anniversary gift

 Today, (May 1) marks the day three years ago that my mom died.  At least, her body died.  She left. She went home to wait for us stragglers to catch up with her later.   As sad as that sounds, this post isn’t about grief.  I want to tell you about the gift. I wasn’t looking for one, or even hoping for one, and yet, today, one turned up.   Two years ago, I shared how God dropped a little message into my lap on this day, and it comforted me even while I marveled in gratitude.  Last year, I don’t remember any such thing happening.  Which brings us to today.

Let me tell you what happened. Well, that would be a straight-forward account of how I helped a woman load some books into her car during my library shift.  That happened.  But the gift, my friends, is how it was completely saturated with meaning that only I would notice.  

I met a lady unafraid to wear head-to-toe red-complete with a chic hat and some kind of wild, knitted scarf that she managed to pull off without looking silly.  She was riding a motorized scooter and needed help bagging up about a dozen audio books.  “I’d rather be listening to something than watch a movie,” she noted.  “I just love to have something on all the time.” As it turned out, the scooter had no real place to load all these books, so we went down the elevator together and I offered to help her to her car.  Before we did, her daughter called to check in on her.  When I heard the ringtone, it startled me and I reflexively went looking for my phone, because it was the exact same ringtone from the phone my mom gave me a year before she died.  The lady had one of those conversations that older people do….putting the caller on speaker, talking a little louder than strictly necessary.  “Mom, how are you, is everything ok?” I heard her daughter ask.   “Oh, yes.  I’m having a fine time.  I’m great. I’m at the library.  Just getting more stuff to listen to.”  “Ok, I’ll see you soon, then.”  “Well, it won’t be as soon as you think, because I’m not at the library you’re thinking of, but I’ll see you soon.”  “Ok, I love you…be careful, bye.”  “I love you, too.  Bye”. 

She looked up at me and smiled. “That’s my daughter, she said.  “She’s 66 years old and you would think she’s the mother and I’m the daughter.  I tell her not to mother me, but what can you do?”

“Well, at least we know you won’t be trying to ride that scooter down the stairs now that she told you to be careful!” I joked with her. We laughed in the elevator.  She was smart and quirky and funny.  And I knew all these things for having hung out with her for only 10 minutes.  She also wore the largest, prettiest square diamond ring I have ever seen.  It took all my restraint to not say anything, because it looked like something royalty would wear.  It was, like the ringtone on the phone, startling to me, and I couldn’t place why.

When we got outside, the scooter was going painfully slow, like it was out of charge.  We joked some more about it being like a turtle, but she showed me how it was on maximum power.  “Thank you for helping me.  It was a real pleasure to get to be with you today,” she said so kindly.  “You’ve been a delight,” I told her sincerely.  She had made me feel like we were old, old friends, coconspirators, even.  

Now I have worked in library services for over ten years, and I have never not once ridden on a motorized scooter on the job.  But that is what I found myself doing to return it to our building. Just as I got on that thing, the “maximum power” part must have kicked in and I lurched forward like a girl on a bronco.  And then stopped.  And then lurched.  I looked ridiculous.  And my new friend thought so too because she started laughing.  Because she was funny and liked funny things, she teased, “There yah go.  You’ve got it!  You’re a natural.”   I started to ham it up just a bit because, why not? It was our moment to share. So there I found myself, in the midst of a day of heavy sadness, grinning my face off.  A true, wide grin with only one word popping unexpectedly into my mind: Mom.  

I suddenly remembered my smart, funny, quirky mom who got on a motorized wheelchair thing and made us all laugh.  We “be careful!-ed her like crazy…her legs frail from cancer, her muscles seemingly not as strong.  But she was hammy and funny and daring and bold.  Whizzing around with this goofy aviator hat on in a way that only she could pull off.  I remembered how she looked hard (and found) the good in every one and every situation. She could shape the reality of her declining mobility into a hilarious day at the park.  

I thought of my mom who was always listening to something. Ahead of her time, she listened to radio before podcasts.  I thought of the way she became a hat and scarf aficionado after the cancer hit…turning the drag of hair loss into a whimsical exploration of turbans, hats and scarves. I thought of my mom, who sent me diamonds two years ago, whose phone sounded just like this lady’s, and who might tell me if she could, that she would see me soon, but not too soon.

