JOY and Pain

As part of my Mother's Day weekend, I spent some time alone at Restoration Park Saturday afternoon. I sat with my Bible, a devotional, my journal and my ipod and felt the precious breeze. As I was journaling the song "Never Let Go" by David Crowder came on my ipod and I could not help but journal the words "Joy and Pain, Sun and Rain, You're the same, You never let go".....And I had one of those Joy and Pain moments yesterday.
We went to my mom's house for "lunch" -- I only put quotation marks there because some don't consider eating at 3 PM "lunch"....but I digress....at the head of the dining table, where my daddy used to sit, there is a bay window that overlooks my mom's majestic back yard. That's where I sat yesterday and enjoyed my lunch -- and I do mean ENJOY: I enjoyed that I sat down and ate while Yancey fixed the kids'plates, I sat down and ate in PEACE, and was finished with my food before he sat down to eat...and the kids were SOOO good. After lunch, as the grown-ups had coffee and dessert (incredible lemon ice box pie if I do say so myself), the kids went out to play hide and seek. There were 6 cousins out in that yard...3 boys, 3 girls and as I sat and sipped my coffee I was ever so grateful that it had been a relatively peaceful day.....JOY. And then I realized as they all ran back to base, the fountain in the center of my mom's yard, there were only 5 of them playing hide and seek. And as I scanned the yard...pain. John Brady was walking along the bank of the bayou with his fishing net...for over an hour as the others ran and yelled and played behind him, he never even looked back at them. It was an odd moment for me, and lots of questions came into my mind. I don't remember a time before when they had all been playing like that and he hadn't joined in the fun at least to some degree. So why now? Why have some issues seemed to surface lately that haven't existed before....like auditory sensitivity? Could he be beginning to realize that playing with others doesn't come so easy and just doesn't want to bother with it, even with his cousins? Or should I have just enjoyed the moment of peace and not tried to focus on the "whys", at least for Mother's Day.
Joy and Pain, Sun and Rain, You're the same, You Never Let Go.....