Short and Sweet

"Thom, you're about to find out just how much we love you."--Mr. A, speaking to our firstborn over the telephone about the upcoming birth of his first child this fall.  

We women have so much to say and share about pregnancy, childbirth and infant care, volumes are written and spoken.  This, however, is about the most touchingly beautiful thing I've heard, from father to son. 

Mr. A and our firstborn son
an outstanding father
to an outstanding son
1988

 

2012 at our firstborn's wedding
Mr. A, best man
Mrs. A, best mom :D
our firstborn
his lovely bride
our second son, also best man
his then girlfriend, now fiancee
and the 7th person, number of perfection,
now resides in the womb of our daughter-in-love

Psalm 103:17But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children,
18to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.

Happy Family News!

First, a little back story:

http://cdmphotostudio.blogspot.com/search/label/Reed

My firstborn was married October 13, 2012.  He and his wife lived in our home town for about a year-and-a-half, then relocated to Denver, Colorado late spring, 2014.  They honeymooned there and fell in love with the place, one of the main draws being it does not have southern Georgia's steamy sub-tropical climate.  Then there were good jobs, exponentially better pay than our region, and despite a bit higher cost of living, they are able to put back more money for a home in the future.  Presently, they just moved from a sweet little townhouse to a more spacious detached dwelling in the same neighborhood they love.  The extra room is needed, for...

This was the sweet way Mr. A and I were informed we were going to be grandparents.  They were smooth, let me tell you.  It was March 1st, and they were in Georgia for a visit.  They had spent Christmas in Denver, so it was reasonable to me to receive a little flat silver box and be told it was an ornament. They had given us a Christmas ornament from a trip to Helen, GA a couple of years ago, so here was an ornament from Colorado, right?  

I had donned my reading glasses and went to sit by Mr. A so we could look at our ornament together.  Isaiah 49:18, NIV, comes to mind:  "Lift up your eyes and look around; all your children gather and come to you.  As sure as I live," declares the Lord, "you will wear them all as ornaments; you will put them on, like a bride."

These lovely people ornamented our home:

They look like proud parents already, and indeed they are!  

If that wasn't enough joy to fill this mother's heart, my baby boy and his betrothed, also Denver residents, visited about two weeks later.  They will be married this summer. Our family is growing and I am one blessed mother, mother-in-law, and grandmother-in-the-making.  

I have considered Grand-ma-ma, emphasis on the ah, or Le-Le, springboarding from my first name.  If my grandbaby begins speaking in the manner of my baby boy, Le-Le will be We-We.  I'm told grandparents are often called what the wee ones can pronounce, so who knows, Mr. A or I might be "Donk" the name little Sybbie on Downtown Abbey christened her grandfather. 

Exciting, happy times.  I am a blessed woman, in too many ways to count!    
  

The Day Before Easter At The Re-purposed Nest

It doesn't take much to make me happy:  

Clean pool loungers, compliments of Lysol All Purpose Cleaner and a pressure washer, our Easter present to each other.  If Lysol would like to compensate me for the endorsement, I'll oblige.  We also pressure washed the front porch, the swing, all the furnishings on it, even the cushions and pillows, plus an anti-gravity lounger.  On the back deck, we now have a freshly cleaned table and six chairs, a metal end table, grill and decorative mini cast iron stove.    

Pressure washing's cool.  Think Beavis and Butthead in the wood shop episode.  Going a bit nuts with a pressure washer is more constructive, though, than a table saw, and at the end of the day, all our fingers were intact.  

The pool loungers, like our nest, have been re-purposed.  The above-ground pool collapsed, the second one we've had to do that, so now instead of lounging in the sun, these loungers are primarily used for viewing the stars and planets.  One iPad with a GoSky app, one blanket, one bottle of mosquito spray, one clear, starry night, and one pool lounger make for a sweet evening.

Mr. A and I bought another anti-gravity lounger at Big Lots yesterday and I commented to him we weren't going to drop about a hundred bucks on filling Easter baskets this year.  I filled Easter baskets for our sons and in time their girlfriends, even to adulthood.  Though it was a tradition I enjoyed for years, yesterday I felt liberated.  "They're making more money than we are," I said to a friend we bumped into from church. "They can fill their own Easter baskets." 

 Here's a photo of my sons and the loves of their lives the last time they were all here for Easter dinner, 2012.  For a couple of decades and then some, it was all about them.  I was fortunate they attended college and lived in the same town afterwards for one year and three years respectively.  Many parents have to get used to this part of life sooner than we have.  I'm not sure which way would be easier, but we now, like them, are learning to lead lives for two. 

