Cruise Control

About a week ago, Wick and I returned from a Caribbean cruise. If you have never been on a cruise, start saving right now, and go on one. We love the whole experience.

A whole week of being pampered, eating gourmet food, never having to do dishes or make up the bed or clean the bathroom, sitting in the shade on deck with a good book, watching the deep deep blue ocean and the dolphins playing in the waves, and making new friends.

We fall quickly into the routine, eating breakfast at the buffet, snacking in the bistro on the promenade deck, playing Trivia of all sorts, exploring the various venues.

Each evening, we dress for dinner, and later go to the theater for some kind of show or entertainment.

On the last evening, we arrived early, as usual, to find good seats. A man I had never seen sat down in the seat next to me. A little later, he was joined by a man and a woman, and they fell into conversation. I couldn't help overhearing their discussion, filled with questions about electric scooters and electric wheel chairs. Since I have both, I uncharacteristically butted in on their conversation, and tried to answer some of their questions.

One thing led to another, and they began to confide about the man's wife, who is the woman's sister. She had been ill the whole cruise. After a few questions, Wick and I looked at each other. Her symptoms sounded so familiar: just like the symptoms I had three years ago. congestive heart failure. We talked a little before the show, then in more depth afterward.

After hearing what we had to say, they agreed that their family member was really sick, worse than they had imagined, and made plans to get her off the ship in a wheel chair, and then take her to the emergency room.

We offered to pray for them, and gave them our phone number with a request to let us know how she fared.

A couple of days ago, the husband called to tell us that when they arrived at the ER, she was rushed to surgery to have a liter of fluid drained from her pericardium, the sac that surrounds the heart. She was indeed suffering from heart failure, and is still in the hospital undergoing tests to determine the best course of treatment.

All of us agreed that God led us to sit side by side that night before the show, and to share our story. The husband feels that without our input, he might not have insisted that his wife seek treatment so quickly, since she was denying that anything was really wrong, even though she could hardly walk, and could not breathe lying down.

Even on a vacation, even on a cruise ship, God is in control, and can use us to help others. How thankful we are that He led us to those seats, and opened our hearts to share with this family. As Wick said, it hit us in the face without warning. At least this family knew ahead of time how bad things might be, and were able to get her to treatment.

Entertaining angels unawares...

Christmas is for Family

Last Saturday, we met with my extended family to celebrate Christmas.

My parents had four kids. All four of us married, and had among us 11 kids. All 11 have married, and had kids.

The current count is 54, with several couples still in the child-bearing years, so that number may go up.

Obviously, too big a crowd for anyone's house, so we met at the community center where my folks live.

For years, we all congregated at my mama's house on every occasion, and often just to visit. Her house was Family Central. But we finally had to concede there were just too many of us for her house. My folks now live in a one-bedroom apartment, and there are no large gatherings there, although we try to visit at least once a month.

With so many of us, even a whole day is never enough to visit with everyone as I would like to.

But with phone calls, e-mails, and facebook, we manage to stay in touch, to keep track of the important events in everyone's lives.

All of this to say, after all, Christmas started with one family. A man who took a wife who was already pregnant, and the Child who was born to them on that night so long ago.

That Child came to save us from our sins, and our Father God says we are adopted into His family, brothers and sisters to Christ, co-inheritors of the Kingdom.

So, brothers and sisters, a very merry Christmas to you all.

Thanksgiving Menu

Since I posted about my myriad lists, I thought I would share our menu for the upcoming Thanksgiving gathering.

We are gathering at Jeana's. Mom and Dad means Wick and me.

Wed night: lasagna, salad and bread (Jeana)

Thursday:

Breakfast casserole (Jeana)

Lunch: sandwiches, BBQ smokies (Jeana)

chips with Rotel dip (Mom)

Supper: Turkey, Dressing, Rolls, Mac and Cheese, Green Beans, Pumpkin Pie (Jeana)

deviled eggs, pecan pie, fruit salad (Jamie)

Veggies and Dip (Mom)

Friday:

Breakfast (Dad)

Late lunch: Ham, Mashed Potatoes, Rolls (Jamie)

Sweet Potatoes, Roasted Veggies, Cranberry Salad, Apple Pie, Gingersnaps (Jeana)

Broccoli Casserole (Mom)

Dinner: leftovers

pimento cheese for sandwiches (Mom)

Sat: Breakfast (Dad)

leftovers again, banana pudding

Sunday: pumpkin bread before church

And here is the list of stuff we still need from the grocery store:

For the roast vegetables:

broccoli

yellow squash

tomatoes (cherry or grape)

For the cranberry salad:

1 bag fresh cranberries

4 apples

4 oranges

For the banana pudding:

vanilla wafers

sweetened condensed milk

cream cheese

cool whip

For the coffee, which we drink from morning til night:

flavored coffee creamer (I like pumpkin or cinnamon sugar cookie right now, but pick something you like.)

