Busy Hands Passing Time

Waiting for your loved one to come home is awfully hard. Especially when there's war or peace-keeping going on in the world. It gives us cause to tear-up when nobody else does, those phone commercials about reaching out to touch someone can be excruciating, and let's not mention the what the news does to us. We have to try harder than others do to be strong, because we fight the worry and tears every day.

Keeping your hands busy while you wait is a great way to keep your mind busy. Stop trying to find things to occupy your mind - occupy your hands and your mind will follow. Even if all you do is think about the international situation while you do whatever it is, at least you'll have a focus and something productive will come of it.

At our house, we wait for my son and the girls' brother to come home. We wait for everything, his every call, his emails and infrequent letters and packages from overseas. We watch the news and I explain to the girls what's going on, or what the president was saying. We keep apprised of current events, but we don't dwell on the potential for what could happen.

We keep our hands busy with something we feel helps those overseas, and we know it helps us. It also gives us good time to discuss why we do it and why their brother is over there, and why there's a war in the first place. We make medicine bags and fill them with a little American soil and decorate them with beaded flags or red, white and blue designs. That way, every person who gets one can wear a little bit of Home next to their hearts. We can make ten a day, between the three of us, and we keep making more and sending them, every day. We also make jams and jellies in little jars to send over, and we write anyone who cares to send us a letter back. And, we make soaps and herbal shampoos and send over bath kits, too.

If anyone would like to make one of the medicine bags mentioned here, I'll give easy instructions. A medicine bag is something you hold when you pray, as it contains (or should contain) small mementos of lessons learned, needs to be met, and good medicine (good memories). It's worn around the neck or suspended from a belt or belt-loop, and is kept all your life. When it wears out, you simply make a slightly bigger bag to put it in, keeping the same original bag.

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