The End is Near

There's more than a month to go before school lets out for the summer but it feels like our time is already up. There's much going on in the next month and with all this activity the time is sure to fly. A look at our itinerary:

The craziness begins tomorrow--after a dive in the morning, I'll be meeting with the directors of REAL from 1 to 3 P.M. and then rehearsing for three hours with the drama team. The rest of the week will be production week for our play so we will meet every night to rehearse for at least two hours.

Next Saturday night and Sunday night we'll perform "A Song from the Heart" an original play written by our student director "CK Girl." It's a fantastic play and it's going to as much fun to perform it as it will be to watch it.

Three days later on Wednesday, May 7, the drama team (and also Babs) will fly to Palau for our annual off island tour of performances. We'll dive and rehearse Thursday, perform and rehearse Friday, worship and perform Sabbath, see the Rock Islands on Sunday and fly home at 1:00 A.M. Monday morning (except for Babs who will stay in Palau until Wednesday when she'll fly back with our Chinese students who have to travel through Manila--that's the soonest return flight available to them).

Wednesday evening, May 14, is when we're tenatively scheduled to have our next book club, Thursday night, May 15, is our REAL Christian Theater end-of-year party, Friday night May 16 is our final Bible study, and Sabbath May 17 is Bev's last day in Saipan. The goodbyes begin. We'll see her off at the airport on Sunday morning May 18--the first of this year's Long Walks.

By that time we'll only have two weeks of regular classes left, then the graduations, school ends, and the tearful goodbyes will commence in earnest. I'm not looking forward to it.

This summer will be different. It will be our first summer since 1999 that we've spent in Saipan. It will be our last summer, just Babs and me (with the third member of the Maycock family becoming a literally larger and larger part of our lives with each passing week). I anticapte that I'll go through some melancholy seasons. Everyone who knows me well, knows I don't like change--even good change, and it always takes me a bit of time to adjust. And both fortunately and unfortuantely, the goodbyes will once again be particularly painful this year. I'm steeling myself for it as best I can.

There's lots of "last things" to do in the waning part of this season of life. Run Suicide Cliff. Do the tank swim. Run the beach pathway and cool off in the sea like we used to do back in the day. Make sure Jessica hears "Some Days Are Better Than Others"--that was "our" song this year, and she's never even heard it! Watch the Tom Petty concert on DVD with Judith. Meet for two more book clubs. Squeeze in a few more dives. Watch Into the Wild and Serendipity. Get sundaes at McDonalds one more time (or maybe two or three more times!)

And once our friends and colleagues have flown away there will be much for Barbara and I to do. One last trip together--hopefully to Hong Kong, lots of organizing in the house, lots of baby preparations. Lots of dates--they'll be hard to come by soon enough. Lots of lazy afternoons and movie watching. There are dinner guests we need to have over, Marriage Encounter steps to complete, and I've got a novel I really really need to finish before the baby comes.

The days will be full for sure. We dare not put anything off; time's too short for that. We've got to make these moments count because we will not pass this way again.