Do I think the lady with the flower in her hat was an angel? No, not really.  I don’t think she usually has wings and lives in Heaven and that she was on some kind of mission to bring my mom closer.

But do I believe that God, who knows every detail of my life, every memory my brain has ever stored, every association I would be apt to make—do I believe that he sent a convergence of details into this day to bring my mom closer?  Yes.  I do.

Into this ordinary day, that didn’t have margin to remember her well, he brought this lady with her hat and scarf, her affection for audio, her ringtone, her diamond, her self-deprecating humor, her good-nature in her affliction, her spazzy scooter, and her loving conversation with and about her daughter right into my workplace and let me remember my mom with a smile.

You Are my Sunshine

Today in urgent care I watched my little guy try to stay still as they stuck a needle in his wound (near his eye) to numb it. Doesn't that sentence make you cringe?
I wanted to. But I also didn't want him to see me cringe, so I didn't.

Tattooed on the arm of the nurse who was helping hold him was, "You are my sunshine."  Lovely black script running down her forearm. THIS SONG was my mom's top pick lullaby of my childhood, my toddlerhood, and probably my infancy as well.

Missing my mom, it turns out, never goes away. It is imbedded into every moment of my life like a new rhythm of my heartbeat. So when I saw that song title, and thought of my mom, it calmed me in a moment when I was supposed to step up and be the adult. No casting about for support on this one: I've got a kiddo whose wide eyes are seeking mine and he's looking for something sure. Something steady. Somebody who can assure him that he can get through this scary thing. Micah was a super trooper. He always is on the big stuff. As he enjoyed pointing out afterward, "I've had more medical attention than my brother and sister combined."

Afterward, the PA said to me out of the blue, "You're a good mom. We can always tell when the kids can stay calm it's because their parents are calm. That helps a lot."

It wasn't me, I wanted to tell him. My mom could make me feel that I was as welcome as sunshine. As important as sunshine. As cherished as sunshine. A love like that still steadies me long after she's gone away.

When Grief Leaves You Dry

Last night, I ran into a friend I haven't seen in a long time. In our conversation, she mentioned how much she loves to read my blog, and complimented it generously.

Blog? What blog?  I don't write here with any regularity anymore.  It seems all my words have run dry.  I logged into it this morning, just to see how the old gal was holding up, you know, nothing more.  I found an unfinished post among the many unpublished drafts that helps me understand why.  I didn't write it to try to explain why this blog has seemingly withered, but sometimes I think the answer appears even when we didn't know the question.

So here's the draft that got me thinking:

We went to Arizona for Thanksgiving.  It was our first extended road trip with all five of us, and long enough (14 hours one way, by car) for all my kids to think we were headed to a new country.

They asked funny questions like what language would people speak there, and what food would we eat. When we got to Arizona and saw many of the same fast food restaurants and big box stores that they know from Colorado, they were startled and disappointed.  We had driven ALL day, fortified by snacks and audio books and music and, and, and!  I have to admit, I shared their disappointment.  I mean, I knew that Phoenix wouldn't be a moonscape of unfamiliar wonders, but I did want to feel like I had left my backyard.

The cacti saved it.  We don't have cacti growing along the highway in Colorado.  We don't landscape everywhere with it.  Darkness had fallen; the novelty of travel had faded.  We needed something to get us through that last 20 minutes.  When I started pointing out cactus with the enthusiasm I usually reserve for Christmas lights, the kids caught the wonder and started enjoying it, too.  

As we approached the city I felt compelled to give my rowdy bunch some pointers. Please don't rough house near the cactus.  If you fall into one of those, it will hurt. For a long time. The spikes are real. And sharp. These are not friendly plants.

Later we learned that a cactus can go for two years without water.  It's remarkable, don't you think? The forbidding spikes protect its internal source of water from animals.  I also learned that some species will even cut off parts of their own root system if the ground around it becomes too dry.  It will actually absorb all the available water and then shrivel up its roots to avoid losing any water back to the soil.  