Our firstborn arrived ten days after our first wedding anniversary, our second three years later.  It's taken us 28 years to get to the stage of life of discovering how two people live and love together and aside from missing the kids, we're doing a pretty good job of it.  When I was toting furniture to and fro where Mr. A was washing, it crossed my mind this must be what it's like to be newlyweds.  Having been with child just three months into a marriage, this level of freedom is new territory for us.  

Be it ever so humble, we are house proud at the re-purposed nest and get a lot of  joy and satisfaction making it clean and comfortable for the two main guests, during a first season in our married life, ourselves.       

Palm Sunday Siesta and More

He stood so long during mass on Palm Sunday he was exhausted...

Not really...Mr. A usually enjoys a Sunday siesta and now that spring has sprung and the worst of the pollen has stopped in southern Georgia, we lounge the afternoon away in our vitamin D receptacles in the field in front of our home.  Soon enough it will be so hot we'll retreat to the shade of ornamental pear trees.  

The neck pillow was his mother's, one way he holds her memory close.  

The binoculars were used to spot a bald eagle.

The book is mine.

Enough evidence could not be collected to accuse Mr. A of being a book worm. He'd rather chop firewood, rebuild a carburetor, haul away scrap metal...well, you get the picture.  His belly was simply a book rest for a moment while I placed throws on my lounger.  Beautiful and sunny as it was, there was a chill in the air, seems there is always one last reminder of winter shortly before Easter.  

We spoke of airplanes, or rather he spoke of airplanes and I listened.  Military, trainers, experimental, passenger, you name it, he identifies it and never tires of the topic.  My take on a passenger airliner is sardines in a dirty Coke can, but you can't beat it for efficiency.  I loathe car travel, so it's a blessing to go see our children in Colorado in about the same amount of time it'd take us to drive to Atlanta.  (It dawned on me I number among those on earth who knew people from the pre-air travel era.)      

We spoke of parenthood; he said, "There are times you act lovingly when you're not necessarily feeling it."  It was a stripes-earned comment, surprised though, to hear it from him.  He almost always acted lovingly.  I told him he'd given me a tremendous gift with the way he conducted himself as a father.  I could never fault him for the examples he lived; he was a good role model for our sons.  Well, I did on occasion lob a complaint that I was more the disciplinarian than he, but all is well that ends well.  He was appreciative of my compliment and I'm appreciative I can lavish words of praise on him with no worry of him becoming puffed up.

From the visually euphoric vantage point of spring green...

  
(you can see the moon if you look closely at the center) ...we called our baby boy and his fiancee.  We discussed their upcoming wedding and a wedding guest book I created online for their approval.  Being able to talk on a telephone without a cord was unheard of in my childhood, but now we did just that, on speaker, so four people and the dog separated by over 1,600 miles could converse as if in the same room.  Not being confined to a room rocks!  

When the cool afternoon got even cooler, we went inside and another conversation on another device unheard of in my childhood commenced.  My older son and I were exchanging instant messages between his iPhone and my iPad.  I sent him a picture of a collaborative effort with his father, homemade Chicago deep dish pizza:

...and he replied he was booking a redeye.  We agreed to a call later and the call was via another communication miracle, Facetime.  It was dreamed of when I was a child--portrayed in a 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon called The Jetsons:

  

And with someone's dream come true, our firstborn took us on a tour of a house he and his wife recently rented, upgrading in size from a pretty little townhouse they've occupied since their move out west last summer.  A gas stove and an outlet on the island, a cook's clever design!  After ten months of dues paying in a smallish galley kitchen, he and his wife will have plenty of counter space for collaborative culinary creations of their own plus room to dance.

Part of me wished I lived close enough to help them move and another part of me could rest easy--as the young people say now, "I got this."  They do indeed have their lives under control and their father and I can enjoy the blessing and security of knowing our children are wholly, completely self-sufficient. 

Plus a potential hernia might be avoided.

After all this glorious sunshine and pleasant conversation with our children, we marveled over that mysterious place where time goes.  We see each other looking not exactly like we did on our wedding day, but still, could we have grown children in such a lightning speed passage of time?  

The book of Ecclesiastes has an entire chapter devoted to the topic of time and it speaks of a gift from God, every man being able to eat and drink and enjoy the toil of his labor.  My labor led to the hard work of childrearing and we were fortunate enough these duties were done with reasonable success.  This blessed Sunday afternoon, we reaped the reward of sharing joy in our grown children's milestones, territory they are navigating beautifully on their own.     

