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Archive for July, 2011

319

Posted in Etc. on July 29, 2011| 1 Comment »

319.  That’s the number that I found written on a steamed mirror this morning.  It made me smile.  I knew the moment I saw it, the day of the month, the 29th.  For a brief moment, my very competitive side (a nature that at times possesses not only a side of me, but all of me) rose up and I thought, “Arrgh, he got me again.”  And indeed he had.

319.  That’s the number of months my husband and I have been married as of today.  Yes, my husband counts the length of our married years in months.  And yes, he remembers the new number every month.  And yes, it’s very sweet.

A few years ago, we developed this “healthy” little competition to see which of us could wish the other a “happy-month-a-versary.”  Bryan D. is really good at the remembering…I am not so good…in fact, I stink at it.  And that’s a funny thing between us because he is not usually the one who remembers things very well.  Me, on the other hand, remembers freaky details…like the birthdays of people whom I’ve not seen in decades.

But when it comes to our “month-a-versary” I just don’t remember…until I find a number written somewhere on the 29th of a month…or when my husband just happens to drop a number in a conversation we are having on the 29th day of any month.  As soon as I hear a random number that has absolutely nothing to do with anything we have been talking about…I know…he’s got me again…he remembered and I did not.

There used to be a little piece of paper stuck on the front of our refrigerator with a number on in and a smiley face…I put it there.  It was one of the few times that I actually remembered the “month-a-versary” before he did.  I left that piece of paper, declaring me the winner of our monthly competition, for months…actually for about 3 years.  And in those 3 years that followed my one victory, Bryan Darling, would catch me again and again and again with a surprise “month-a-versary” reminder.

This morning on the 29th of July, 2011, was no different…he remembered while I was more concerned about getting to our daughter’s college orientation.  I like it that he remembers.  It reminds me that he loves me.  It reminds me that I am blessed like crazy.  It reminds me that sometimes it is important to remember the little things in life.  319…a very good number indeed.

 

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My front porch

Posted in Etc. on July 27, 2011| 1 Comment »

I stepped outside this afternoon and decided to walk around our house…looking at fruit trees and seeing if weeds were springing up in our flower bed after yesterday’s rain.  The sun was shining brightly, which it has done a lot this hot summer, beating down on plant or pavement, conveying a single message of blazing heat.  But late this afternoon, I was surprised to find a slightly cool breeze was blowing softly across our property.  It felt really nice outdoors…nice enough to sit on our front porch and read a book, which is what I found my oldest doing.

 

I love our front porch.  I love front porches period.  But,  I’m especially fond of ours.  I have spent a lot of time there…at all hours of the day.  I’ve watched sunrises and sunsets and thunderstorms in the afternoon and lightening displays at night and fireworks shooting up from our front yard.  I have sat on that porch with my husband and with our children, sometimes in bunches and sometimes with just one of our offspring.  I have sat with my mom on that porch and with dear friends.  It’s a great place to enjoy a hot cup of coffee or a cold glass of iced tea or lemonade.  It’s a great place to watch a family football game or batting practice or a heated volleyball or badminton match.

It’s a great place to wait for my kids to arrive home from school or college or to watch for my husband to get home from work.   It’s a great place to listen…to a family member’s memories…or the happenings of the day…or laughter…or just the sounds of the nature around it.

On summer mornings you can hear a buzzing sound made by the hundreds of bees that are busy flying in and out of the white blossoms of the Crepe Myrtle that stands not too far away.  There are birds that chirp and sing and the occasional bark of our dog, Ellie.  It’s a good place to just be quiet and still.  It’s just a good place to be.

 

 

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Holy places

Posted in Etc. on July 26, 2011| 2 Comments »

I was reminded yesterday of one of the hardest parts of being a mom…watching our children hurt.  We want to fix things when our kids hurt…we want to make things right…we want to take the hurt away…we may want to hurt whomever or whatever is causing the pain, but, in many situations, we simply can’t.  We can only be there and offer hugs and maybe band-aids or listening ears or tears or reassuring smiles letting them know that they will get through the difficulty.