For the big Pipaw breakfast the kids expect whenever we get together:
eggs
bacon
sausage
biscuits
grits
Yes, there will be gravy. A tub full of gravy.
pancake mix for Sat.

I baked today for Sunday's breakfast:
Pumpkin muffins
Pumpkin bundt cake
Banana walnut bread
banana walnut muffins
Chocolate banana chocolate chip muffins
Two loaves choc. banana choc. chip bread

The reasoning here is that Sunday morning will be hectic, trying to get everyone ready for church, bathed, dressed, fed, and still in our right minds, so all these bread-like substances will be easy to grab and go out the door.

As my late Mother-in-law would have said, we will have enough food to feed Cox's army!

Six adults, four girls, and four teenage boys.

Too much food? Not enough? Everybody has their favorite thing that we just have to have. When we all still gathered at my mama's, the crowd grew to 54 people. We can't have quite the variety that we had then, with everyone bringing something different, but we do try to include the traditional dishes we all love.

The extended family finally conceded that 54+ people was just too many for one person's house, so now we gather at the clubhouse where my folks live. But by getting together with our kids and grandkids, we are keeping alive the tradition of maintaining family ties, allowing enough time to really visit, to play games, to luxuriate in being with the people we love best.

In the words of the old hymn:

We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known;
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing;
Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own.

May all of you, my dear friends, have a most happy Thanksgiving!

What Next?

On Nov. 7, we will be looking back a whole year at the beginning of my hospitalization. I am still far from where I want to be, but still making slow but steady progress.
We have been talking about my progress, and how our relationship with each other has grown during this year, and how much closer we are for having this experience.

Thursday morning, my cell phone rang before 9 a.m., which is unusual. When I answered, a woman's voice said she was calling from the school where Wick teaches.

This is not a good sign.

And I was right. She was calling to tell me that Wick was being loaded into an ambulance as we spoke. He was pushed through a plate glass window, by a student. He was bleeding copiously. The paramedics were applying pressure to try to control the bleeding on the way to the hospital.

So far, up to now, not being able to drive has been just an inconvenience, mostly a matter of waiting for Wick to have time to take me somewhere. Now, I wanted--needed--to get to the hospital to meet him at the emergency room, and I couldn't.

I called Jeana, who agreed to meet him at the ER, find out what his status was, and call me as soon as possible.

It was a long wait, which I could only fill with prayers for his safety, and the skills of the people treating him.

I called his cell phone twice. The first time he sounded fairly normal, even though I could hear the paramedics in the background, questioning him and talking to each other.

The second time, he sounded tired, almost drowsy. He didn't know if they had given him something for pain, and I was afraid he was suffering from the blood loss.

Finally, Jeana was able to call, to tell me more details about what had happened, and what was being done in the ER.

Apparently, the student in question had been a behavior issue even before school started that morning, and Wick was taking him to the campus police officer to discuss his attitude and actions. The student didn't want to go. He struggled with Wick, finally pushing him hard enough, and catching him off balance enough to send him through the window.

He had several cuts that needed stitching up, and had lost a fair amount of blood. The worst news is that some tendons in his right arm were severed, and affected his ability to use three fingers on that hand.

His building principal and an assistant superintendent from the school district came to the hospital to see how he was doing, and to tell him they supported him. His principal brought him out to the RV park, where Jeana was to meet me.

Jeana brought us to her house to stay until Wick sees the surgeon, and we know what is going to be done. Right now, his right arm is in a splint, thickly covered with gauze and ace bandages from shoulder to fingertips.

For a "one-armed" guy, he manages pretty well, but I am having the opportunity to return in very small portion some of the help he has showered on me this past year.

So here we are, staying at Jeana's again, only this time is for Wick, instead of for me. We are hopeful that he will recover full use of the arm and hand, and be able to go back to work after surgery and physical therapy.

Not exactly where we thought we would be, a year ago. Praise God for keeping Wick from bleeding to death, or being injured much worse than he was. Thank God for the people at his school who tried to stop the bleeding, for the paramedics who got him to the ER so quickly, for the nurses and doctors who stabilized him and pieced him back together with all those stitches. And most of all, thank God for Jeana and her family, their willingness to take us in, take care of us, share their home and time and family worship with us.

How do people get through scary experiences, if they don't have God to talk to?