Then and Now

(written on September 30, 2014)

On the anniversary of the eve of my first son's birth, I recall a startling truth I chose not to absorb at that time:  Two women, one of them my mother, the other an older co-worker from the bank where I was previously employed, stood at the foot of my bed on the maternity floor, looked at each other and solemnly spoke of how quickly children grow up.  I see them clearly, but 27 years gone by have made the one who spoke and the one who agreed interchangeable in my memory.  Their message is ever present at this phase of my life--they uttered the truest thing ever spoken about children.  

Earlier today I was puttering on the front porch and in the front yard, washing bird feeders and watering plants, and though it's been close to six years since I have had any heavy responsibilities for a person other than myself, another truth still startles me:  I. can. take. my. time.  There wasn't a reason in this world to rush because it would be hours before the next thing was expected of me, cooking dinner, and even that is not an expectation--if I asked my husband to pick up dinner, he would gladly.  

 My older son married a good cook and he often proudly tells us what's for dinner at their townhouse in Denver, Colorado.  In an unusual turnabout in sibling adventures, it was my younger son who led the way, first answering the call to go west, young man.  Shortly after he moved away, someone not known for thinking before speaking said, "He may never come back,"  then laughed heartily.  It hurt.  Thoughts ran through my mind like 'what a bitch,' and 'how mean' then the realization of what goes around, comes around reminded me it already had.  The speaker has yet to be assured of the competent and complete independence of her long grown adult children.

My sons, as of tomorrow and the 29th of November, will be 27 and 24.  Those ages jump out at me as I was 24 and 27 when I gave birth to them.  In a whirlwind, they were grown and gone to seek their fortune, and I found myself in a phase of life which feels remarkably similar to how I felt after high school graduation--not knowing what is ahead, realizing the potential for adventure is immense, only now there is that urgency of fewer potential years ahead contrasted with then.  

Confusing things is the fact there is nothing urgently needing to be done at the moment.  Anxiousness about that in our human doing, as opposed to human being, culture is tempting, but I plod along, learning to yield to the sacrament of the present God-given moment, and the Lord has seen fit to give me a long season of rest after a two decade season of the exhausting sandwich generation, heavy responsibilities for generations before and after, 

There is still that jet lag of the mind to contend with, and acclimating myself to the present reality is a journey very unlike the long, straight roads of my roots, the coastal plains of Georgia, and more like the scary hairpin turns of an ascending road of a Rocky mountain my elder son drove up in August, entirely too fast for my comfort!  I was a mere 45 when I was no longer responsible for a minor child and six years later at 51, the evolution to adult friendship and adviser-as-needed-never-unasked-for is still, well, evolving.  

Here, to this point, I have meandered.  I am blown away with pride and joy these boys are in fact men who have stepped up to the plate of life, grabbed every opportunity they could, and set out on an adventure when all too many play it safe, biding time in uneventful existences.  As much as I enjoyed the time they were safely under my wings in my nest, I am delighted to see how well they have flown, in fact, so far, knock wood, neither have boomeranged to the nest from which they launched, a good thing as their bedrooms have been converted to an office/craft room and a library/guest bedroom.  I vowed I would never sit among Legos and K'nex and cry for what was.  I've cried all right, but not in a shrine to what will never again be.

Still, I am fiercely protective of what, for 18 years apiece, I thought was mine, and when someone was trying to give an opinion on the career of one of my sons, I heard myself say, "Back off!"  I felt (and feel) a little bad about the abrupt delivery, but I backpedal not one inch on my sentiment:  The boy is a man, an autonomous being who does not need the insult of a helicopter parent.  He can make his own decisions, and whether they are the absolute best or not, they are a) his to make and b) thrive on or c) learn from.  

That was a moment of opening my mouth and my mother coming out.  I haven't yet met another soul who valued independence as much as she, and she lived without hypocrisy the virtue of not meddling in my life as an adult.  My opinion seems not to be blurred or skewed as my husband affirms gratefully what I have said.  She likely knew she trained me all too well and I would have told her to step back over a line had she crossed one anyway.

It is my turn to give this grace and freedom to my sons.  It is not a one-time and-done gift; it has taken the rehearsal of the half-decade plus of not being a parent of a minor to keep on giving.  I speak as if I had a choice.  I would not and did not try to discourage my sons from following dreams that led them over 1,600 miles from their childhood home.  I am humbled when I think of two dear friends whose children are entering the Army and Navy respectively.  Talk about relinquishment.  Relinquishment implies ownership, though, and that is never the case with our children; we are stewards and only for a few brief years.  

In any case, as I type out words to cement in my mind what is real and now, I think of the labor I went through to bring my first child into the world and I thank God that I don't have to do that again tomorrow!  As it hurt when each of my sons launched from my womb to my arms, it hurt when they launched from their childhood home into the world, but in both instances, the joy of watching their development brings an unending source of pride in their accomplishments, and now I in mine.  There are two handsome, hard-working, adventurous young men in this world I am privileged to hear call me 'Mom'--without all the responsibilities that title once entailed.             

