Independence Day

We turned into the driveway of my brother's home and my Mom exclaimed, "Look at all those little ones running around... aren't they just the cutest things you've ever seen?!"

"They're all yours, Mom," I replied. "You are indirectly responsible for all that cuteness."

She sat through an entire two hours of pyromania display, watching the exploding sky with a smile on her face.  Watching her great grandbabes with wonder in her eyes.

My brother had downloaded a concert of patriotic songs to play in the background.  He's just corny that way.

In perfect time to the grand finale (Big Bad Mudder!) the heart squeezing sounds of 'Proud To Be An American' wafted through the smoke-filled air.

I looked around at the gaggle of squealing cousins defying the darkness with their spitting sparklers and neon necklaces...

Grandparents and Great-grandparents sharing homemade ice cream with the littles...

My son and nephew, once little boys who liked to blow things up, now grown-ass men who like to blow things up...

My eyes settled on my tiny G-boy, lying peacefully on top of his G-dude, eyes wide and shining.

It pulled on my heart to realize there are moments like this he will never remember.  Moments I will never forget.

He turned to me and smiled, reached for me to hold him.

And that's all it took for me to know that he will always remember what really matters...

He will never forget that he is loved.

             

I am mostly proud of this country my G-boy has inherited, though I can't help but wish it was more like the one I grew up in... the one Lee Greenwood celebrated.  

Truth is, some of My Fellow Americans seem to have gone a bit bonkers... climbing upon their high horses, jousting at pastel rainbows, arguing over artifacts, hating the sin of their neighbor because it's different from their own.

Because apparently, voicing one's opinion has become a National Sport.

What a waste of precious time.

They're like buttholes, you know... opinions are. Just cause you have 'em, doesn't mean you should share 'em with everybody.

It's all noise. 

So. Much. Noise.

Clanging cymbals.  Loud gongs being banged in self-righteousness instead of love.

Independence Day of 2015 is history.  

The smoke from the fireworks has cleared.  The bombs bursting in air, the rocket's red glare...? Not even a blip on my G-boy's radar. Loud, bright, explosive... and momentary.

The only thing he remembers is the love that surrounded him.

I'm going to try to be more like that little guy on his first Fourth of July.  

Because everything else is just noise.

An Over The Rainbow Mother's Day...

It's Mother's Day and I'm a soggy mess.

My daughter-in-law has been at a homeschooling conference for the past three days, where allegedly an assortment of the Duggar family was scheduled to speak.  I've alternated between worrying that she will return home with a new resolve to out-birth the Duggars or that she will decide not to come back home, at all. 

Meanwhile, I've enjoyed every minute spent babysitting my four little grand-nuggets.  But lawdy, I'm tired.  

It takes an amazing amount of energy to keep a hollow-legged eight year old girl full of food while answering the incessant questions of an insatiably curious seven year old when I am constantly swatting the four year old's hand away from his crotch and educating a two year old on the benefits of pooping in the pot versus NOT eating boogers .

My house looks like it's been hit by a tornado; a M-4 tornado. 

The bedroom...

The toy closet...

And the kitchen...

If it looks like we had fun... we did.  Oodles of it.

We even managed to make a video worthy of America's Funniest. Keep your eye on the innocent-looking short guy on the front left...

(I really hope we win and Tom Bergeron sends us all to Disneyland. Otherwise, M-4 is gonna hate me for the rest of my life.)

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My favorite part of babysitting The Grands...?

Bedtime.

Not just for the obvious reasons, but truly, nothing squeezes my heart quite so exquisitely as the tucking-in ritual with my sweet-smelling G-babes...  reading the old, worn books I read to my sons once upon a time... singing endless verses of "Over the Rainbow" as angel eyes flutter off to sleep.

Last night as I searched for the perfect bedtime story, I stumbled upon this book:

It is a whimsical story about a Mama who rocks her baby boy to sleep every night, even after he becomes a grown man.  And each time she rocks him, she sings to him the same sweet song...

(Okay, maybe the part where she drives across town with a ladder and sneaks into his bedroom is a little bit creepy, but still... I get it.)

I ain't gonna lie... when I got to the part where the grown-up son went home, picked up his own baby girl and sang the song to her, I couldn't finish the story. My eyes got all misty and my voice got all wobbly and snot started running out of my nose.  

My G-babes looked up at me and wondered what in the heck was going on!