You know I'm a big fan of a good metaphor.  I can't help but think that the cactus is a very concrete picture of what happens when we operate in scarcity. When I feel like there is not going to be enough (of anything--time, patience, money, love,) I start trying to protect my own supply.  I get prickly. Self-protective. Downright forbidding.  Maybe I lock myself in my room so that my family can't ask one more thing of me that I don't think I can provide. Maybe I don't put that family-nourishing outing on the calendar because I don't think I'll have the patience to do it.  Maybe I don't reach out to my friend who is struggling because I don't believe I'll have the compassion to listen without feeling sapped. I get sharp and irritable with the people closest to me because my soul is thirsty for living water.

And then this roots thing? Do I ever just cut myself off from who I am, my past, my sources of strength?  Instead of going deeper with God do I pull away and imagine

(that's where it ended and I'm going to pick up now)


 Instead of going deeper with God do I pull away and imagine that it's better to just conserve what I have instead of tapping into a never-ending supply? I forget that there is a never-ending supply.  Or sometimes, I just can't believe there is a never-ending supply.

When my mom died, a beautiful stream dried up in my life.  She was refreshing and nourishing in so many ways.  She was wisdom, and acceptance, and graciousness and kindness.  She was someone who knew me better than anyone (except Bill), and loved me more than many combined. In short, I knew Jesus a little better because I knew her.  

Since she has been gone, I have been in a conservation mode of sorts.  I'm not sure if/when more is coming, so it's risky to share.  More what?  Anything.  Emotional resiliency. Patience.  Joy.  

I miss my mom so, so much. In my grief, I think I have drifted farther from the true stream of living water than I realized.  I've been in a scarcity mode these two years, and as I've attempted to conserve, I've grown more prickly and self-protecting.  (Ask anyone who has been close to me; they'll confirm)

I don't think we're meant to be like the cactus.  Psalm 1 says the person who delights in the law of the Lord is like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither.  I don't think we are meant to be in a constant mentality of conservation, but of abundance.  Generosity.  Flow.  Like my friend who can generously compliment a blog I haven't added to for ages, like my husband who can generously offer me grace for the umpteenth time my spikes are scratching him, like my friends who generously show up with pizza and smiles when I think I don't have the energy to be among people.  People planted closer to God are generous.  People free-wheeling in the desert have to conserve.

And here's the point at which I just have the abandon the metaphor and draw my own conclusion. Cactus can't just replant next to a stream of living water.  But I can.  I can draw closer to God and let his love flow through my life.  I don't have to wait for the rainfall of a Sunday service, the watering cans of love that my friends and family share, or even the stream that was my mom's enduring presence.

I just admit, I've been wandering around in some dry places.  
It's time to settle in closer to the river of life.

I'd like to be more like a fruit-bearing tree and less like a prickly, self-protecting cactus.

I think Spring is the perfect season to make the move, don't you?

This is not Theology. This is the Mystery.

I have wanted to write for so long.

I have wished I had the bandwidth, the vulnerability, the courage and the energy to write.

But these things are never mine on the same day. So maybe I will have to try while I'm still stretched a little too thin, feeling guarded, scared and weary.  And maybe I will hit publish, and maybe I will just try.


I've never been one to believe in receiving "signs" from people who have passed away.  Neither did my mom. In an odd conversation that left us both wondering if we had seriously just agreed to this, I remember her telling me how she wasn't a big believer in signs from the other side, either. "But if you can send one, will you?" I asked. "If I can, I will, but I don't think I will be able to, so don't spend too much time looking."


When the calendar rolled back around to the day my mom died a year ago, I knew I didn't want the day to be like every other. But I didn't know how I wanted it to look differently.  It wasn't a celebration. It wasn't a memorial. The kids and I ended up meeting my dad at the cemetery. It didn't bring comfort. Seeing the years of her birth and death carved into stone was a visual reminder of the finality of her time with us here.  People use the phrase, "Nothing's carved in stone" to suggest options remain. When you stand before the stone, and it is carved, you are reminded that no options remain.  We remembered her, and missed her, and sat with the heavy absence and the heavier weight of grief. And there wasn't much to say or do, just be.

