Family

A bus filled with blessing

They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do. Psalm 1:3

She had almost forgotten about the application she had filled out for the bus driving position……almost but not quite. She was sitting by the computer when the phone lit up with an incoming call. The phone is turned all the way down so her Mom won’t run and answer it. In the past she had agreed to things over the phone “Oh, yes, you can come and service the air conditioner….” It has happened before.

It was the Apache Junction school district calling. She couldn’t believe her ears when he said, “How soon can you come in and see us?” For years, every now and then we would pass a bus and I would hear her say, “I would love to do that.”

For the past year and a half, her Mom has been her full time job, and it has been hard, especially for someone who has worked all their life.

So she went, and of course they loved her. Especially when they found out about her driving experience. They wanted her so badly they even pulled strings to get her in the August session of training.

And the schedule is such that she can come home between routes to check on her Mom……..and, it’s only just around the corner!

“This,” she said, “Is the first job that I have felt in a long time that is from God.”

I have waited for this, I have prayed for this…..for my dear friend who lives her whole life for others.

Whose hands are still partially numb from her last project for someone else.

Last night we sat at a restaurant as pictures came through my phone……there were two completed Mr. Potato heads, one my brother did and one my niece did. I smiled as I read the texts. “Sometimes, you just have to take time out to play Mr. Potato head with your girl,” he says.

As I scroll through, the phone rings in my hand and it’s my Mom.

“I was just having a glass of wine and thinking of you,” she said. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing,” she said, and she laughed. “Well,” I said, “I happen to think it’s a good thing, since I am having one too.” And we laughed together and she told me about her day. And I told her about Elaine’s new job…..

She whooped and hollered over the phone………”Oh, that is so great! She is just right for that job.”

Later I get a text from my brother. My Mom must have told him…..”CONGRATULATIONS to Elaine, Wooooooohooooooo. Bus driver for kids? Perfect. I am so happy.”

This, I think, is what it’s all about.

Rejoicing with those who rejoice. And I think of what a cornucopia is life. Some days so full of hardship you just want to sit in a corner and never come out, and then, blessings so rich that all you can do is lift your hands skyward.

Praise God from who all blessings flow.

Coming and Going

“Love doesn’t hide. It stays and fights. It goes the distance, that’s why love is so strong. So it can carry you home.” Unknown

Somewhere in between longing and joy, regret and hardship, tears and laughter, there is a place we call home. When we go back we run into all that history, all those feelings, and in turn they run smack into everything that’s going on now. That’s why going home evokes so many powerful emotions for so many.

It’s the place and people you grew up with, the place you learned to sink or swim, or survive and thrive.

Somewhere in between the place we always seek to recreate and romanticize and the place we never want to see again lies that place we call home.

I go back to the place I spent all of my growing up years, so lots of memories come with it. The sorrows and the joys live there within its walls, along with those things that never seem to change.

The squeak in the porch step, the way the screen door sounds when it slams…….my Mom’s dryer that will never die, the one that never stops, all day long…….and that keeps spinning no matter if the door is open or not. I am convinced that God keeps all her appliances going.

And this time, the garage talked. The first time I heard it, it scared the daylights out of me. “Oh,” my Mom said, “Lauryn has a couple dolls out there that talk and it must be the motion that makes them go off.” I felt like I was in a horror movie where Chuckie the doll comes to life.

Everytime I go home I fry something. This time it was my Mom’s favorite hair dryer. I think it was going on its twentieth year. I looked up and the connection in the outlet was smoking. I caught it just in time.

My Mom constantly complains about not having enough electrical outlets, and it is a valid complaint. Back in the early sixties, they didn’t put outlets in every six feet, about two per bedroom was enough.

There was a new hood over the stove this time. I went to reach for something up in the cupboard and I almost needed a ladder. The new hood extended much further over the cupboard than the last one, but neither my Mom or Dad thought it was a problem when they bought it, they were just happy to have a new one.

The cat still loves to hang out in the sink. The first one liked it there, and so does the new one, amazingly enough!

My Mom still gives me the best of whatever she has. She insisted I have her new fan, not the one that rattles, and having body wash and lotion for me when I didn’t even think she heard me say I needed it. At eighty three she still seems to have everything everyone needs.

My Dad still says, “Everything is better when you’re here…..”

And when I close my eyes I still hear, “Watch me, Nori!” and it makes me happy but sad all at the same time.

My niece still has a problem saying her “L’s.” She was so thrilled that her Auntie was there with her, watching her swim. And she laughed and laughed at the video I made of her kitties getting into a tussle. Her favorite thing to do now is make videos of us when she thinks we aren’t watching and then laugh uproariously when we catch her at it.

I have found that going home teaches me lessons all over again. I learn things about myself and some of them don’t make me happy, yet I am thankful for them because without the realization, the change wouldn’t be possible.