Child-speak, part 4

When Katoushka was two years old, she did not talk baby talk. She talked in complete sentences, in a very melodic voice, quite clearly, and not only seemed to remember everything she heard, but also to be able to use new words appropriately.

Her parents had a discipline plan, which I had not totally grasped yet, but it seemed to be working very well, and I had a great deal of respect for it, and for them.

So when they left Katoushka with us, I tried to do as I thought they would do. But one day Katoushka did something that she knew she wasn't supposed to do. I told her I was not sure how Mommy and Daddy would handle it, and we were going to wait until they got home and find out what they wanted to do.
She sat in the little red rocker quietly for a few minutes. Then she said, "Mimi, Mommy and Daddy say that those who love me chastize me."

I knew that chastizement meant some kind of punishment, so I called her to me, and gave her a couple of little swats on her thickly diapered bottom, saying, "Precious, I would not want you to think that your Mimi doesn't love you." She returned to the little red rocker, rocked vigorously for a few minutes, and wiped her tears.

I could hardly stand it. My precious little grandbaby was hurt.

But before I could say anything, she came back to my side, spread her arms wide, and said, "Mimi, can we reconcile now."

My heart twisted in my chest. I gathered her into my lap, hugged her, and we rocked until Mommy and Daddy came home.

Note: For clarification, I am adding Jeana's response: " We told her that we chastise her because we love her. I think the difference is important. We certainly do not expect everyone who loves our children to chastise them, nor would we be happy at all if they did."

Jeana wants to be sure there is a distinction between what they actually said, and what Katoushka and I thought she said.

Child-speak, part 3

Our first grandchild, Pie, wanted to talk, but frequently ran out of words. She was between 18 months and two years old, and her total repertoire included a number of isolated words, mostly names, please, thank you, no, and me (meaning roughly I will do it myself, thank you very much), and a few short phrases.

She often sat in my lap, and when I talked to her, she would respond with one of her words or phrases, whether it fit my comment or not--a steady stream of non sequiters.

When she had run the gamut of her vocabulary, she would stare at me intensely. If I said nothing, she would put her little hands on my cheeks and squeeze them together until my lips opened, and say, "Talk. Mimi. Talk."

I finally figured out that we were having a conversation, and I was falling down on my end of it. She had contributed all she could, and I was supposed to keep the conversation going, while she tried to come up with something else to say.

She is seventeen now. She still sits in my lap occasionally. But now I am the one who feels like saying, "Talk. Pie. Talk."

I LoveYou More

"I Love You More" is a game we used to play with our children. Here's how it is played:

Press forehead to child's forehead. Whisper, I love you more.

Child responds by holding thumb and forefinger about a millimeter apart, and says I love you more than this.

Parent responds similarly, with thumb and forefinger slightly further apart.

The game continues until both are saying, I love you more than this, with arms outstretched as far as possible. Both then dissolve in laughter and hugs.

Antique Mommy brought up the subject of games we play(ed) with our children, and got me to thinking about precious moments with our children and grandchildren, and I may just do a whole series of these memories.

Right after I wipe away the tears.

Carded at the Library

I have had a library card almost all my life. I vividly remember struggling to learn how to write my name, just so I could have a library card of my own, instead of using my mama's. When we started RVing full time, I did not stop to think what that would mean, in terms of getting a library card. Apparently, most public libraries feel rather strongly that in order to get a card, one must prove residence in the applicable town.

Our driver's licenses show our address at our cabin, since that is where we live. However, since Wick still works in the Dallas area, we stay at an RV park during the week, so he doesn't have to drive so far every day. That means that the closest library is in Dallas. Dallas feels so strongly about "non-citizens" of Dallas that the fee for an outsider (that is, someone who has an address elsewhere) is $250 a year.

Two hundred fifty dollars a year. Y'all. That is exorbitant.

Now, after checking my billfold, I found the following cards:
Mesquite Public Library, from before we started RVing full time.
Chandler Public Library, where we live.
Tyler Public Library, because of a reciprocal deal with Chandler's library.
Seagoville Public Library, since I used to teach there.

Suddenly I remembered that shortly before I went into the hospital, I had filled out an application for the Dallas library, which offers a special deal for people who don't have a Dallas address, but do teach in Dallas.

Even though I had filled out the application, I had not received my card. I still have my teacher i.d., so I thought, why not check and see if I can still get the card.