I was also reminded that these times of pain, which none of us like, can usher us into holy places…places of being close-by while someone we love immensely is suffering.  That is one of the privileges of being a parent, to be available to our children when they are hurting.

Last summer I spent 8 days in a holy place, the seizure monitoring ward of a teaching hospital.  It didn’t look like a holy place when we arrived there on a Monday morning and passed through the large hospital door that had a “sleep deprive” sign on it.  It didn’t seem like a holy place as the nurse pointed out the camera that would be viewing us 24/7 and the microphone that was in the ceiling so that every sound could be heard at the nurses’ station.  It didn’t feel like a holy place as I watched the technician glue 34 electrodes to my daughter’s head.

It felt more like a scary place because we didn’t know what to expect…and seizures are scary and that was why we were there, so seizures could be monitored and information could be gathered that might be valuable in helping with her treatment.

The first day turned into night, but there was no sleeping because sleep deprivation is one of the things that is done to try to cause a seizure.  Sleep was finally allowed in the early hours of the morning.

Day number 2 brought with it strobe lights in our room and hyperventilation techniques because these things might cause seizures also.  Later a recumbent bike was rolled into our room and my daughter would spend lots of time on it, pushing herself physically, trying to stress her body.

The days went on like this for over a week.  I left the room only to walk briskly to the cafeteria, pick up some food and walk briskly back to our room.

My daughter and I talked a lot…watched a lot of movies…played a lot of cards…worked word search puzzles.  We watched and waited.  Our stay lasted eight days…no seizures ever occurred.  It wasn’t the summer vacation we would have chosen…there was no beach or tropical breezes.

Toward the end of our stay, probably around day 5 or 6, is when I realized that this hospital room where we were stuck,  was a type of holy place…a place of great vulnerability for my daughter…a place of her suffering…and not many could enter into that place.  It was a privilege to be able to share that with her. Sharing in someone’s suffering is sharing in a holy place.

Hurting places come in all shapes and sizes.  When a child is small it may be when he falls down and scrapes his knee.  When they are a little older it may be watching them endure mean things that other kids say.  When they are even older, it may mean watching them experience unfairness or broken hearts or physical pain.  As a parent we sometimes have a front row seat on the pain that our children might have to endure.  We don’t want them hurting no matter what is causing the pain.  We want to intervene.  We want to exchange places with them and endure the pain instead of them.  But that isn’t the role we have…instead, we have the role of watching and waiting and praying and listening and crying and encouraging.

It is hard watching someone suffering…but it can also be a place of great intimacy…a holy place reserved only for a few and God Himself.

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Baskets

Posted in Family and friends on July 22, 2011| 1 Comment »

Yesterday I shared a little bit about my Aunt Barbara.  I did that so I could share a portion of something that she sent me the other day in our circle of writing life (see previous entry).  My Aunt Barbara has taught me much about endurance in life…I think you will see why.

“For a while now I have thought of my receiving polio as akin to my picking up a basket partially filled with odd looking items which I could not name.  The basket was not attractive, but it seemed to be what I needed.   As I went along, it gave me a handy place to put the “stuff” I picked up along the way.   Pretty things like colors and children’s laughter and the feel of wind in the Dodge with all the windows down on Interstate 81.  At some point I realized that the Dodge had been in the basket from the beginning, and in a way so had those children. Along with everything else I love.  It took me years to figure out that the basket held what I would need later on.  They would be there when I needed them.   I had known since a child that God had made the basket especially for me and sent it to me along with the promise that it would be okay.   I thought that meant that I would learn to sacrifice, to do with less, but that God would pay me back somehow.  Tenfold.

Gradually, and I’m not sure when, I began to understand that the basket itself is a treasure: I enjoy it.   It makes me giggle.   It helps me cry.   It makes me slow.   It requires that I think.   It shows me the success and failures of human love.

