Leavin'

When I was in elementary school, my sister Janet was a huge John Denver fan. She'd go in her room, shut the door, put him on her little blue record player, and turn it way up.

I'm leavin' on a jet plane . . .

Janet wished she could be the one flying far, far away.

During my toddler years (the chapter of my book I'm working on now), my dad was the one thinking of leaving. He would talk for hours to his friend Dave about how the Bible says we should "leave all to follow Jesus." Both Matthew and Mark tell the story, when Jesus said to his disciples, "everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life." Dad was convinced, as early as my own bubbly toddler years, that this was his calling. Leave it all for Jesus.

When I try to divorce this idea from my emotion--when I banish thoughts of my curly yellow head and chubby baby hands, when I try not to think about how hard Mom was working to hold our family together in those troubling times, when I don't think about all that my sisters endured for the sake of Dad's callings--the irony remains.

This is The Book of Family Values? Have those people who wield the Bible Belt even read this book?

Leave All.

Love All.

Just the difference of a couple of vowels. Jesus was somehow preaching both. But as the one left behind, it sure didn't feel that way.

Jesus' next line, in both Mark and Mathew's versions of the story, was "the first will be last and the last will be first."

So those of us left behind--are we the first or the last?

But either way, though there was no question that I felt abandoned when my daddy finally left for good, in retrospect it is pretty clear that we were better off. Safer. Saner. Happier.

So . . . last-first, first-last, irony or no, I guess it's possible.

Love all.

Leave all.

But I like it better when I can have the loving without the leaving.