I planned for us to go across the street afterward to a park to find a geocache. I didn't know how we would do at the cemetery and I suspected we'd want to end on a different note than the one I thought the visit might evoke. I still had my three kids with me, after all.

We found the cache and my dad had the wits and patience to figure out exactly how it had to be shaken to guide a key out of this complex internal maze and out a tube to unlock it.  It was so clever.  So tricky. I really doubt we ever would have gotten it open without his clear thinking. I would have just kept shaking it, hoping for dumb luck, and just as I may have figured it out, don't you know one of my kids would have insisted it was their turn?

Larger geocaches come with all kinds of trinkets-stickers, little balls, happy meal prizes, little plastic toys.  Usually there's nothing of value, or even of interest to my kids.  We've seen all of it before. But on that day, there was a silver key chain with a single silver die, studded with diamond rhinestones.

Now to most of you reading this, a die with fake, but sparkly gems where the numbers should be doesn't lead you to much.  For me, it was a profound moment of recognition.  It was her sign.

My mom was an avid Farkle player. (a game in which you roll six dice for combinations like Yahtzee and Bunco).  She collected all kinds of novelty dice and little containers to put them in.  If a new player rolled a particularly rare combination, or won by a stunning amount, or seemed to enjoy the game even a little, she'd pull out her collection and urge them to pick their own set of dice and the container to store it.  She had little boxes from around the world, vases, handmade pottery jars, leather pouches, miniature suitcases.  She had dice as small as an eraser head, dice as large as walnuts.  She had wooden dice, marble dice, hollow plastic dice with dice inside them...the girl loved her dice.  But it was more than that. When something really pleased my mom, she just couldn't help but share it.

So back to the geocache and the sparkly, silver dice.  To me, it was like my mom's insider way of saying, "Things are good. Oh, and all that stuff about streets lined with gold?  Yeah, that's kind of real. Things are so stellar here, even the Farkle dice are studded with diamonds. Diamonds! Can you believe this? And I'd love to share it, but I can't right now so I'll just arrange with the higher ups to put a mock-up in a container I know you'll love. And you can work together and shake it out and  marvel at the mystery of how it ended up there one year to the day since I've been gone."


We remembered her, and missed her, and sat with the heavy absence and the heavier weight of grief, but it was a good day.

Two Clouds

When I lost the phone that held the recording of my firstborn's heartbeat--that very first one we heard while he was still  a dream-come-true in utero--I cried. 

Today, when I mentioned it to the phone guy to explain why maybe a smart phone with "a cloud" to back everything up could be a good idea for me, he agreed.

"I know where you're coming from," he said.
"DO you?" I asked pointedly, surprising myself by sounding incredulous.
"Yes.  For me, it was a voicemail."

Because he was sort of walking into an emotional landmine.  Me with my mom's old phone she had just given me for my birthday. The one that still had her apps and pictures and ringtones on it.  The one that I didn't want to change at all because it was my mom's, but still wanted to use because, well, she had given it to me.

And then this stylish, self-assured, tech-savvy guy half my age looked straight at me and said sincerely,   "It's really rough.  And I really get it."

Suddenly he wasn't just some cool-guy salesperson and I some lady who stepped off the wagon train wanting to join the modern world.

We were also two humans who know part of the story.  The story of love, loss, and things we never get back and people we'll have always.

I cried.  Just a little.  And his eyes glassed up-just a little. (because he was also still the cool-guy).

"Thanks for meeting me right where I was tonight," I told him.  "You're headed great places because you get people even better than phones.  And I really appreciate that."

"Anytime," he said, and I realized he meant it as he locked the door behind me because I had stayed past closing.

I sat in my car and thought about heartbeats gone, and three amazing kids still with us today.  I thought about a virtual cloud full of pictures, and a great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us.

I sat in the story of love and loss and things we never get back and people we'll have always:

Here, there, or in the air.

"Thank you for this phone," I called to tell my mom.  "Of course,"  she said.  "Maybe it will give you a few more tools at your disposal."

Tools and treasures.  In my pocket.  In the cloud.  Here, there and in the air.

