What's Missing

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder"

It's a phrase as old as time. In fact some sources trace the origin of the phrase to the words of Roman poet Propertius who was born all the way back in 50BC. Propertius wrote, "Always toward absent lovers, love's tide stronger flows." In modern times, the phrase about the heart growing fonder gets tossed around as a cliche in an attempt to gloss over and/or soothe the pain an individual may be experiencing as a result of separation from someone or something that they value deeply. Each and everyone of us has likely experienced the feelings that go along with being away from loved ones to some degree. Sometimes these separations can be prolonged and cause unimaginable pain. At other times they can simply be a nice reminder as to how much we value the person or the thing that we are currently missing. 

I had a chance to put this age old adage to the test this past weekend when I staffed the Path to Spirit Warrior training weekend and spent four days away from my wife and daughter. It was the longest I had been away from the two of them since Emma was born five and a half years ago. In Emma's lifetime, I have had the privilege of being able to spend a great deal of time with her. In the first two years of her life, my wife still worked a few evenings per week, so Emma and I got plenty of time just the two of us. Then in March of 2020 when the world as we knew it shifted in ways we never could have imagined, the three of us spent an entire year almost entirely alone and off the grid. 

By the time our world began to open up again, I had leaned fully into my coaching entrepreneurship so I have had the flexibility of schedule to be a part of school drop offs, pick ups and many other things. Overall there have been very few chances during Emma's lifetime for any of the three of us to spend enough time apart to get into extended feelings of missing each other. All of that changed this past weekend. 

When we told Emma that daddy was leaving for a few days to go on a retreat with some of the men he works with, she became quite upset. Whereas Emma normally gleefully dashes out the door to kindergarten in the morning, on the day of my departure she cried and said she didn't want to go to school because she was afraid that I wouldn't be there when she got home. Her emotions pulled at my heartstrings in many ways. Part of my heart was full of love to know that her connection with me was so strong that she didn't want me to go. Another part of my heart was broken to see her experiencing so much sadness.

On a side note, in the week leading up to my weekend away, Emma had her first loose tooth. I had a strong intuition that she might lose her first tooth while I was gone, depriving me of the opportunity to experience the first tooth fairy visit of Emma's lifetime. I am blessed in that there are so few things that I have had to miss out on in Emma's life and I was unsettled at the idea of missing anything at all. 

Most of my Warrior training weekend was spent out of contact with the outside world, but I did check in once towards the end of each day to see how my wife and daughter were doing and to find out about the progress of the loose tooth. Sure enough on Sunday morning, Emma woke up and her tooth was missing. My wife Christiana texted me a photo of Emma and her missing tooth, but the actual tooth was nowhere to be found.

Christiana surmised that Emma must have swallowed the tooth in her sleep and we both began to fret about the drama it might cause Emma to know that not only had she swallowed a tooth, but that she might not have an offering to leave for the highly anticipated and beloved tooth fairy. In the Herbert home, fairies are not just the things of mythical tales and the land of make believe. Fairies are woven into our reality and have become legendary members of our multi dimensional family. 

While the tooth was nowhere to be found upon awakening on Sunday morning, with a careful search Christiana was able to find the missing tooth which was no larger than a small appleseed and had blended its way into the sheets of the bed that the two of them had slept in together that night while visiting family. Since the tooth managed to stay in Emma's mouth all the way until Sunday morning, I was home in time to be a part of the tooth fairy ritual after all. It was as if all of the things that I was going to actually miss or was afraid of missing had magically worked out in the best possible way. 

In recent years as we have had the opportunity to spend more time together, I can't help but notice the fact that my wife and I built the foundation of our relationship on missing each other. We worked opposite schedules. I would often spend weekends in Michigan at my summer cottage so I could get more personal space as I let go of my former life and my first marriage. Most weeks we would get a day or a day and a half together at most and our texts to each other would almost always include the words, "I miss you" as part of the message. 

In our current world order, not only do we not have the opportunity to miss each other, but we often get so much time together that we fail to remember how much we used to miss each other and we focus too much on the things that trigger each other. A little time apart can be just the tonic needed to awaken the sense of longing in the heart and an attitude of gratitude towards each others special gifts.

In the most recent episode of the It's About Life Podcast, my co-host Deb and I talk about finding meaning and looking for the gifts in our everyday life challenges. You can check out the episode by clicking on the link right here. I guess you might say that I got yet another chance to examine the idea of searching for the hidden gifts by being away from my wife and daughter on my four day warrior weekend. I truly missed them both and I couldn't wait to get home and embrace them. They say a picture paints a thousand words. Now that you've read about that many words in this post, I invite you to take a gander at the picture below which ultimately tells this story of absence making the heart grow fonder better than I could ever dream of telling it myself!  

That's all for this week. Thanks as always for reading. 

Many blessings to you for the week ahead,

Jim