Throwback Thursday July 24, 2014

Stunt cyclist, 1967ish, 4 years old  

My best guess is 1967, as that is the year my mother cut my waist length hair because of the rat's nests.  That's what she called the massive tangle of curls which was entirely, genetically, her fault.  The tricycle was red and I loved it. It was not long before I got my first bicycle with training wheels, a gold Hedstrom, and I promptly demanded Daddy take off the training wheels.  

I liked a challenge, living on the edge, even when my age was in the single digits.  

In my early teens, I saw a neighborhood boy riding a unicycle, and I decided I must do that, too.  I asked for and received one for Christmas.  I got two paint poles out of the utility room and used them like ski poles for balance until I learned to ride without them.  My Grannie later told me my mother said she didn't think I'd ever ride it, but Grannie told her I would.  

And I did.  I'm 14 here.    

This wasn't enough.  I would sneak off with a friend who had a vintage Harley and go riding with him.  We once clocked over a hundred miles an hour and another time went airborne after hitting a root in the Blue Springs region.  I had to sneak because I was forbidden to ride motorcycles.  My mother had seen some gruesome injuries when she worked in the emergency room, even described them to me.  It made no difference.  I wanted to ride a motorcycle and I did.  The last @$$-whoopin' I got was for doing just that.  It didn't stop me.  

Freshman year, same friend and I were supposed to go to graduation that year and play Pomp and Circumstance for the seniors.  The volunteer band was missing a tuba player and a clarinetist because we, dressed rather nicely, went motorcycle riding.  I had on yellow dress slacks and wedge sandals and I lifted my legs as high as I could when we rode through the dip at Cherry Creek so as not to get my clothes wet.  I got away with it that time.     

I wonder sometimes where this spirited girl went, but there is no question at all it was thoroughly and irrevocably in my genes:

My older son is standing; my baby boy is rappelling.  

More than once, a disapproving comment was made to me about the climbing nature of my baby boy.  To the best of my recollection, I never once tried to hinder him.  How could I deny something I'd genetically bequeathed to him?

I'd climbed my share of tall South Georgia pines, and it was one of my favorite things to do.  I roller skated, forward, backward, and as fast as I humanly could.  

Skating, I can tell you, is not like riding a bicycle.  I donned some roller skates in my mid-thirties, went one round, promptly exited the skate floor and took those off.  I'm 51 now, and have not, won't, try that again.  I will grow older as gracefully as I can, but there is a part of me which still longs for an adventure.  

Not some tacky midlife crisis, but a true adventure.  I look forward to blogging about it, whatever it may be.  

Tinsel, Miss Clairol and Gray Hair

Choosing to regard the incoming white hairs on my head in a positive and festive light, I jokingly call them "tinsel."  The pigment production along my hair line has chosen to retire first, thus a very obvious crown of splendor is revealed when I wear a ponytail, which I did today.  

At lunch, my (26-year-old) son and my (60-year-old) husband were inside ordering and I was outside scouting for a place to sit this beautifully sunny February day.  I found a little bistro table with two chairs, then spied a group of young women nearby at a table with an empty chair.  I asked if I could use the chair and they generously said yes.  One of them then informed me the chair was heavy.  

I have a similar wrought iron table and chairs older than the seated young women and was well aware it weighed a tad more than a webbed folding chair.  I lifted it easily and said, "He man!"  I am also aware they may well have never sat in a webbed folding chair and these rainbow colored days, I could have left them questioning my sexuality.  

I didn't care.  I had something to prove and thankfully I didn't drop dead doing it.  As I walked away with the chair, I thought how my arms were strong for the task, a portion of Proverbs 31 I pep talk myself with when I pick up a heavy load.     

After proving I could lift a wrought iron chair with the best of women, my son comes out of the restaurant and tells me he meant for me to nab a table on the street side of the restaurant.  I was undaunted.  It was a mistake anyone ineligible yet for AARP could have made.  I walked to the other side of the building with my graying head held high to join my husband and son for lunch.  

I questioned why they'd want to sit on a busy east-west thoroughfare through town, and my son, who works on this block, said the chances of a panhandler hitting us up were less here--on the shady, windy side of the building where noisy street sweepers and concrete trucks trundled by.  As it turns out, one of the regular panhandlers rode by on a bicycle, looked at me for a moment and kept peddling.  Maybe she thought that old lady didn't have any money.