So you can keep me
Inside the pocket
Of your ripped jeans
Holdin' me closer 
'Til our eyes meet
You won't ever be alone.
Wait for me to come home.

~ Photograph, by Ed Sheeran

 

A Pineapple for Mother's Day

This is what I read to my family when I gave the moms in it pineapples today for Mother's Day.  Maybe you'd like to read why I would want to give one to you, too.


A pineapple doesn't seem like a typical Mother's Day gift, but then, there are no books to tell you what is just the right thing.

What is just the right thing for my mom whose job has fewer years ahead of her than behind her?
What do I get for the mom whose life intersects mine because the men we each love are father and son?
What gift honors my older sister, the mom who blazes the motherhood trail in this family and leaves a path anyone would be proud to follow?
What's the perfect gift for my younger sister, the mom whose next child doesn't grow inside her womb, but in her heart?
 What would be the perfect gift for you?

Maybe a pineapple is as good as anything else.  I think a pineapple can be a little picture of our lives.

The pineapple has its sharp parts. When the  grocery checker moved it along she exclaimed, "Ouch! That really hurts!"
And so does life.

The pineapple is sweet.  Sometimes, surprisingly so.
And so are our lives.

The pineapple follows a plan written into its very design--the Fibonacci sequence.  Its parts and pieces are arranged in a beautifully designed way.
And so are our lives.   (even if we can't see it right away)

I recently learned that the pineapple has an interesting history as the international symbol of hospitality.  It represents generous welcome.
And isn't that how we want to live our lives? When we are open, honest and vulnerable with others--when we strip away our prickly self-protections, isn't that when the sweetest things happen?

So moms,
this is what I know.

Life is hard.  It really hurts.
Life is sweet.  It's really good.
Life is wild, but it is ordered by a creative God.

May God bless you in this hard, painful, sweet, wild, God-led life as a mom, today and always.

To Dwell in Hope

I want to tell you something important.  And because it is important, I worry about being misunderstood, not just in content, but in motive, too.  I am apprehensive because I'm not seeking advice or sympathy.  I just want you to know.

If I added your name to the list of people who could see that facebook post, it's intentional.  I hoped you would come read this because...well for many different reasons.  And if you found your way here by any other means, welcome to you.  I believe there are reasons.

Last week I posted Seat Belts and Bill's feedback was that it didn't have context.  "It doesn't need context," I told him.  "This is life, and everyone has something for which that metaphorical seat belt would serve them well."

Tonight I want to tell you why I posted that for our family.  This is hard news, so if you just have a moment before you've got to have your game face on again, this might not be the best time to be reading this.

My mom is fighting for her life against stage 4 lung cancer that has metastisized throughout her body.  She left for a Cancer Treatment Center today because they have determined that her particular kind of genetically  mutated cancer has responded well to a drug. We all dwell in hope for positive outcomes.

All while beating back the voices of worse-case-scenarios.  Your mind goes there.  It does.  It's a wracking, overwhelming ache to wobble on this ledge with her and wonder which way it all will go.  Any which way it does go, we still dwell in hope.  My mom most of all.  Because she has put her faith in a living God, she dwells in hope.

From her website she writes, " I will try to keep you updated...on my journey to heaven or health!  ;-)…. or both for that matter."

That's my mom.  She is 100% sure of the end of the road, even if she can't even see around the next bend. 

We travel in the sunshine. We travel through the storms. As my mom has so simply stated, "The rain falls.  The rain falls on all of us."

"I can't stop the rain," sings Third Day, "but I will hold you til it goes away."  Even in the rain, everybody needs a few umbrellas of love and support.

 If you know her,  will you go sign her guestbook  and let her know that you're thinking of her?  If you pray, will you pray for her?  If you don't pray (and never expect to) you are no less loved by me. I get that we all live on the path we're on.

 In the end, I don't want to stumble through a life in which you ask me how I am and I stare at you blankly and say, fine. I must acknowledge what is before me, and let you see why I am so distracted sometimes.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.  I am grateful that my path has crossed with each of you.

Food Equals Love

Food equals love in my world.

Before you suggest a good therapist, let me explain. 

