9 lbs

I just had a terrible dream.

I've been flying a lot the last three days and I was just tired. Real tired. So when I went to sleep last night it was a welcome thing. I went through the normal cycle of sleep and finally got to the deep dream imaginations. I felt it more as an experience than a dream. Everything could be felt, from the wind and the reverberations of a door closing too hard to a touch from my wife's hand. I had as much consciousness as you do now, and probably even more.

I don't remember the dream starting, you know, like in a movie where the main character walks out a door and the camera pans out to the whole scene. I just remember being there. I was in the back yard, not my backyard, I'm not sure who's. It reminded me of a summer in Heber in Grandpa Hicken's old back yard. Before the kitchen was removed and a garage built over the whole expanse. There were lilacs and a big tree and the grass was definitely Utah grass, it was just nice.

Michelle had just put Calvin down for a nap after some hard playing. It was just his time. Then it was Brigham, Michelle and I doing whatever you do during the afternoon.

After games and playing and lots of correction I decided to take Brig around the corner and play on the trampoline. He didn't know it was to play on a tramp and his young mind was fixated on what he was doing, unable to see that there was great joy to be had moments from now. The thing is he was such a good boy. I picked him up and carried him across the yard.

Brig feebly fought, expressing his desire with his small vocabulary, pouty face and little more. He hung lifefully around my body with his head on my right shoulder.

Perhaps I introduced the crux of this story too gently. When I picked this boy, my boy, up I could feel him. I could weigh him. I could measure his length. I could smell his two year old hair. And it was all different. It was different just like it was supposed to be. Brig was tall. In my arms I could notice that as they were wrapped around him holding his limpish body with his head on my shoulder that my elbows were hardly bent. Unlike when he was a baby and I would hold his head with one hand and support the rest of his body against my lung with the other. He had just become long.

And heavy. His impish legs dangled like they always had beneath my arm, but they were big. A handful of batatas. They weren't strong muscular legs; they were growing child legs. Healthy, full and yet still so soft and vulnerable. As we walked they dangled, gently kicking my hip and thigh.

Walking around the toys and across the sidewalk I cojolled my little friend as he half-heartedly argued his case. I noticed something about my first son. He was, as you would expect a two year old with a good heart to be, submissive and trusting of his father. It was a sweet thing. I lifted him and took him from where he wanted to be, to what I knew to be a better place and despite his objections he willfully submitted and held on to my arm in faith and obedience. Not silent obedience but obedience.

When we arrived around the corner and the young boy ran to the trampoline I thought rather sadly to myself that I had missed those last 8 pounds.

I've been stationed away from my boys in the desert sands of Kuwait for the last 69 days. I had quite a few adventures and done my part. I have worked hard and at times been successful, and during others been an utter failure. But I have missed my family.

I have been homesick before. The first time I remember was when at 10 I spent a couple of weeks with my Grandma B in Texas and realized how much I missed my mother. Later it was on my mission when half-way around the world I wanted nothing more than to be home and not there. Then it was during college, both at BYU and the Academy. I was still young and learning the lessons I needed to know.

This dream did not make me home sick; it just made me sick.

My boys have grown exponentially in these 69 days. They have become self aware. They have learned vocabulary (including the bad stuff grandma Susie taught them). They have learned to smile and laugh and cry and lie and trust and hide and roll trains on a track. They have experienced Lagoon, the Hogle Zoo and Liberty Park. They have ridden four-wheelers and chased other kids with a water hose in hand. They have slept, napped, been put down, and asked a thousand reason not to do any of the three.

They have become heavy.

And I missed all of it.

I woke up crying. Not sobbing tears streaming down my face, but a deep pain which I buried in my pillow. I miss my family. I wish I were home and I wish I could be with them. I know I will be and I'm not looking for consolation. I am just documenting a feeling I have which I think is an important one to retain always - love.