How could I explain to these precious ones that the last time I had read this book, it had been my own two little boys cuddled up beside me? What words could I use to make them understand the inter-generational love flowing from my heart to their Dad's heart and on to them?  The melancholy of realizing how quickly the years had passed?

I did what any self-respecting grandmother would do.  I faked a sneeze and told them it was time to turn the lights off.

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Their Dad came to pick them up this afternoon and they scattered like cockroaches.  Both of us were just too dang tired to hunt them down, so I crumpled  into my recliner and Lucas plopped down at the piano.

[I wish I could explain all the feels I feel whenever Lucas plays my piano.  It belonged to my paternal Granddad... my Daddy's Dad. Some of my earliest memories are of him pounding gospel songs out on those keys, surrounded by my Dad and his siblings... all of them singing at the top of their collective lungs, lifting their voices in perfect familial harmony.  It's that circle of life thing, y'all. Gets me every time.]

So there I am - enjoying the beautiful ivory tinkling of my firstborn - when all of a sudden, I look up to see Jacob, my youngest, sit down beside his brother and begin tuning his guitar.  

They ran through a couple of chords, shot me a grin and began to play "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".  

Our song.

The song I sang to them throughout their growing-up years.

The song Lucas and I danced to at his wedding. 

The song that never fails to bring back memories of freckled-faced little boys and bedtime snuggles.

There they were, two beautiful men who once shared my heartbeat... together at my Granddad's piano, playing an impromptu love song to their besotted Mama.

Amid the chaos of the weekend, it was such a moment of absolute perfection...

For as long as I'm living, my babies they'll be.

Smooth Heels and Blue Bell...

Last week was My Birthday Week and I gotta tell you, it was almost over before it began.

It's not what you're thinking.  Even though I had not planned on sharing My Birthday with National Hairball Awareness Day...

I was willing to compromise.  I mean, hairballs are dangerous, y'all. Just thinking about it gets me all choked up.

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But, no.  What really got me was that a few days before My Big Day, Blue Bell Creameries pulled ALL THEIR ICE CREAM off the shelves due to a little ol' Listeria problem.

(If you're not from Texas, let me explain... THEY TOOK ALL OUR ICE CREAM OFF THE SHELVES!  WE ARE VIRTUALLY ICE CREAM-LESS!!!) 

Mighty serious stuff, this is.  

They are holding ice cream prayer vigils in Brenham, Texas.  And rightly so.  Blue Bell comes straight from heaven.  Listeria is from the debil.  Nothing short of divine intervention can help us at this point.

Between the hair balls and the Blue Bell, I was ready to call off the party.  The thought of celebrating My Birthday without Blue Bell Pecans Praline 'n Cream was just downright depressing...

Hoping against hope, I jumped in my car and headed to Walgreen's, praying to Baby Jesus that I would find a rogue carton of Blue Bell. 

Just one little carton... 

I wasn't gonna be picky...

Any flavor would do...

Alas, there was not a single carton of Blue Bell to be found.  The bloody ice cream murderers had done their job well.

(Saddest photo I've ever seen.)

BUT... while I was searching for Blue Bell, in a stroke of serendipity I found this handy gadget:

A battery powered callus remover!  The Perfect Birthday Gift for ME!!

I drove straight home and told Dickie what he needed to get me for My Birthday. (All smart wives know this trick.  Otherwise we end up with stinky bath salts or a weed eater.)

Let me tell you... this man of mine is so well trained that he didn't even blink.  He shut off his power tools, made a precision military turn in his clean white Nike's, got in his truck and drove off into the sunset to buy his woman the desire of her heart.  

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I'm not so far into Blue Bell withdrawal that I can't see all you judgy young brides snickering at me.  I see you out there.  And I fully understand that if you unwrapped a battery powered callous remover from your husband, you would think that the romance is over. 

But you would be wrong.  

Battery powered callous removers are not the end of romance.  You know what is?  The Menopause is.  Just like Listeria, the menopause is the debil.  

You young, moist, nubile chicks need to know this.  Enjoy those plump ovaries while you can, because one day your little nuggets will dry up and unleash a cataclysm causing your body to erupt into night sweats, leaky bladders, weight gain, stray gray hair and funky feet.  

Don't get me wrong.  I can still tear it up in the sheets.  It's just that now... my heels are to blame for tearing up the sheets.  They were so cracked and rough that I could actually file my own toes with 'em.  

And even though I tried really hard to keep my jagged heels off the Dickman, sometimes things would go bump in the night and... BAM! 