Umm....Food equals love.

Just kidding!  I realized as I was about to try to explain that it all seemed so self-evident; what could I possibly need to explain?  But then, believing that something is glaringly obvious is usually the first hint that it may be an opinion deeply particular to yourself.

So I'll try.

When people put thought, effort and energy into planning, preparing, and presenting food (of almost any caliber) I see it as an act of love.  When I eat food prepared by people I know, I feel a little bit more loved by them.

So when my dad prepared food to feed 50 for any party over 5, we all could eat from the bounty of his generous heart.  And when my mom got into "food ruts" and we enjoyed chicken burritos or stir-fried mixes from the red wok every week for three months in a row, we could all eat from the well of her deep love.  Food like that says, my love may not be fancy, but it will be here. Every week. In repeating themes. When my Aunt puts as much care into the way the table looks, with coordinating dishes and napkins, setting plated visions of beauty worthy of five stars, her food says, I honor each of you with royal treatment because my love finds you worthy.  This day, this family, this moment is worth my love and attention because some things are just meant to be special. My love celebrates you. When people send me food after babies, during grief, when I'm sick, we eat each bite in overwhelming grattitude, tasting the message, "Whatever it is, may this food give you comfort and strength.  We love you." 

Sometimes love tastes like a vegetarian pizza from Papa Murphy's that your sister has waiting for you when you get home from the doctors.  Sometimes it looks like the last bit of dessert that your husband left for you without being asked.  Sometimes love smells like breakfast being cooked while you get to stay in bed.  Sometimes it's the way fresh basil from your in-laws' garden elevates the deliciousness of everything you add it to.   

Holidays come around and we look for familiar favorites on the menu. Why? Because the memory of this special food, served with joy each year on these special days, is like singing the chorus to the song of our food stories.  Our food stories that tell the story of our lives and of our love.  All mixed up together in ways that I don't easily separate.

So yes, I know love is love in my world. 

I'm just saying that sometimes, it also looks, smells and tastes an awful lot like food.

Unforgettable Bear

Bear-Bear was a grungy, germ-infested, foul-smelling, sad little excuse for a stuffed animal when I let him move on.

In the interim, Bill has occasionally told me that Landon is still missing Bear-Bear, but I dismissed the idea. Surely Bill was assigning a sentimentality to the situation that Landon didn't possess.  I've never heard a peep about it. The preciousness of a saggy lump of a worn out bear did not compute.

Then tonight happened.  Stories were over and Landon was getting ready to go to bed.
"Dad, do you think you could call your old school and see if someone found Bear-Bear and they didn't know what to do with him so he is sitting in a closet somewhere?  Can we drive down there and see if anybody found him?"  His voice cracks.  His eyes fill up with the real-deal, genuine tears.

I sat there stunned. My little boy is really, truly missing that bear almost two years later. I can't let Landon think that all his pain is his own fault, and yet, I don't want it to be mine, either.

I take a deep breath.

"Buddy, I really made a big mistake.  Bear-Bear was dirty and stinky and gross and even after we washed him he just seemed like a grungy, dirty bear that I didn't want to make you sick, so I got rid of him. But I'm really sorry.  We should have talked about it before I did that."

"But could Daddy just check to make sure he didn't get left at his school?"

"He could. He can.  But I think we need to get on a mission to find a new animal your big loving heart can welcome as your very special one.  Maybe we'll find a bear.  Maybe a monkey.  Maybe something else will be the one, and you'll just know you're ready to love it like you loved Bear-Bear.  Do you think you're ready to love another animal and let it be your favorite one?"

He nods, but I can see that he is still sad and trying to process the permanency of the loss.

"Mom, did you throw it away or give it to the Goodwill?"

I don't know for certain, but I'm certain what I need to say.  "To the Goodwill, Buddy. He was excited about meeting some new animals and going on new adventures.  He was ready to go."

We hug.  Bill and I look over his head in our shared misery over my miscalculation.  I believed Landon wouldn't remember, wouldn't care, and would quickly be over it.