My son said she'd once hurled epithets at a man who works across the street, so we were spared from having our spare change mooched and from being called ugly names.  The server, who once a upon a time I'd called a waitress, brought out a little kitschy salt and pepper shaker and I said to my husband, "She brought you a toy!"  Before I knew it was a salt and pepper shaker, this is what I saw, minus the two holes at the top.  I didn't have on my glasses at the time.  It looked like a happy meal toy to me!  

Did I tell you, at 50 years young, my distance vision is 20/15?  I kid you not!  Key word, though, is distance.  Right up under my nose I have a serious case of CSS, can't see...I digress.  

My son did his characteristic embarrassed-by-my-mom pose--hand over face, head shaking from left to right.  My husband says, "Oh!  The cow jumped over the moon!  I get it!"  The cow stays fastened by a magnet in case you're wondering, but I suspect you might not be wondering and would have known right away this wasn't a toy.  

We proceeded uneventfully with our lunch on the truck route with panhandlers peddling by.  Afterwards, I rejoiced in my freedom, having raised my children and buried my parents, to do anything I wanted to do.

I chose to visit a produce market.  

I had a ball in there, picking and choosing the best of the fresh squash, tomatoes, zucchini, strawberries, lemons, limes, onions, sweet potatoes, cabbage and now I'm drooling--rutabagas!  I raided the freezer and got some already shelled black eyed peas, butter beans and some pre-snapped pole beans.  I even got some celery from the refrigerator.  I wielded a southern woman's knowledge, telling the manager who didn't know, the difference between a Stuart and a paper shell pecan.  A customer asked and anyone working at a produce market ought to know that.    

Redeemed!  

Not.  

At the checkout, a beautiful young woman asked me *twice* if I wanted help with carry out.  I said, "Not yet," inwardly hoping that I wouldn't need help for another quarter century.  Now that I reflect, I think I'll shoot for 85 before I accept help with carry out.

Anyway, I had a number of bags and carried them easily.  I was tempted to air bench press them a couple of times as I left to prove to her this tinsel topped woman had more strength in her arms than she did, working at a job where she pecked keys of a cash register with her forefinger, not much effort to that! 

Standing at the top of the steps down to the parking lot, I suddenly remembered that pride goeth before a fall and I really didn't feel like wiping out there, all my produce scattering where truly old men and women spit their chaw and dip.  Did I tell you my grandma dipped snuff?  Not Grannie, though she used to smoke Kool cigarettes, but Grandma.   

Oops.  I digressed again.  

I made it to my truck, not parked in a handicapped spot, and when I got home once again handily carried those bags inside with one trip, about four to each hand.  A few minutes later, I got the shot gun ready for some stubborn salesmen who wouldn't leave, but didn't point it at them.

It's not the easiest thing sometimes, to be a seasoned southern woman, but I'm working on it and I pray the good Lord gives me a very long time to do it.  I think I'm being sensible about it, really, not putting God-knows-what chemicals on my head trying to disguise the fact that I'm not 29 anymore. Who knows what else would happen to my faculties when Miss Clairol leeched into my brain?  

     
Now the above picture was truly what first came to mind.  Where in tarnation was that filed in the matter in my head, gray like some of the strands on my head?  I googled about and discovered Miss Clairol is not a Miss anymore, but simply Clairol.  Well, Clairol can't do a blessed thing for neck crepe and droopy boobies, more neon signs of old age, so why bother trying to disguise aging hair?  

I've heard getting old isn't for sissies.  My late mother-in-law said, "Gettin' old's hell."  

I haven't found it hellish yet, but so help me, I'm going to do this aging thing with as much dignity as I can, believing Proverbs 16:31, I'm sporting a crown of glory or splendor, depending on the translation.  Elsewhere in Proverbs, it says I am (or should be) clothed with strength and dignity and can laugh at the days to come, but today, it seemed, the laughs were on me!      
    

Another Throwback Thursday: My Best Friend is a *itch!

The family Australian shepherd, our granddog Maggie, was in the living area, on the couch where her "Grandpa" doesn't want her to be, and I was in the craft/computer room frittering away time on Facebook, not feeling too guilty as two electric servants, the dishwasher and the washing machine, were hard at work.

Suddenly, a knock, knock, knock in the laundry room told me the washing machine was out of balance.  I got up quickly to redistribute the clothes, and Maggie was already in there looking at it as if to ask, "What's wrong with you?!"  

Earlier this morning, she barked at our cat, Ashley, when she made the mistake of curling up in my recliner for a cat nap.  I used to scold Ashley when she'd sharpen her claws on the sliding door or dining room window screens, but I don't have to anymore.  Maggie now runs to where Ashley is misbehaving and barks at her!