Going home is made up of little hard and soft moments all strung out together.

I realized this, as Mom and I sat hand in hand watching Franklin Graham evangelize India. We each shed tears because how could you not, watching people who have nothing, suddenly gain everything? Part of mine were shed because everytime I am near them, I feel the weight of time pressing heavy.

We are a family in crisis mode, and aren’t we all? And sometimes, most times, I just don’t know to help.

One thing I do know to be true, the faith that has kept us together through so much still stands, will always stand. And always…..He keeps us.

And going home and coming home are both very good.

“The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.” Psalm 121:8

A day in the life…..

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful!
For those of you who have been keeping up with this blog, you know the situation with Elaine’s Mom. Each day comes with its own challenges and the heat provides another. And when I work, there is always a story to come home to, last night was no exception. Since the heat has set in, the challenge has been to keep Joyce inside after around 11. The outside swing as been her safe place, but now with the barometer climbing to 110 in the shade, it is far too hot. Yet now her mind doesn’t make the connection that it is too hot.
For some strange reason, she has no inclination to go out when it is bearable in the morning, so Elaine kindly reminds her that if she wants to go out, she has to go in the morning.  Now anytime after noon, there is  a wooden board across it,  complete with sign……”Too hot to sit outside.”
This makes her Mom angry as you might expect.
Yesterday she was more disoriented than usual. In the morning she asked if she could have coffee. Later, she asked how many brothers and sisters she had. After Elaine told her 9, she then asked how many were left. Elaine told her, “3” and her Mom started crying. She then wanted to talk to her sister, Faye, who has been gone for about 6 years. When Elaine told her she had passed away, she cried again.
This went on for about an hour or more. Joyce kept wanting to talk to Faye. Ten minutes later she would ask again. So finally in desperation, she said, “Okay, I will call her.” So she called her other sister Shirley in Texas who also has Alzheimers’s.
They talked about the same thing for an hour. Needless to say it was a very interesting conversation. They talked about a Nephew that hanged himself and how sad it was that a young kid would get to so desperate as to do such a thing. That young kid was 55, and no telling how long ago this happened.
When I got home, I got the recap.
And yet…….God is faithful. So far we have mostly kept our sanity and sense of humor. I truly don’t know how Elaine does it, being with her 24/7…..and yet, I do, I really do.
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves <sup class="crossreference" value="(AA)”>with compassion, kindness, humility, <sup class="crossreference" value="(AB)”>gentleness and patience. Bear with each other <sup class="crossreference" value="(AD)”>and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, <sup class="crossreference" value="(AF)”>which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3: 12-14

A Father’s Love

The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. Zephaniah 3:17

Our Heavenly Father loves us so much that there is nothing He wouldn’t do to get us back, to save us. I remember growing up with the knowledge that there was nothing my Dad wouldn’t do for me. I knew that by his actions. Over and over again, he proved that he would do anything within reason to fix whatever was wrong. He had my back.

I remember a strong hand lifting my head to place a pillow under my head if I fell asleep on the floor. And stories that he would make up, and tell again and again. I remember all the camping trips…..every time we had to pick up the tent and move it, because he had found yet again, the perfect spot. I remember so much. He wanted the best for us.

Even this morning, as I started my run I heard his voice. I remember when we used to run together and one day he said, “You have a good stride.” Good words are so important……Fathers should never, ever underestimate the power of words of encouragement to their kids. Those words will follow them all their lives.

Maybe what you heard from your father was much different. You heard shouting…….you heard annoyance…..you heard many things, everything but love. Maybe there was only one compliment you can ever remember him giving. And you remember it to this day.

Maybe he was never there, or you never knew him, or maybe when he was there, you wished he would leave.

Maybe he is gone and you hold sorrow in your heart because you never got the chance to say you were sorry, or give him the chance to say he was.

Even good fathers are not perfect. But I know one who is.

And today, you can celebrate a Heavenly Father who paid your ransom to get you back. Because He loves you with a perfect love. An all-consuming love……A love that would go to the ends of the earth to find you.

And He can fill that hollow in your heart, all those empty places your earthly father should have filled.

He has inscribed your name in His palm, counted the hairs on your head, called you by name. He is Super-Dad.

And today, when He thinks of you, He looks down at His own nail scars and smiles because He knows He did all He could do

Just as any good father would.