My little boy has spent half his life (and all the time he can remember) feeling the loss of that bear.  It's hard to acknowledge that this is an addition to what will be a long list of ways I let him down, cause him pain, disappoint him, misunderstand him, or otherwise fall short.  Oh, I'm hoping and praying that it's a short list, but I'm not kidding myself, either.  Parenting is hard, and nobody does it perfectly.

I'm remembering my last Christmas of being a little girl when the doll my parents got me was a bitter disappointment.  Not the baby doll I yearned for, but a stand up doll that had golden ringlets and a creepy grin.  With dogged perseverance, my mom took me to every toy store she could think of until we found the perfect baby doll, the very last one of my childhood, and most beloved.

My mom isn't a sentimental person, either.  But sometimes, a parent can look into their child's heart and see a big, deep yearning for something that isn't fueled by greed, peer pressure, or market manipulated wishes...It's for something real and simple and solid like a doll or best-friend bear.

I've learned my lesson, sweet boy. He may be the last one you love with all your heart, the perfect stuffed animal friend for you to finish out your littlest years with, but we'll find him. And when we do, I promise he can stay with us every day you ever want him to.  And then for me, maybe a couple more.

When my Dad Saved my Life

When my dad saved my life I did not thank him. I did not stop to acknowledge that he had jumped into the pool, fully clothed, to rescue me from certain death.

I say "certain" because I had slipped under a huge black inner tube and was pinned underwater by my swimsuit snagged on the air valve.

I was a little kid, and the tube was oversize.  Hidden from view, I flailed around underwater, unable to free myself, and unable to figure out why I couldn't escape.

His dad radar must have activated. He could scan the pool and see that I was missing.  Was my little foot splashing around?  Did he see a hand?  Maybe it was just the shadow of me not surfacing that caught his attention.

He dived in and tore my suit off and away from the valve.

When I got out, all I can remember is how sad I felt that my Strawberry Shortcake swimsuit had a large tear across my belly. I did not thank him. I did not acknowledge the fear and adrenaline he must have felt to realize his little daughter had been submerged for who knows how long. I just mourned my suit and the fact that swimming was over for the day.

 I didn't get a new suit that summer.  Instead, my mom stitched it up--an unforgiving fabric for repairs.  It was a pink scar that I was both ashamed and proud of.

That scar reminded me that there was someone who had my back.  Push come to shove, my dad would do anything in his power to keep me safe, suffer any indignity, and take any measures.  The scar reminded me that there was someone else who would not allow me to let self-pity to take over.  "It's a perfectly good suit. Don't be so worried about what others think," my mom would say when I whined about how embarrassing it was to have a sewn-up suit.

Thirty years later, we have all played musical chairs with our roles. At the moment it is my dad who flails. It is our family who dives, and it is still my mom who reminds us all not to feel self-pity for any of the ways that life gets torn apart in ways that don't seem pretty.

At the end of the day, I won't need any thanks, either.  He's already saved my life once.  I think I kinda owe him.

Soaking It In

Our house overflowed with family and I looked around and felt so happy.  19 of us gathered on the deck and ate homemade chicken tortilla soup, salsas and guacamole.  Two decadent birthday cakes and righteous chocolate chip zucchini bread were still ahead.  19 of us.  All squared away on what I have decided must be an enormous deck.

The cousins ran wild all over the yard.  They tossed and tussled and threw balls and jumped rope and made each other laugh.

The women danced a prep in the kitchen, with only small missteps as I often had to think pretty hard to remember where certain items had found their new home.

The men talked, and drank drinks from the cooler, refereed the kids, got wrangled into helping with odds and ends, and roamed in and out doing quality control on the dips.

Until all 19 of us ended up on the deck, with twilight approaching and a sunset starting to paint the sky spectacular.

I wore a huge grin on my face and my heart was full.

We have come home, I thought to myself.  We gather to celebrate my mom's birthday, a big decade one, and we come to laugh and remember and cherish and hug and talk and make the memories that fill this house with love and make it a home.

It's a bittersweet moment, how time marches on and not everyone I want to make these memories with can be here, but it's still a moment worth cherishing.

Our caterpillar of a collection of home repair projects is emerging as a butterfly of a cozy home, and I loved, loved loved having my family around for one of its first big flights.