Poor guy accused me of wearing spurs to bed.  (Not that there's anything wrong that.)

So keep that smugness to your young, tight-skinned, smooth-heeled selves.  Because I'm here to tell you... True Love is making sure your middle-aged wife has callous-free heels for her birthday.  King-sized sheets are expensive.

DISCLAIMER:  This was not Blue Bell ice cream and I did not cheat.  I only licked the chocolate.

BEARING BEAMS OF LOVE

Once upon a time, inspired by the upcoming Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate, I wrote a blog about love and marriage and fairy tales and cynicism and the intricacies of Happily Ever After. 

If I may be so obnoxious as to quote myself, I said:

"You wonder how your fairy tale wedding morphed into a marriage that has now become a crazed dance of coming together and pulling apart and twirling around and stepping on toes in a flurry of frenzy and breathless emotion all intertwined with love. The only constant through all the years is love."

We're coming up on 38 years, my Dickman and I.

The only constant through all the years is love.

It's painful to look back and remember wedges that were driven between us, implicit in every relationship.  Satisfying to know that we somehow survived with most of our knees and knobby bits intact.

On the other side of the plighted troth, it's always fun to reminiscence about the varied forces of nature that conspired to cement our relationship: the deaths and births and ties that bind, island sunsets and jungle ziplines, ER trips and midnight promises, two-stepping on decks and driving through  vineyards.

There's a million little things that tie us together, a lifetime of memories over which we have bonded.  But who would have guessed that right smack dab in the middle of our middle agedness, we would be bonding over two of the most important women in our lives --- our Mamas.

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A few months ago, we moved my mother-in-law to a 'rehabilitation and living center'. (It sounds better than 'nursing home', so just go with it.) To our surprise and unending gratitude, she loves it! The staff loves her, she has a roommate who makes her feel safe, and she can find her way from her room to the cafeteria – all by herself.

She was disoriented at first, even to the point of not remembering her own son if she skipped a few days without seeing him.

Shortly after we moved her, the Dickman stopped by the rehabilitation and living center on his way home from a business trip. He sat with his Mom, chatting about the weather and hair color and bowel movements, all her favorite topics. She asked him what time it was and he replied, “It's about 7:00.” She asked if it was day or night and he pulled back the curtains to show her the setting sun. Then she looked right into his eyes and said, “Oh my, it's getting late! Does your Mama know where you are?”

Dickman smiled a sweet, sad smile and said, “You know... I'm not really sure.”

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My Mama knows exactly where I am - straight down the hall and to the right.

I'm pretty sure that living with me and the Dickman was not in her Life Plan. She is a fiercely independent woman, which we strive to respect and honor.

Every morning, I take her a breakfast tray and when she's up to it, she joins us for supper at night.  All the in-between stuff she handles mostly by herself. (Lunch...? She keeps a stash of cheese crackers and pork rinds to drink with her coke. Seriously, don't even go there.)

It's hard not to help when I see her struggling with daily tasks, but I know it's important for her to do what she can while she can. She insists on making her bed every morning, even though it wipes her out and she has to take rest breaks.

This morning I peeked in her door and saw this...

My sweet Mama was sitting on the side of her bed, trying to catch her breath... quietly enjoying some of her favorite pictures. I stood in the doorway and watched, allowing my heart to break into a million little pieces because you know what?  Love hurts.

Nazareth was right, y'all.

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There is a quote by William Blake that I've always loved, but never fully appreciated until recently:

“We are put on earth a little space, that we may learn to bear the beams of love.”

From the minute we are born until the day we die, God is transforming us with beams of love. Sometimes the transformation is painful. Often the transformation is painful.

Love, done right, cracks you wide open and makes you feel all the feels you always and never wanted to feel.

But here's the deal:  it only hurts for a little space.  'Cause that's all we've got.

And though I'm always screwing up, I really, really want to get this right. Even when the vulnerability of loving others knocks me to my knees... or when the sadness of losing my loved ones seems too painful to bear... even when my every instinct is to build up walls of protection around my heart... I pray that God tears me apart with beams of love so heavy and bright that I can't help but shine it all over those around me!

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Obviously... God is not finished with me, yet.

I'm still learning.

But this I know for sure... whether we give it or we receive it, love truly is the only constant.

And it's all we're taking with us when we go.

Useless Mittens...

It's been a long, cold winter, y'all. 

I really hate to complain. But seriously, this is what it has come to...