Today's TBT picture is of me and Maggie in my truck.  How classically southern is that?--a Georgia girl, her dog and her truck.  This is 2010.  Maggie is approximately 10 months old here and I'm 47.  

During Maggie's first year of life, she frequently ran off to a nearby horse pasture to follow her instincts to herd.  The problem with that was she had to cross the intersection of two major highways to get there!  It's a wonder she is still with us today.  There was that day I was freshly out of the shower, wearing only a nightshirt, and my husband called and told me to get over to Perimeter Road (one of the highways facing the horse pasture) right then, he was trying to get Maggie to come to him and she refused.      

Our animal communication styles are decidedly different.  He wants to dominate, command and subdue and I am more like Dr. Doolittle, though animals will respond to my point and glare gleaned from mommyhood days.  Maggie and her Grandpa were having a standoff and Maggie was winning!  I responded promptly to Grandpa's barked order because he is ordinarily a gentle soul who never bosses me about, but Maggie didn't know him as well as I do and she wasn't budging.     

In broad daylight, clad only in a nightshirt and flip flops, I stood on the shoulder of Perimeter Road, calling to Maggie who was stubbornly ensconced in the median across from the horses.  She telepathically took my pulse first to see if I was as upset as her Grandpa, decided I wasn't, and bounded across two lanes and jumped dutifully into my Explorer.

As suddenly as a puppy stops chewing everything within its reach, Maggie stopped running off and became glued to my side.  True to her breed, she needs a lot of affection and often sits or lies touching me.  Sometimes all 44 pounds of her jumps into my lap when I least expect it!

Maggie was adopted by my younger son and his girlfriend within the year the older of my two brothers died, her primary residence with us at The Ponderosa, where she had more acreage to bound than in town.  My grief for my brother was nearly engulfing, too much for other humans, and Maggie sensed that.  She was completely available for my thoughts, tears and prayers. One evening while she was still a pup, we were sitting on the front porch after dark.  I was in awe of the majesty of the night sky and knew the Maker of it held the power to release me from the stubborn grip of grief. Suddenly this precious little creature began to growl, moved from my side and positioned herself in front of me.  

She wasn't big as a minute then, but like the day she arrived at The Ponderosa, she was oh so bold.  I don't know if she was confronting a creature in the woods or a demon sent to torment me, but she stood her ground, hackles raised...and that was the moment she completely won my heart.  Her protective vigilance ushered in a much needed breakthrough.  

At the time my brother died, I'd been abandoned and turned on by several dysfunctional extended family members while I was helping care for him.  He had his own liquid demons in life to battle, and in the end, not enough close family members stood loyally by him.  I learned the hard way that when someone dies leaving unresolved issues literally in their wake, the aggrieved misguidedly seek another target.  I commenced building a fortress to keep out those who, in better circumstances, would have grieved with me.   

Enter a silky-coated Australian Shepherd puppy to the rescue. My son's girlfriend wasn't completely up the back steps with our newest family member cradled in her arms before Maggie was boldly barking at residents who'd preceded her by more than a decade, the family cats.   

All the chaos a puppy brings to a household mysteriously, miraculously transformed a twisted grief journey to a straighter road toward internal peace and recovery.  I believed the Lord Himself sent this animal into my life to help cement what He'd already tried to tell me, weeping may endure for a night, but joy is sure to come in the morning.    

In 2013, circumstances prevented my son and his girlfriend from keeping custody of Maggie--exorbitant pet deposit, move across the country, small apartments, etc.  It appears that Maggie's fur-ever home is with Grandpa and Grandma.  I had told them I realized Maggie was their dog and I was ready (emotionally, but I didn't say that to them) to relinquish her.  Yeah, maybe I lied a little, but humans still come before animals and if my son and his girlfriend wanted to take her, I intended to send her with them as bravely and graciously as I could pretend.    

My son said to me, "She likes you," emphasizing the word you.  Maggie loves everyone in the family, even those who could do without her affection, but I was the person to whom Maggie was most attached.  It just kind of happened by default; the kids gave her as much time as they could, but with several part-time jobs and numerous college classes between them, they didn't have the amount of time a very affectionate dog needed.  Along that part of their lives, time was all I had, blessedly, to work on the business of healing my heart, broken over the loss of a sibling who had never once said a harsh word to me. Ever.  

my late brother, my baby and me, Christmas 1999

I later learned my baby boy told my older son that he couldn't take Maggie, he didn't want to "break Mom's heart."  

Pausing to wipe my tears.  I'll wait while you wipe yours.

There are days when I threaten to ship my rambunctious Maggie to Colorado to be a crag dog to my mountain climbing son and his girlfriend, then she'll lay her head on my knee or my chest and I melt, affirming she is still at the right place at the right time.    