The Joy of Being Found

But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. Luke 5:16
Sometimes, when I am in a forest, I like to hide behind a tree and remember what it was like to play hide and seek. The excitement of being found………The years fall away and I hear someone say, “I found you!” We all want the joy of being found, that is, by someone we want to be found by.
Today, try being a kid just for a few minutes. Play a game of hide and seek with someone. For those of you without kids it may be a challenge, but you can do it. Let the adult world fall away for just a moment……
Rediscover the wonder of the world. Hide behind a door and close your eyes. Listen to what’s going on around you, the sounds of your home. And if there is silence, breathe it in and imagine being found. Count to 50 and hear the voice you had as a child, or remember the voice of a childhood friend, brother, sister, cousin.
Then imagine being found by God.
Imagine, He seeks us. All day, everyday. Just like he met Adam and Even in the cool of the evening. He wants us to find Him, and He’s not hiding behind a tree, He’s closer than you can imagine:
From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.“His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ Acts 17:

My niece loves hide and seek now. Sometimes she forgets the rules, she wants you to hide over and over again, and it doesn’t matter, to her and to me, it’s the joy of the game.
 
I hope I never get so caught up in rules that I lose sight of what God wants me to know. That He loves me, and He loves being found by me, always.
 

In the wee small hours

Lying in bed, I think, ‘When will it be morning?’ But the night drags on, and I toss till dawn. Job 7:4 NLT

It always amazes me that I can find a Bible verse that applies to each and every situation. I was up once again at 2:00 AM. I was also up yesterday morning at around the same time. I scared Elaine to death because she thought she was being really quiet when she snuck into my bathroom at 2:30 and I said, “What you doing?” She almost jumped out of her skin. She was trying not to wake me but no worries there. She was really trying not to wake her Mom on the other side of the house. You learn with an Alzheimer’s patient, you do anything in the world not to wake them at night.

Elaine has spent many hours awake since her Mom took over her bedroom. She now sleeps in the Arizona room which has walls and a ceiling but not much in the way of insulation. It is like sleeping by the Indianapolis Speedway. People drag up and down the street all hours of the night. She has a radio on at all times to mask the noise and her tinnitus.

I couldn’t believe I was up once again this morning,  tossing and turning. My thoughts were like fireworks going off in my head. The more I thought about getting up at 4, the wider-awake I remained. I prayed…..I recited the 23rd Psalm which usually works like a tonic. Not this time.

I dreamt of that blessed blessed sleep that comes. The Bible calls it “sweet sleep.”

I finally got it at around 3:30. Right before the alarm went off. I got up and started the coffee and layed back down for a few minutes. As I sat blinking, fuzzy-headed, sipping my first cup, the chorus of an old hymn was playing through my mind and it comforted me…….

Jesus is tenderly calling me home
Calling today, calling today
Why from the sunshine of love will thou roam
Farther and farther away?
Calling today, calling today
Jesus is calling, is tenderly calling today.
Jesus is calling the weary to rest
Calling today, calling today
Bring Him thy burden and thou shalt be blessed
He will not turn thee away.
I looked it up just now…….Turns out it is an old Jim Reeves song, lyrics written by Fanny Crosby.


I was thankful once again, that I was raised singing those old hymns…..I love the modern praise songs, but somehow when one of these slips quietly into my mind, I feel a peace like no other.

I think of my heritage, my Grandparents, all my Grandmother’s sisters, and I really feel they are cheering me on from Heaven.

I can do this thing.

Phone Phobia

Me and phones.

I put off calling people, even people I really want to talk to. I don’t know why, I guess because when I analyze it, I automatically assume you are doing something important and I would be an interruption. I don’t know where that comes from, I guess a bit of shyness that has always been part of my character. Leftover from long ago………That, and I can’t see what you are doing. My imagination works overtime. I think how busy you are and the phone ringing would be taking you away from all that. And I can imagine you might think to yourself, “Oh, it’s her.”

My Mom had a brand new friend that she called out of the blue for the first time and the friend said, “What do you want?”  I would have been mortified. Of course, she was joking and they had a good laugh. And my Mom has a very healthy self-image and was unfazed. Now when I call Mom, often she starts the conversation with that same line and we both laugh.

But I want you to know, that if I don’t call you, it’s not because I don’t want to talk to you, or that I am not thinking of you. I do, and I am. And if you called I would be very happy no matter what I was doing. Unless you were trying to sell me something.

I guess that’s why I love texting. I never used to text…..at all. Actually, I didn’t know how, and also, I didn’t have an IPhone. I love texting, I don’t have to worry about interrupting anything. If you text back, that means you want to talk. That opens the door for me to respond back.

But it’s never the same. Hearing your voice is so much better. Especially when I can hear you smile over the phone. I picture your face and imagine where you are calling from…..maybe I see your room or kitchen and picture you in it, and that makes me smile.

Really, phone calls across the miles are magic. Sometimes when I get a special phone call, I remember right where I was standing when I got it.

Don’t ever worry about calling me, whatever I am doing or whatever time it is. It means you want to talk to me, and that means everything.

I will try my best despite my phone phobia, to do the same for you.

Can we talk????

I heard a quote somewhere that said something like, “we view ourselves as our mothers see us“…….I probably mangled the quote, and I really can’t remember where I read it, but the meaning stuck with me. Could it actually be true? There is no stronger bond than that of the parent and child, or more complex. If that is true, then the bond between Moms and Daughters is even more complicated.