Our lives are fleeting and beautiful and terrible and extraordinary, and celebrating my mom's journey today was a joy and an honor and causes me to pause and say to myself, "Remember this.  Soak it in and enjoy each moment. You will never come this way, exactly like this again."

It has been a great day Along this Beautiful Path.

All in the Same Boat

"How can I judge you, when this is my kid?"

This is what I ended up saying after Landon was a guest at one of my library programs.  My mom had very sweetly agreed to bring him, but he was being anything but sweet when he got there.

When it was time to pass out rainbow scarves, Landon went to the bin and took them all.  (I had not realized this was possible).  He gathered them all up to his chest, and clutched them with a fierce look on his face.  "These are mine!  I'm not sharing these!" he declared.  When another child tried to pull one free, they began the toddler dance of possession, with the accompanying territorial grunts and groans.
"Oh, buddy, we share the scarves.  You need to let this boy take one."
I am talking to a tyrant.  He is not softened by my gentle tone or the affectionate use of "buddy".
Instead I must resort to, "Landon, if you can't share, you'll have to go," which is a trigger for him to begin a loud wail that even picking him up could not comfort.
He had to go.
There was that awkward half moment when the rest of the moms are watching to see what I'll say.

"I could be mortified, but I'm just....not."
And they laugh.

Collectively, we share the knowledge that we try to shape these little people, but we cannot control them.
We can set reasonable boundaries and they stomp over them.
We can model good behavior, we can practice it, we can expect it, we can ask for it:
and not get it.
And at inopportune times they can make it seem like we have no parenting "skills" at all.

So really, dear friends whose children are as mixed a bag as my own sweet boy,
how can I judge you?

Larger than the National Debt

I spent hours doing dusty-basement, primary-source research.  Interviewing ladies well into their 80's.  (one even died shortly after I interviewed her, adding urgency to the task of capturing the memories)  I took notes. I made photocopies.  I compiled and cited sources.  It was a large project, and I chipped away, feeling responsible and mature.  But in the end, the project was larger than I could wrangle, and too much of the final writing got left to the final hour.  For reasons I can't remember, (maybe because this was high school before everyone carried a computer in their back pocket) the only computer on which I could type and print it up was at my dad's office in town.

So I typed.  On and on.  All afternoon.  Past the evening and well into the night.  The office took on the quiet hum of a burbling water cooler and a buzzy florescent. And still I typed.  All thoughts converging to support a thesis, to tell the story.  But I couldn't be in that business space alone, so my mom stayed with me.  All through the night.  Into the wee hours of the morning.  I can still picture her dozing on the hard office floor, a hostage to my lack of time management skills.

The sun rose.  I began editing.  Printing drafts to "see" the mistakes that eluded me on the screen.  (I still must do this.)  My mom awoke bleary and sore to the sound of me still tapping away, working feverishly to get the paper done.  No one collated and stapled a research project together with more tired satisfaction, to be sure.  The night labor was done.  The baby born.

She drove me to school.  (Which had already started a couple hours before) and I went straight to my English class.  I handed in the paper on time, and then handily walked out the door, back into her waiting car, and straight home and into bed.

We slept.  Sound and sweet.  It was done.  She had endured the travail without complaint or criticism (though I deserved both) and that was that.

Weeks later, in front of peers, parents and teachers, when I received money and award for the research paper, I shook my teacher's hand and felt nothing but gratitude to my mom.  In my tunneled-teen-vision, it never occurred to me to hand the entire check over to her--she being the more deserving of the two of us who earned it. I was aware enough to realize that she never held that occasion against me, ever.  She never brought it up as a sacrifice, or a reminder of what can happen to graduating students whose "senioritis" flares up too soon before the end.

She clapped in kind support and never made mention of the long-prisoner-night when she surely must have wondered how so much prior work still required such sleeplessness at the end.  Her sleep.  And comfort. Sacrificed to let me own a success we really shared.

She let me own it.  And has never once mentioned that I owe her a thing.

Since I owe my mom my very life, perhaps she threw out the ledger entirely when she told me years ago, "Pay it forward."