looking back across the Thames at Big Ben. I cried. Like a baby. Because it feels like home and I\u2019m not there. {I don\u2019t even have relatives there.} And no one gets it, this longing that I have. Not even me. But God does.<\/span><\/p>\n

Disclaimer<\/em><\/strong>: I love my husband, my children, my grandchildren and I would never distance myself from them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fact:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0But even they have heard me say: \u201cIf someone came up to me and told me there was a flat in London with my name on it I\u2019d be there in a heartbeat.\u201d Not in a flash, not on the next plane, not as soon as I could pack.\u00a0 In. A. Heartbeat. \u00a0In that space between life and death, that pause between the lub and the dub. \u00a0Pretty dramatic, eh?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0The patriarchs were familiar with this intense longing:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201c<\/span><\/em><\/strong>All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.\u00a0If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were\u00a0longing for a better country<\/span>\u2014a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Hebrews 11:13-16<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0I understand what it means to long for a place and to acknowledge that I am an alien here. I do long for that Heavenly One much more than the earthly one and as I age it\u2019s so much closer. I think God gave me a heart for London so that I would truly understand the longing I have for that Better Country.<\/span><\/p>\n

London. A distant second. Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

But a city prepared for us?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By God?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Oh, Yes!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wish someone had told me\u2026. Before I watched\u00a0Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont-\u00a0that I would need Kleenex, that I would cry at the very end, that feelings that were rooted deep would rush to the top like fresh cream on milk. As we grow older we start to wonder about our own mortality. It has … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[180,114,182,183,181,184],"class_list":["post-448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-mrs-palfrey-at-the-claremont","tag-aging","tag-hebrews","tag-homesick","tag-london","tag-longing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":449,"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions\/449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsfromthehomefront.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}