He Thinks You Can Fix Anything

Those are the words Jennifer said to me when I showed her Mike's expensive jeans. One had a tear along the crotch (other holes, but that was the one bothering him), and wanted me to "sew a button" on another pair of jeans. The button turned out to be one of those nail and shank closures that had torn through the jean fabric. When Mike asked me if I could sew a button on and fix a seam in his pants, I was thinking "sew a button on" AND maybe fix the seam in the dress pants he wore to a wedding and split while dancing. Nope, it was the hard stuff.

I thought a little bit about Jen's words, "He thinks you can fix anything." Don't we want to "fix" anything for our children that we can? Usually, the best approach is to support them while they "fix" the things that needed to be fixed in their lives, but this was just mending. Maybe it was just nice to be needed by my now grown son. I did my best with the "button" and took the pants over to my seamstress friend, Joan's house. She has an industrial leather machine with a walking foot. I haven't seen anything that machine has not be able to repair, but usually, I have Joan do it. She is currently in Florida. I said a short prayer, figured out how to turn her machine on, re threaded the needle a few times until I got it right, and patched those expensive pants!

I washed his jeans up, and made my son an omelet for breakfast. He is stationed in Yuma for a short time until he needs to go back to North Carolina. They only give him one day off at a time. He is a Marine, and they seem to keep a tight schedule. I think it is so the young men do not have a lot of free time to get into trouble. Mike has told me a few incidents involving totally drunken young Marines. I wish the rules were different for Marines going home to see their family and friends, but they are not.

Mr Wonderful worked all night Monday night. He made himself a bed in the car yesterday am, and I drove us to Yuma. We even had Danielle's newest naked baby bird to hand feed, as everyone had some place to be yesterday. Every hour or so, I'd hear, Louie and ask Arlen to give him a little shot of his food. We waited around for Mike to get off work. Eventually he showed up at the Jack-in the-Box restaurant by the main gate of the base . I got the Mother's Day present he had promised me: A nice hug! Mr Wonderful checked out the LDS fiction someone had left in my car and Mike napped in the back, and we made the three hour trip back to Phoenix. Sometime later this evening, I'll turn around and make the trip there and back again....all so my son could be home for a day.

Well, I put Mike's newly mended and laundered pants in his room and snuck out without waking him. He is getting a nap in before it is time to go to lunch with two nephews that idolize him, sisters and a mom that love him. Mother's Day just passed. It is wonderful to be needed a bit by my adult son--even if it is just to repair expensive jeans, and see that he is able to get home to us--even if it is only for a single day.