For every daughter who has a mom worthy of the glowing phrases found in a Hallmark card, I am sure there are 4 or 5 that don’t. I am very blessed and grateful that it has always been easy for me to celebrate Mom’s day. My mom has made it so. She was there emotionally and physically for me, always…..she still is, I am happy to say.

Some daughters spend their whole lives trying to “get over” their mother. And some spend all their lives trying to please a mother who will not be pleased; who remains as emotionally and physically available as a brick wall. My best friend comes to mind immediately. Sometimes, as she says, “I thank her for doing the best she could at the time, and for giving me life.” I don’t know that I could be as gracious as she is.

My Mom always hated Mother’s Day. Finding a card was always difficult. My Grandmother was emotionally distant and critical of her daughters and yet displayed open affection for her son. In her defense, she lost a precious little girl to a shooting accident when she was only four. I often wonder if she just couldn’t allow herself to show affection for my Mom and Aunts because of her guilt about Annie.

Some things she did do right. She created a warm atmosphere in their home in many ways. They always came home to meals and home baked pastries and a clean house. To her credit, she was very demonstrative in her love for me and my brother. I think mixed in with her love for me was pity, since I was born 3 months premature and was a small pale child. She was always trying to feed me.

Even great moms struggle with guilt……they think they haven’t done enough. They see the mistakes they made instead of all the things they did right. My Mom told me on the phone yesterday, “It’s hard for me to think of myself as a good Mom.” I was floored.

As daughters we tend to remember that one barb that stuck, that one hurtful thing our Mom said that she may not have even been aware of saying, nevertheless we remember it.

Mother’s Day for those of us without kids can be uncomfortable. An innocent question like, “What are you doing for Mother’s Day” and all of a sudden I feel like I am on the other end of the Spanish Inquisition about why I don’t have kids. Most of the time it’s all in my head. They just asked a question, after all.

Just because I haven’t had any doesn’t mean I haven’t mothered in some way shape or form. In fact, I feel very sure that within all women there resides a she-wolf  that would step in front of a truck to save even someone else’s child. Its just a part of who we are.

There’s a whole world of children out there who have benefited by someone who picked up where Mom left off. Someone who sacrificed without giving it a second thought. Auntie, Grandma, best friend, teacher……Imagine where some of those kids would be if no one had stepped up.

There was one moment in particular when I felt like I was briefly ushered in to the Mommy community. I was dropping my little niece Lauryn off at school when I noticed the booger hanging halfway out her cute little nose. Instantly I was mortified that she might be teased by her classmates, so I took my bare finger (cause that was all I had) and got it out for her. Then I understood that thing that comes alive in you as a parent. That thing that says, I will do whatever it takes to protect you.

So today I honor all Mothers in whatever capacity you serve. Because being a good Mom is the toughest job in the world and one of the most important assignments God will ever give you. You deserve more than just one day…..

“If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much.” — Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Missing her……

I am missing her this morning….that’s my post today. This coming week she will be going to the beach with “Papa’s Mama” (my Mom) and “Papa” as she calls my Dad, and her Daddy. I heard how excited she sounded on the phone the other night. Sitting here at my desk at work, my heart squeezes and I am trying to keep tears from spilling, and failing. I know how she will shriek when she sees the ocean, just like I used to. She will be jumping up and down on one foot and I know my brother will not be moving nearly fast enough for her.

Wasn’t it only yesterday that she left the driveway in her car seat, shortly after she was born? That I collapsed in tears because I knew I wouldn’t be seeing her again for awhile? I saw all those moments I was going to miss. It’s preposterous, that her next Birthday she will be ten….and I shake my head in disbelief and how fast it all went.

Elaine was feeling much the same way last night……Her niece, and namesake, McKenna was in a school play. I saw and felt the pang of sadness in her voice and in her eyes as the pictures came through, knowing she wouldn’t be there to see her perform the part of Charlie Bucket’s mother onstage.

They are all so precious and time is flying by way too fast. Everything is monumental in their lives right now, every moment as big as eternity……I wish I could make a big bubble where we could all live close.

All those moments are magic, you know?

I feel unsettled this morning,  like the world is shifting a bit under my feet. The gravity of home was pulling me back. I even kept slowing down in the car, and for me that is unusual. I got to work and found they had moved my workstation. You would think I would be totally comfortable with change by now after being here 16 years.

Meanwhile, there is a little girl named Isabel still missing here in Arizona. She is only 6. I hope and pray she will have another Birthday,  yet after more than one week missing, I feel guilty in thinking there is little hope that she will…… that is a sorrow that I can’t even fathom. A bottomless grief.

Today I hold out hope along with her parents, that somewhere she is safe.

Please keep Isabel and her family in your prayers…..