When Wick got home from work, he took me to the nearest Dallas library branch.
I went to the first desk and explained to the tall, thin, stern-looking man who was sitting at the desk. I told him I had filled out the application at the school where I was teaching, but never received the card. He looked at me over the top of his glasses for a long moment. Finally,with a sigh, he turned to his computer and entered my name, after I spelled it for him three times. Somehow, he did not seem to want to look at my teacher i.d., which would have been easier on both of us, since either I was not speaking clearly or his hearing was impaired.

Finally, he announced in stern tones that I already had a library card.

I responded, yes, I had filled out the application, but did not receive the card.

He said again, the computer says you have a card.

I launched into an explanation about having filled out the application when a library representative came to the school, but I never received the card. I suggested that perhaps the card had been delivered to my mail box at school while I was in the hospital. Since a series of substitute teachers had been covering my classes, one of them might have accidentally picked up the card, but really I had no idea where it might have ended up.

Again, he said, the computer says you have a card.

Wick took me by the arm and steered me to another desk, where a lady was flipping through a magazine. When we got her attention, I explained my plight. She responded by turning to her computer.

She did deign to look at my i.d., and typed in my name correctly the first time.

She said, well, the computer says you already have a card.

Once more I launched into my story about how I applied, but did not receive the card itself.

She looked back at her computer screen, looked at me, and said again, the computer says you already have a card.

This conversation repeated itself about three more times. Wick finally stepped in and asked, how much does it cost to get a new card, if you lose your card?

She said, three dollars.

He pulled out his billfold.

She said, oh, wait a minute, maybe it is in the box of lost cards.

She pulled out a box that looked like it had about three hundred cards in it, and began to go through them.

Wick's patience was wearing thin. He drew three dollar bills out of his billfold, tapped them on edge on the counter, and said again, Just give her a replacement card.

Finally.
I had my own card in my hot little hand.
I felt the same surge of pride and power that I felt when I was five years old, signing my name to get my first library card.

That little piece of card stock was my ticket to the universe. Through books, I could go anywhere, be anyone, learn everything.

Reading.
It's fundamental.

Love & Romance on Valentine's Day....and it didn't cost a dime

Valentine's Day is one day of the year that brings out the romantic in most of us. Some people get sucked into the merchandisers' push for us to buy buy buy stuff to prove our love. But one of the most romantic evenings in my memory didn't cost a dime--just a little effort.

DH met me at the door with a lingering hug and kiss, and told me to go take a warm bubble bath. When I got out, he wrapped me in a warm towel to dry off, and handed me a favorite nighty.

He led me back to the living room, where he had gathered and lit every candle in the house. A quilt was spread on the floor, with lots of pillows. Small saucers held cheese slices, crackers, grapes, and a handful of chocolates. Two wine glasses sparkled in the candlelight.

We lay on the quilt, eating cheese and crackers, talking about special times we have shared, hugging, kissing, reliving our courtship, and talking about future plans.

The quilt was one we had used many times, lying on sunny beaches or near campfires, watching the sun on the water or the moon making shadow pictures through the trees. This night was too cold to be outside, but the candlelight was a satisfactory substitute for sun or moonlight, and the piled up pillows felt wonderfully luxurious.

The cheese was ordinary cheddar. The crackers were saltines. The candles and the wine glasses we already had. No wine, just diet coke. We're easy to please, and not burdened with "sophisticated" palates.

Nothing was purchased just for this evening, and it couldn't really have been better.

Well. I guess I wouldn't turn down a few diamonds or rubies, a mink stole, or Godiva chocolates. But only if I could still have that evening. With that man.

Chicken x 3

Now that it is just me and my darlin at home, it's not quite as vital that we pinch ever penny, but we still try to be thrifty and good stewards of God's blessings. This has been on my mind lately, and got me to thinking about some of the things I discovered as a young wife and mother, SAHM before I ever heard that term, living on my darlin's hard work.

One of my money saving measures was trying to make sure I got the most out of our food dollars, and also trying to save cooking time so that I could spend more time with our kids. Chicken was one of my favorites, because there was so much I could do with it.

First, I boiled a whole chicken. Look for the largest you can find, because the proportion of meat to bone is in your favor with the larger birds. I put the chicken in my dutch oven, added enough water to cover the chicken, put in chopped carrots and onions, garlic, salt and pepper. Simmer until the meat starts falling off the bones. Put the chicken on a platter to drain and cool. Let the broth cool before you try to pour it up.

Bone the chicken. Put the bones back into the broth and simmer another 30 minutes to add flavor and calcium to your broth. Be sure to sieve out the bones when you pour up the broth.

Save the skin. Fry it in a hot skillet to render the fat. Use the fat for flavoring. The skin fries up very crisp, similar to pork rinds; a crunchy treat, but very rich, so be careful how much you let the little'uns eat.