Maggie is content to run while I walk trails in the woods, and she performs other important duties like keeping the cat and household appliances in line. Her unconditional love, the type we frail humans can't always give, saw me through a rough patch in my life. Some are offended when it is pointed out that God spelled backwards is dog, but I'm not.  It's high praise to one of His finer creations; in my case, one renewed in my spirit that God's Word and love is unfailing.   

Happy New Year, Welcome 2014!

The 2013 calendar was just removed from the kitchen wall and I'll be headed to Books-A-Million today to replace it, hopefully with another featuring the art and inspiration of Thomas Kinkade.  His work always draws me in; he wrote as well or better than he painted, but that isn't what I intended to blog about today.  I was saddened again, though, to recall that his once vibrant life didn't end on the best note, but I hope it is the better times which stand out among those remembering him.  

As I flipped through a calendar I'll save, my kids can throw it away when I'm gone, I paused on June.  "A romantic life includes an element of exploration and adventure."--Thomas Kinkade  

My baby boy left home in June, and shortly after he and his father embarked on a cross country drive to Englewood, Colorado, I saw this on the calendar.  "...an element of exploration and adventure" is a fitting description of Baby Boy's life.  I marveled that the Lord, through the work of a deceased artist, would speak to my heart in perfect timing.   

It was also perfect timing for Baby Boy to fly the coop, having earned a degree in finance at age 21, then procured a job as a stockbroker after a long and exhaustive search.  Prior to landing the job in Englewood, he asked me one day to iron a dress shirt for him, he was going to apply for a job at a retail sporting goods store.  My heart felt heavy over his frustration in finding a position in his field of study, but I admired and respected that he was willing to work anywhere he could find full-time employment.  His willingness and diligence, I believe, was rewarded when he was hired by Fidelity Investments.

    
On the same June page of the 2013 calendar was another Kinkade quote: "Unfolding miracles take the form of natural circumstances with perfect timing."  The Lord and Thomas Kinkade did it again, speaking encouragement to my aching heart!

It doesn't feel natural when a piece of your heart and the love of your life go on a cross country trip in which only one of them would return, but it was a natural circumstance in perfect timing.  

I suppose that is the standout milestone for me, and of course for Baby Boy, in 2013.  

It was an overall very good year with little to regret, one that passed more quickly than any other I'd lived, but my elders before me told me that would happen.  It was hard to believe then, when it seemed I'd never get grown and on my own, but it is among the truest things I was ever told.  

The years have begun to pass in what feels like cut time, a musical term in which notes are played at half their length.  (I only studied music for five years, not long enough to learn why the composers didn't just go ahead and write the music in the time intended rather than making one do math calculations while simultaneously playing a clarinet.)  I commented to Mr. A that it would only be six months before it is Christmas again.  The rapidity of time passing increases the urgency of living each day well.  

I am learning that living each day well includes accepting the ordinariness of many days which was prophesied on my wedding day by Fr. Thomas Peyton, the namesake for my firstborn son, incidentally, whom we called Thom.  Fr. Tom said these ordinary days could be quite extraordinary, and he was correct.  I didn't know fully what he meant on September 21, 1986, but I believe I do now, and I also believe my understanding of that will only increase as I embark on the second half of my life.

I've had some remarkably extraordinary ones to be sure, marrying a sweet man who still loves me and I him, having two precious baby boys with him who grew into handsome, intelligent men, witnessing their college graduations, seeing Son One married, sharing his joy over the first house he and his wife purchased, and in 2011, having my first book published.

See, I told you they were handsome.  L-R, My sons, Thing One, Thing Two, and
their handsome cousin, The Sailor
The rose painting above The Sailor's shoulder, a gift from Mr. A nearly
30 year ago, several years before I became Mrs. A

To be sure, there was heartache and hard times mingled amongst the days, ordinary and extraordinary, but that is not what is on my heart and mind today.  2013, indeed my entire life, is one I can look back on and say the blessings outweighed the burdens.  

I have made no New Year's resolutions for which to beat myself up later when I haven't kept them.  I am someone who is always looking for a better way to do things, for making any improvements I can, so in a way my resolutions are renewed daily.  My ambition in my adult life was to create a warm and loving home for my family.  I made decisions I'll never regret, such as the one to be a full-time homemaker.  I sneaked work in like substitute teaching at my sons' parochial school, stocking books at Target while they were in class, and on days they weren't, I took them with me.  As I stocked books, I realized I should be writing them, and lo and behold, the Lord allowed me to do that!

Two years after retiring a newspaper column and having a book published, the well began to replenish and blogging is filling a creative desire.  I have another blog I took down as it largely comprised the contents of my first book, so who knows where this one might go.  At 50, I am entirely too young to stop dreaming.  