So, Donna, when I read about your gratitude for last year, I read in part that you are grateful for what seemed like a terrible thing happening to your child. I know that Scripture teaches us to seek in His name and we will receive.   Still, I am convinced that we must first be at a point of Need in order to see what he has already prepared for us.  What’s already in the basket and that we can have as soon as we learn how to name it.   And I don’t mean by this rambling that Amy’s seizures were in any way a means of teaching her or her family a lesson.   Just the opposite!   They were a gift, a cloverleaf off a crowded interstate to Another Place.   Hard as they were, she found good in them.   You found good in them.   I found good in them – – through you.  Am I making any sense at all?”

Aunt Barbara, you make perfect sense to me.

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My Aunt Barbara

Posted in Family and friends on July 21, 2011| 1 Comment »

My Aunt Barbara is a huge part of the reason why I enjoy writing.  She is a huge part of why I enjoy many things…funny movies, flying kites, singing silly songs, hot pastrami sandwiches, paintings by Van Gogh, Weimaraners…the list goes on and on.  She has been a huge influence on my life and one of my favorite people.

When I was eight-years-old, I began visiting my grandparents and aunt for two weeks every summer.  It was always a special time.  My aunt was a college English professor and when I visited I would go with my grandfather every day to the college where my aunt taught to pick her up from school…I loved doing that.

My aunt contracted polio when she was a child.  She survived the disease but it left her with no use of her right arm and limited use of her left arm.  The virus had affected her body in other ways too, but none that I would really understand until many years later.  The polio seemed to only slow her down a little from my perspective.  With encouragement from my grandparents, her parents, she learned to do many things.

To me, the fact that my Aunt Barbara’s arms didn’t work was just a part of life.  She let me do things that other grown ups didn’t, like carry her billfold when we went places and take out money to pay for things…that was a big deal to a little girl.

In the early 1970’s my Aunt Barbara received a miracle…a car that she could drive, steering with her feet.  The car had a huge disc in the driver’s side floorboard with a shoe mounted on it.  Aunt Barbara would get into the car, slide her foot into the shoe on the steering disc and off we would go.  I thought it was marvelous…she had to think it was one of the most incredible things ever in the whole wide world!  It gave her a new kind of freedom and she LOVED driving!  My summer visits only got more adventurous now that Aunt Barbara could drive.  We went all kinds of places.

From my earliest memories, my Aunt Barbara has always told the most wonderful stories about the goings-on in her life.  Her stories ALWAYS made me laugh!  Listening to all of her stories made me want to tell stories too…stories to make people laugh.  So she is one of the reasons that I write…to tell stories…to make others laugh…maybe.

My Aunt Barbara reads my blog and that in itself is a blessing…and when she reads what I write she writes her own thoughts back to me.  It’s a circle of writing life that we share…and I am most grateful.

 

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Pass the Ibuprofen…PLEASE!

Posted in Things about me on July 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Today I am acutely aware of being closer to 50-years-old than 40…acutely aware…acutely sore…acutely stiff.  My young and limber 11-year-old had his second tennis lesson yesterday afternoon.  It went very well.  And then he looked at me with huge gray/green eyes and said something like, “We can hit a few more, right?”

And I looked at him and his big gray/green eyes and said, “Sure, we can do that.”

And I laughed a little when his tennis instructor told him to go easy on the “old lady.”

And we did hit a few more until I said something like, “This is the last one as I knocked the yellow ball his way.”  And then we walked to the car and I drove home and got out of the car and thought something like, “If I sit down before I get dinner ready, dinner may never happen.”

I shared these thoughts and conversations with my husband at the dinner table and then said something when dinner was all done like, “I think you may need to carry me because I don’t think I can stand up or move right now.”  I was joking…sort of.

Next thing I know, he is standing over me and then swooping me up into his arms and I felt very young again…and then cried out something like, “You shouldn’t be doing this…remember you back…and your neck…and don’t drop me.”

Our daughter also yelled cautioning phrases as she watched with alarm as her parents exited the kitchen.

I went to bed early…by 9 o’clock.  I awoke a couple of hours later with my muscles and joints screaming, “Get something for us!  Get the Motrin, the Advil, the Aleve, the SOMETHING!”

I applied heat and ibuprofen to my stiff and sore body and prayed for sleep.