Here are some of the meals you can create from chicken:
1. Dumplings with chicken.
2. rice with chicken. For a creamy casserole, add white sauce or canned mushroom/chicken/celery soup, green peas, and top with grated cheese.
3. chicken salad. Use white meat for company, dark meat for family. Add lots of chopped celery, onion, grated carrot for color, and mayonnaise or Miracle Whip.
4. chicken enchiladas. Use sour cream in the filling.
5. chicken soup. Just add noodles to the broth.
6. salad with chicken bits. Green salad with purple onion rings, cherry tomatoes, and your favorite dressing.
7. chicken spaghetti. Depending on the amount of sauce, cheese, and pasta, this can be stretched quite a bit if unexpected company arrives.
8. noodles with chicken. Buttered noodles --yum! Add a little parsley for color.
9. chicken stew. Like beef stew, but with chicken.
10. shanghai chicken--just add chinese style vegetables and chinese noodles, with rice and soy sauce.
11. chicken wontons--wrap a bit of chopped chicken, a little chopped mushroom and onion and chopped water chestnuts in wonton wraps and fry.
12. chicken rangoon--wrap a bit of chicken and a blob of cream cheese in a wonton wrapper and fry.
From one large chicken, I could make at least three of these recipes, plus having broth left over for other purposes. Freeze the broth in ice cube trays, then put the cubes in a heavy duty freezer container so that you can take out as many or as few as you need for a recipe. Since the broth is pre-seasoned, it will add great flavor to rice, noodles, potatoes, and vegetables.

If your raw chicken has liver inside of it, save the livers to make rumaki--chicken livers wrapped with bacon strips, broiled until the bacon is crisp.
Or make fried livers and gizzards with cream gravy.
Y'all will have to excuse me now; suddenly I'm starving.

Heartbeat of the House

When I was a very little girl, my daddy brought home a clock for my mama. It was a chiming mantel clock, about a foot and a half tall, with wide carved "wings" around the clock face, and a gilded pendulum swinging back and forth behind a little glass door that had curlycue designs in gold leaf.
In a house with four children, there are few quiet moments, but occasionally in a lull in the chaos the tick-tock-tick of the clock could be heard. The chime sounded once one the half-hour, and chimed the time on the hour. It was so much a part of our home that we rarely noticed it except when it ran down. It had to be wound every eight days. Daddy wound the clock on Sunday nights, setting the hands carefully, and dusting the heavily carved case. No one else ever touched the clock.
The chimes sounded day and night, and during the night, if I woke up, the clock told me if it was middle of the night, or nearly time to get up. If for some reason it wound down and stopped, I had trouble getting back to sleep.

When I married and left home, my darlin husband bought a chiming clock for our house. It wasn't an antique, but it did have a swinging pendulum, and it chimed on the hour and half hour, and its tick-tock-tick measured our nights and days, keeping me company when I was up late rocking a sick baby, and tracking the minutes when one of our teenagers was late coming home.

When our house burned, the clock was one of the things we lost. We replaced it with a pendulum clock that hangs on the wall. Since we currently live in our RV, the clock is in storage. I miss the ticking and the chiming.

When our little cabin is finished, when we are retired and living there, one of the first things I plan to do is hang the clock, and set our home's heart ticking again.

Tending to My Knitting

I taught myself to knit from a book many years ago, while expecting my first child. Somehow, it seemed like a good idea--quiet, relaxing, productive. I made two afghans during those nine months, and decided that crochet is more my cup of tea. I gave up knitting until just recently, when I decided to relearn it.
I taught myself to crochet from a book. I taught myself to embroider from a book. I learned to bake bread from a book. These and many other home making skills were once handed down generation to generation, the elder teaching the younger, but as we have become more and more industrialized, and fewer and fewer mothers stay home with their young children, the experience of learning from observation has become less the rule and more the exception.

Where did I get the idea that these skills were important? I remember quite vividly reading Louisa May Alcott's Eight Cousins, in which a guardian uncle who has inherited a half-grown girl child, expounds on the simple skills, crafts, and arts that are dying out, no longer valued by society. Remember, Alcott was writing some 150 years ago, and things haven't gotten better in this area since then.

Somehow I was inspired to learn these "homely" tasks. I wanted to be a good wife and mother in the traditional mold. I was blessed to be able to stay at home with my children until the youngest, Jeana, started school. During those years, we always had some kind of project going, whether it was sewing, cutting and pasting, cooking, embroidery, making curtains, whatever skill I was struggling to acquire at the time.
How much easier, if I had been living close enough to my mother or grandmother to ask questions. They did me the great favor of handing on to me many projects begun by my great-grandmother, unfinished after her death, and I used them as guidelines and inspirations, but how I yearned for a model, a mentor, to guide me.