Dreaming may have been what I was doing as 2014 arrived.  I was awakened by a shotgun blast, the shrill pitch of launched fireworks prior to explosion, and snnkkknnnk.  That was Mr. A snoring.  

And that ordinary beginning to an extraordinary new year suited me just fine.

May 2014 bring you many sweet days to cherish.  Happy New Year!

Mrs. A  

        

My Cup of Joy Overflows

It's been nearly six months since I bid adieu to the younger of my two sons as he set off to Colorado for the first job in his area of study.  The start of his career path in finance was an aside, really, to the presence of majestic mountains and beautiful boulders.  Boulders may not hold the same beauty as mountains, but they have little crags and crevices nimble fingers and toes fit neatly into for a rare breed of spider people who desire to scale them.  The desire to climb was birthed in this child, always a child in my heart, but to others, a man of 23 years.  

Psalm 37:4

New International Version (NIV)

 Take delight in the Lord,
    and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Sometimes, probably too many times, believers perceive the Lord as a gimme-god and use this scripture in error, thinking He'll make a way for us to have all our material wants.  It's a long walk, for the hard-headed anyway, reference to self, to realize God's children must trust Him to initiate and place those desires!  Do we really think this life is all about us, our wants, our needs?  

My wants?  Oh, how I want this young'un to live closer to home!  

Author and Bishop T.D. Jakes says, "When you have children, hold them, love them, care for them, empower them.  But understand that you are only temporary stewards.  They belong to God."

The same God Who places desires in our hearts. 

The strands of my son's DNA hold bits and pieces of those before him, his mother's love of climbing trees, his father's adventuresome spirit in piloting small aircraft, and his maternal and paternal grandfathers' risk-taking in testing and tuning race cars and experimental aircraft respectively.  Deoxyribonucleic acid, one of few terms I recall from science classes--all God's wonderful idea.  

I'm thoroughly convinced the love of climbing was installed in him prior to his birth.  My first child became serious, getting in place to be born, waited nicely.  I thought that was how it was until I birthed a second who seemed to clamber his way out of my womb.  The doctor who caught the child who practically delivered himself held him up with one hand, and with the other, unwrapped the crisscrossed umbilical cord from under the arms, through the legs, a certain predictor of the climbing ropes he eventually asked for one Christmas.    

He couldn't wait to get out and start climbing!  Reviewing pictures from literally infancy, the child was climbing before he walked, scaling love seats, out of his crib.  As flitter flat as the deep southeast is, he'd find things to climb wherever he went, and yes, I saw that picture online where he scaled a building at the university he attended, no ladder needed.

He had to go to the mountains and boulders because they would not come to him.  His brother once told me how mesmerized baby boy was before a boulder, entranced, in deep study, before commencing a climb.  It was if no one else was on the planet, just him and that boulder.  

Do I believe when the Lord spoke boulders into being he had my little blue-eyed, curly-mopped top guy in mind?  

I do.  

This boulder, that boulder, those mountain ranges, they weren't just meant to be looked at and photographed, ya know!  They cry out through the ages for someone, anyone, to conquer them.  

While they were calling, and before he could get to them, baby boy rehearsed on artificial rock walls and made the occasional trip to visit a real one when he could find time between finance classes and a part-time job in banking and another part-time job minding the rock wall at the university's rec center. 

A desire in my heart is that in time he'll fall in love with the mountains on the east coast, a day's drive, as opposed to two, from his mother's abode.  

In the meantime, he is home this weekend for a visit to his beautiful girlfriend, also a climber, to see her ascend the steps of the stage at the local university to receive the diploma she earned in her studies at the nursing school.  The cool part is his dad and I get to see him, too!

We have lived long enough to witness both our sons graduate from high school and college with honors; well, baby boy did make the dean's list a couple of times.  We have attended the wedding of our elder son, to a lovely young woman whose college graduation we also attended, incidentally the day he proposed to her.  We have a daughter-in-love, and now our daughter-in-heart will join the others, college diploma in hand, all of life ahead.  

No surprise, baby boy earned his a year early.  I tease him sometimes about being a high school dropout.  He left high school after the 11th grade to attend college full-time.

I think he was in a hurry to get to those mountains he had to climb.  

 baby boy

The beautiful graduate to be who is soon moving to Colorado

 The reason mothers pray while their heart is saying, "You go, kid!" 

Climb those mountains, live your lives, and know you can never go far enough away to escape your mother's love and prayers.

Thank you, God, for spirited, adventuresome, accomplished, and occasionally knuckle-headed children.  I am a blessed woman!