I awoke the next morning…today…and moved oh so slowly…very slowly…S-L-O-W-L-Y…muttering something about coffee and ibuprofen.

Today, one of my children shared that he has a friend who thinks it’s “cute” that I have a blog.  That is a sweet sentiment, but isn’t “cute” a term used for things done by the very young or in my case the not-so-very-young…for the more advanced in years…they do “cute” things too…right?  I had a hair appointment today to turn my once-brunette hair brunettier again.  All the time…throughout today…my legs…my arms…my neck, back and hair follicles are letting me know that I’m closer to 50-years-old than to 40.

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11:15 a.m., Friday, August 19

Posted in Etc. on July 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »

11:15 a.m., on Friday, August 19, 2011.  There it is…in black and white.  I just printed it off the website and it lies in front of me on my desk.

Child number 2 told me yesterday afternoon.  She said that she is supposed to move into her dorm on Friday, August 19…only one month and one day away from today.  She looked up the schedule for the “Big Red Weekend,” the name of the  “welcome to our school weekend” for the college she will be attending in the fall…one month and one day from now.

7:30 a.m. begins new student move-in.

11:00 a.m. Orientation leaders and resident assistants: gathering of students

11:15 a.m. New student induction ceremony/parents’ goodbye

What was that last part…parents’ goodbye…Really…just like that?

12:00 noon  Lunch (Students Only)

What?  It’s like those in charge of this welcome event seem to think that there are some parents who might not leave when they are told to say goodbye to their students.  They seem to imply that some of us may try to sneak into the campus dining hall…REALLY!?  Not only do they tell us when we will be saying goodbye…but that they also need to inform us that we will NOT be dining with our students at lunchtime on that Friday…Lunch (Students Only).

I have one month and one day to adjust to the news.

A little while ago, I sat down in our family room with two of my boys.  Everyone else is scattered for the day.  We sat down to watch tv while munching on sandwiches.  I had a flashback…back to last spring…back to last fall…to the many days that I would wait for child number 2 to get home from class so we could eat lunch together while watching t-vo-d recordings of “What Not to Wear,” or “House.”

It hit me right in the middle of my turkey sandwich…she won’t be here this fall to eat lunch with her mom.  In one month and one day…at 11:15 a.m., I’m supposed to say goodbye and leave her there and head back home.  Wow…reality is beginning to sink in.

I’m thankful for this last year…this gift of extra time…to eat a few more lunches with child number 2… and store up many precious memories.

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Trophies

Posted in Family and friends on July 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

My kids make me laugh…they make me laugh a lot.  Last weekend…during all of the furniture re-arranging (see earlier post)…was one of those times.

This is a cabinet that was moved during the re-arranging.  It belonged to my grandparents…an old-fashioned television cabinet, which housed their first TV.  Later on, when they replaced that first television, my grandmother had shelves made for the cabinet because she liked it so.  I like it too, and have filled the shelves, storing nick-knacks and trays and pictures, etc.

 

The cabinet was in our dining room, but got moved with the re-arranging.  It’s now in the room where my grandparents’ parlor furniture sits.  I like it there, too.

After children, numbers 1and 3, moved the cabinet; I walked through the room and noticed that child number 1’s kindergarten picture and two of his college debate trophies sat atop the cabinet.  It made me laugh.  His high school senior portrait is also in that room and he calls the room his shrine…so he just added the memorabilia to his shrine, he informed me.

 

 

While he was explaining this to me, child number 2 was listening…she cut her eyes at me and I knew what would soon be happening.  When her older brother went back to his room…she headed to get all of her trophies.  The next time I walked through the living room…her awards had replaced her brother’s.

 

Child number 4 was not to be out-done.  As soon as his older sister’s attention was directed elsewhere, his recently-acquired-math-competition trophy (the biggest trophy in the house) was centered between his sister’s accolades.

 

 

When his older siblings realized what had happened there was much laughter and kidding one another.  The trophy shrine has remained the whole week…and has made me smile every time I see it.