It has been so long ago that when I had my first child, breast feeding not only was not "in style", but was actively discouraged by many doctors, on the grounds that so few women were successful.
Why were they unsuccessful? After all, women had been breastfeeding for thousands of years, and most had been successful, so why were women in 1971 so lacking? It finally dawned on me. We had no models. Not a single person I knew was choosing to breast feed. I had only seen women breastfeeding in books on natural childbirth. I struggled mightily, encouraged only by my husband. How I would have valued a teacher to guide me.

All this rambling is to say....in the past few years I have realized my dream of passing my "homely" skills on to another generation; I have the opportunity to be for my grandchildren a model and a teacher. Some of them are taking to it quickly and easily. Some are struggling. And some are just more interested in other skills, such as soccer. And that's okay too.

When Katushka calls or e-mails with a question about her knitting or crocheting...when daughterJeana mentions in her blog ( Diversifying Your Stockpile) that she is crocheting and that I taught her how...I once more have that sense of connecting across the years, across the generations, with all those women who came before, who made quilts to warm their families and stretch their budget, who knitted warm socks for their husbands who were going off to war, who baked bread and made their meals "from scratch" every day (must have been a mighty big sack of scratch, to feed all those young'uns).

And that connection feels good.

How Long Has It Been Since You Cleaned That Hat?

Papaw, my father-in-law, wears a silver gray Stetson. He has been wearing it for several years, indoors and out, dress-up or casual, going out to dinner or working on his car. I told my husband that the hat needed cleaning. His first suggestion was to just buy a new hat.
A Stetson is not a casual purchase; it's an investment.
And Papaw likes his hat. He doesn't really want a new one.
So I suggested that we get the hat cleaned.
Wick said if I could find a place to get it cleaned, he would take it.
So I called Cavender's and asked, "Do you clean hats?"
The guy who answered said, "We sure as h#!! do, darlin'!"
I said well great, how long would it take?
He said, "We can do it in five minutes!"
I said now before you make any promises, you need to know that my father-in-law has been wearing this hat for several years, and it is pretty dirty.
He said, " If ol' Joe can't clean that hat in five minutes, I'll kick his @$$!"
I said okay, we'll bring it right over.

Now Papaw is quite attached to his hat. And he also has a little trouble hearing. So when I told him we were taking his hat to be cleaned, I'm not sure he understood. Or maybe we did it so fast he didn't have time to object. Wick and his brother took off with the hat, and my sister-in-law went to take a shower and do her hair before we went out to eat, leaving me to entertain Papaw.

We talked about his new place (assisted living), the cute nurse who bring him a banana and a glass of milk before he goes to bed at night, the one who helps him shower, and other assorted topics. Suddenly he put his hand on his head, and said, "Where's my hat?"

I reminded him that the guys had taken it to be cleaned. He said oh yeah, I forgot.

When the guys got back, they didn't have the hat. I asked where it was, and Wick said, "Joe said that's more than a five-minute job."
I said, so is Joe going to get his @$$ kicked?
Papaw said, "Who's gettin' his @$$ kicked? I want to see that!"
Then he said, "Where's my hat?"

We went out to eat while the hat was being cleaned.

I was not surprised that it was more than a five-minute job, since Papaw had frequently handled this pale gray Stetson when his hands were greasy up to the elbows from working on his car.

Several times during dinner he asked where his hat was, and each time when we reminded him it was being cleaned, he asked, "Well how long is it going to take?"

I didn't know, but I was pretty sure it was going to be more than five minutes.

When we got ready to leave the restaurant, he started looking for his hat again. The guys took us back to the house and went to get the hat.

When they brought it back, Wick said, "Joe says he didn't quite get it clean, but if we'll bring it back more often, he thinks he can get it cleaner."

Papaw examined every inch of his Stetson when Wick handed it to him, and then said, "Well I'll be d@**, I didn't know it was that dirty! It looks brand new, don't it?"

It might not look brand new, but it certainly looks better than it did before.

However, I still wish I could have seen Joe's face when he decided that hat was not a five-minute job.

Family Heirlooms

A few weeks ago a cousin was moving from one apartment to another, and found the pitcher and serving bowl pictured here among his stored belongings. He e-mailed me to tell me he was bringing them to me.
The serving bowl belonged to my daddy's mother. She passed away when my daddy was still a kid, so I never knew her. I have seen only one picture of her. My daddy said she was a tiny woman, with rich auburn hair. One of his most vivid memories was of her brushing her hair at night, as she prepared for bed, hair so long that she could have sat on it.
My aunt Ruth has told me that Grandma Lee was a sweet and gentle woman, who sang as she worked in her home, who gave birth to twelve children, and who worked hard to take care of her family.
Aunt Ruth also gave me Grandma Lee's cornbread dressing recipe, which I make for my children and grandchildren during the holidays.
I like to imagine her making that dressing, and serving it in that bowl.
The pitcher, on the left, was my husband's great-grandmother's. It is a lemonade pitcher. A hundred years ago, she may have served lemonade in it on a hot summer day.
These are the only tangible bits we have left of these two women's lives--two women without whom neither my husband nor I would exist.
What else do we have of them? Memories. Family stories. A heritage of faith in God and love of family, a tradition of building and maintaining family ties.
Without these bits of china, we would still have those memories and family traditions. The pieces themselves have little, if any, intrinsic value, but when our little cabin is finished, they will have a place of honor, to remind us ever day of those who lived before us.

9-11-2001

I was walking down the hall when my assistant principal stuck her head out the door of her office, and said, "Go turn on your tv in your room. I think we are under attack."
From her tone and the look on her face, I knew something serious was happening.
I went directly to my classroom and turned on the tv. I stood there in shock, watching the images on the screen. By the time the second plane crashed into the towers, my room was full of students.
Tears were streaming down our faces. I literally felt sick at my stomach--actually, more like someone had punched me in the stomach.
I wanted to go home.
I wanted to call all my kids and bring them home with me. Like a mother hen, I wanted to gather all my chicks together in one place.
I wanted to know if Jeana's husband was at the airport, and if he was, I wanted him to leave.
I wanted all my grandbabies in my lap, right then, so I could hold on to them, feel their soft skin and their clean scent and their soft breath.
But I had a room full of kids.
And they couldn't go home either.
So we sat there together, watching in helpless horror, as the towers fell, the air filled with debris, thefire fighters and police cried for the lost heroes, the emergency workers ministered to those who had escaped.
We hugged each other, wiped each other's tears, held hands.
It was horrible.
But we couldn't stop watching.
Every time the images of the airplanes crashing were replayed, there was a sort of collective breath-holding, as if this time it wouldn't happen. But it did. Every time.

Babies born to those fathers killed in the carnage are five years old this year. Five years without their daddies.
Men and women live with memories, instead of their spouses.
Families sit down to eat, with an empty chair at the table.
Fire fighters miss their buddies.
Police officers struggle to hold back their tears at the sound of bagpipes.

Oh Lord, creator of the universe, father of us all, help us to make sense of these events. Hold those who grieve close to your heart.

The Wall

While we were in Branson a couple of weeks ago, we had the opportunity to visit the traveling Viet Nam Memorial. It is a replica of the "Wall" on which the names of soldiers who died in Viet Nam are recorded.
A close friend of mine, David McClelland, is named on that wall. He and I grew up in the same neighborhood, just a few houses apart. We went swimming together, played touch football in our front yard, went to high school together.....Dave was my friend, and a Marine, and he died at the age of twenty, on patrol, along with everyone else in his patrol. His body was not recovered for more than six weeks.
Danny Robinett was my husband's friend. I never met Danny, but I watched as my husband traced Danny's name on that wall.
I cried. So did he.

A kind lady who was working as a volunteer hugged me and wiped my tears. She said she travels with the memorial, and every time she helps put the wall up or take it down, she cries.

We cry for the friends who never came home. The young men who never saw their babies. The sons whose mothers still mourn, whose fathers hide their tears in the dark nights. The brothers, sons, fathers, who are frozen in our memories, forever young, forever brave, forever at the edges of our thoughts, forever in our hearts.
Tuesday is the fourth of July, the day we celebrate our independence. It is a holiday, and many people will be having picnics, going camping, shooting fireworks. I hope you all have a great day.
But I also hope that you will take a moment to remember those who bought our freedom with their blood, who believed that there are things worth dying for, who await us on that farther shore when the circle is complete again, and there will be no sorrow or crying, only rejoicing.

If you know a veteran, give him--or her--a hug.
And thank God that they made it home.

Father's Day Thoughts

I've been thinking today about fathers in my life. My own father has gone on to his reward, and I have shared memories about him here before. When he passed away, my father-in-law (Papaw) hugged me close, and said, "You're not fatherless. As long as I'm alive, you still have a daddy." But these two men, precious and dear as they are to me, are not the only fathers I have known.