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“Peace in the land”

Posted in Family and friends on July 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

“Peace in the land”…that’s what the baby name book listed as the meaning of the name we would give our child number three.  When I looked up name meanings yesterday, I found similar meanings for the name “Jeffrey”:  “gift of peace,” “God’s peace.”

“Peace” is the key word in our son, Jeffrey’s, name meaning…it’s why he bears the name he does.  As I’ve been thinking about him this week with the taking of senior photos and all (see earlier post), I remembered choosing his name.

Child number three is named after his father and his paternal grandfather.  He has three names that come before his last name…two middle names, (which make filling out official documents and forms loads of fun).  But his dad and I felt like this would be a child who could carry all of those names well.  And though he bears reminders of his lineage in family names, we call him by the middle name not handed down from previous generations.

I’ve always liked the name “Jeff.”  I had a childhood friend by that name.  He lived across the street from my grandparents and aunt inVirginia.  He and I spent hours playing outdoors every summer during my two-week stays with my grandparents…pleasant memories.

And when I was all grown up and expecting baby number three, the name “Jeff” was on our list of possible names for our son.  Way back then…when I read the meaning of that name…I knew it was just the right one for our baby.

The time of my pregnancy with child number three, was not a peaceful time in our lives.  After 35 years of marriage, my parents were separated and heading toward divorce.  It was a painful time.  It was like a huge earthquake shook the foundations of my family of origin, ripping it in two.

I longed for peace.  I prayed for peace.  I hoped for peace.  Our son, Jeffrey, would carry with him in his name a promise of peace…a promise that when everything around you is shaking and quaking that God is still there…giving peace…being peace Himself.  “Peace in the land” was the perfect name for our third born.

Many years later, when our family was facing a crisis of another kind, my world being shaken again as my daughter suffered from seizures, “Peace in the land” would step forward again and again with calm steadiness to lend a helping hand wherever might be needed.  It was Jeffrey who called 911 when Amy’s first seizure rocked our world.  And then he called my best friend to ask her to pray.  I was going into shock, but he was calm and steady.

He has grown into his name well, and I am a proud momma.  He continues to be a big reminder to me that God’s peace is always available.  There can be “peace in the land.”

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Senior pictures

Posted in Family and friends on July 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Today was senior picture day…again.  This time it was child number 3’s turn to smile in front of the camera while I looked on.  Of course, child number 3 is perfectly capable of having his pictures made without his mom…but, this mom is NOT capable of child number 3 having his senior portraits made without me.  So just like child number 1 and child number 2 before him, I tagged along.

First was the formal shot…him all dressed up in a tuxedo shirt and jacket, complete with bow tie.  He looked good in the tuxedo top.  He looked very handsome.  He looked grown up.

“He’s a big boy,” commented the photographer as he reached for the bigger sized jacket that hung on the apparel rack.

“Yes,” I nodded in reply.  He is a big fellow.  He’s inching out his 6’ 4” dad in height.  He’s big in more ways than just in physical size.  He has a big heart.  He is big on kindness.  He is big on courteousness. He’s big on thoughtfulness.  He’s big on helping his mom in a myriad of ways.

As child number 3 posed…I reflected.  It’s what I do while my seniors are having their pictures taken.  I think about how the years have flown by.  I think about the ways they resemble their dad or me or a grandparent or a sibling.  I think about the short time ago that I was looking on as child number 1 stood against that wooden fence back-drop.  I remember child number 2’s photo-shoot and the many changes of clothes and the make-up and the hairspray and the four-inch heels that made her look even taller than she is…and the bright eyes that went with her bright smile.

And I thought about this child number 3 that stood before me…the teaser in our family when he was a little boy.  This young man with a wry sense of humor, who teases me incessantly when I do something stupid like spend minutes looking all over the house for the purse that is hanging off my shoulder (that’s the story I reminded him of today to get him to smile for the camera).

That’s why I have to go with my children when it’s time for senior pictures…to make them smile…to watch them all grown up…pose in front of the lights and the camera…to hear the camera’s shutter as it clicks away…catching those whom I’m most proud of, in digital images that will be transformed into portraits that hang on my wall.

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