Uncle Jim taught me a little bit about earning an honest dollar, hauling hay.

Uncle Hardy taught me the consequences of throwing pear cores at his old sow who had a litter of piglets and a terrible temper.

Uncle Grady taught us that jumping off the dock into a floating inner tube was not likely to be successful, but he let us try it any way.

Uncle J.P. played Grandpa's fiddle for us.

My daddy told me about his daddy, the farmer/preacher, and his twelve kids.

My grandmother told me about my granddaddy, who tied a rope to the churn handle and the other end to the porch swing so he could rock the twins to sleep while he churned.

Our sons, at play with our grandchildren, let us relive our own babies' little growin'.

My husband and our son prayed at the altar this morning during church.

I held hands with my husband, the father of our children, as we watched our grandson's baptism this morning.

Being a daddy is hard sometimes, especially when a child seems determined to take a wrong turning, and daddy has to watch his child stray.

Being a daddy is wonderful, especially when grown up children call home just to say Happy Father's Day.

So many men. So many different ways of fathering. Each an echo, a reflection, of our heavenly Father's love.

Papaw was right. I will never be fatherless, because the dear God and Father of us all is my father too.

Memorial Day 2006

My brother and his family came to the lake for the weekend, and we spent a lot of time remembering. Our Daddy was a World War II veteran, with his share of problems after those experiences. He lied about his age, went into the National Guard at age 15, and when the unit was called up, he and his three older brothers went together.

There are many memories we would perhaps rather not think about, but many that still warm our hearts. One of my favorites is the year it snowed.

Really snowed.

In this part of Texas we don't usually get a lot of snow. And since we don't get snow often, we don't have much equipment for icy roads and snow accumulation. No winter boots, no ski pants or jackets, no sleds. So when it snowed, we were not really equipped for it. Daddy, being a carpenter, decided to build a sled.

It wasn't the kind you see in pictures, with steel runners, like a Flexible Flyer. It was made of wood. And since we had only one hill, which dead-ended into a rather busy street, we started out pushing each other along the icy street in front of our house. The wooden sled was heavy, and with the added weight of the kids, we struggled to make much headway.

Daddy came to the rescue again. He used a long rope to tie the sled to the bumper of his pickup, and loaded us onto the sled. He then put the pickup in gear, and without accelerating he generated enough speed to make us feel as if we were flying.

The only boots we had were rainboots, and Mama put two pairs of socks on us to help keep our feet warm. We didn't have wet-proof mittens either, so she put bread wrappers over our gloves to keep them dry. Daddy pulled up us and down the road all afternoon. We couldn't have been more excited if Santa's reindeer had been pulling our sled.

We felt like the luckiest kids in Texas that snowy day. A wooden sled, a yellow pickup truck, and a daddy who made wishes come true--kind of a strange memory, for a hot summer day on the lake, but then again, on a hot afternoon, remembering that sled, and making snow ice cream, felt pretty good.

Memory Monday

I was trying to figure out just how far back I can remember....it must be somewhere between 2 and 3 years old. My daddy had a construction job in west Texas, near Midland. The three of us lived in a little tiny camp trailer. It did have a kitchen, but no bath. I hated the showers, and screamed and cried every time I had to have a bath. We were expecting family coming for a visit, so I had been scrubbed til I shown like a new penny. My grandmother said I looked strange, almost alien, because I had bright blue eyes and cotton-white hair, but was so tanned I looked Mexican or Indian--even my scalp showed tan through the white hair.

So there I was, all clean and dressed, and Mama had told me to stay that way until our comapny came. I was wandering around outside when they drove up. My cousin Danny, a year older than me, always had good ideas about what we could do together.

He dug a hole in the sand. In west Texas, that's pretty much all there is, is sand. He dug a big hole. Then he told me to lay down. Well, there wasn't room for all ofme in the hole, so I lay on my back and my head fit neatly into the hole. He then filled the hole with dirt.

When Mama came looking for me, my dress was still clean, and so were my hands and face. But my hair was full of sand. So.....my punishment was to head back to the damp dank shower house to have my hair washed again. I can remember screaming, "I ain't dirty!" all the way down the path, but I still had to take another shower.

Mama had made me some cute little pajamas, and since she was going to put me to bed to keep me out of trouble the rest of the evening, she put them on me. But I wasn't ready for bed, and was determined not to have the pajamas put on me. I kicked, cried, screamed, and generally threw a hissy fit, but Mama, with some help from Daddy, Granny B, and a couple of aunts, finally got those pajamas on me and put me to bed.

When she came back to check on me, I had cried myself to sleep.

And the pajamas were in a tangle on the floor.