I've been trying to make the best of it,  pull up my big girl flannels and find positive ways to embrace this season of frigidity. But winter has been hard.

I know you've felt it too; particularly so, as the cold and dreary weather has been a direct reflection of the state of our world.

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This is my first blog of the year. It's not that I haven't been writing. Almost daily I sit at my keyboard, clicking out stops and starts of half-formed ponderings and whatnot.

But the darkness of the world keeps breaking through, leaving me speechless, making a mockery of words and inept sentences.

Some days – most days – I just don't know what to do with it.

Just like you guys, I don't know where to put the overwhelming barrage of pain and suffering. Our world is hurting.  Peace is slipping through our fingers.

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Yesterday I bundled up my little G-boys for a walk in the snow. Even though it was a teeth-chattering 28 degrees, they wanted to go feed the deer. (Little boys are silly, that way.)

[It is important to note that my 2-year old G-boy is undeniably the cutest and smartest toddler on the planet. I know some of you may disagree with me and I absolutely respect your right to do so. We shall agree to disagree.]

But even though this little guy of mine is cute and smart and oh-so-precious, make no mistake... he is T-W-O. All caps. Terribly so.

He allowed me to help him with his shoes, simply because he was too fat to bend over in his snowsuit. But when it came to putting on his mittens, he did NOT need ANY help from his MiMi!  He could do 'da glubs' himself!

We trekked stiffly across the yard with our package of corn tortillas, searching for deer tracks while stepping in their droppings. Just about the time the snot in my nose began to form ice crystals, we saw them... an entire family of deer creatures right across the road!!

I tore the tortillas in quarters and handed them to the boys. My 4-year old started hurling pieces of tortilla toward the deer like Frisbees, laughing with glee. In contrast, my 2-year old began stomping his little snow boots and crying, corn tortillas lying at his feet.

“What's the matter, baby?” I asked as I knelt down.

“My thumbs don't work!!! I can't throw!!!”

I looked down at this hands and noticed the thumbs of his mittens were sticking out at odd angles.

“Oh, I see what's wrong... you don't have your thumbs in your mittens. Here, let me help.”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I don't WANT you to put my glubs on. I already DID put my glubs on!

Now, listen. There's one thing I know for sure about a 2-year old. You will never win an argument with them when they are upset. 

N-E-V-E-R.

I picked up a tortilla, turned his little hand over and placed it in his dysfunctionally mittened palm.

He stood there a moment, just looking at his hand, looking over at the deer, then back at the tortilla. He watched as his brother kept tossing food towards the skittish deer. And then he did the sweetest little thing...

He reached out his arms, held his hands in offering towards the deer and said, “Come 'mere deer, I'll be your friend!”

He stood like that for a good five minutes, calling to the deer in his sweet baby voice, begging them to be his friend and eat out of his hands.

I don't know how long my little dude would've stood there, just waiting and hoping, because all of a sudden, I let out with a big ol' snot-crystal-blowing sneeze... and the deer scattered like flies.

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There will always be pain and suffering in this world.  More than a lifetime's worth. And sometimes it's hard to hold on to hope, easy to lose faith.

But all it takes is a 2-year old to remind me...

When the darkness is overwhelming and the light is slipping from my hands, I need to lift them high to The One who will straighten out my mittens and make them fit just right. Only then will I be able to use my hands effectively to do their part in healing this broken world...

The Gift That Keeps On Giving...

My eight-year old G-girl could hardly wait to meet my brother's foster baby. It was love at first sight, instantaneous and pure... exactly how we are supposed to love each other.

“Why doesn't her Mama want her?” Mandie Lee asked.

“Oh, I'm sure she wants her; but Baby P's Mama has some problems that she needs to work on before she can take care of her.” I tried to answer.

“But... doesn't she love her? Because if she really, really loved her, she would fix her problems and get her baby back.”

“I'm sure she loves her, Mandie. It's just that some people are better at love that others."

Man, ain't it the truth?

The problem with love isn't love.  The problem with love, is us.

Whether it's parents or politicians, janitors or Jesus... some people just know how to love better than others.

It actually took me quite awhile to realize this.  I assumed everybody had grown up as well-loved as myself. In fact, I was halfway into adulthood before I began to understand the havoc that insufficient love can wreak.

I watched as Mandie cuddled with sweet Baby P, and I realized two truths about love:

1. It is not the quantity of the love, but the quality.
2. Is is not the grandiosity of the love, but the consistency.

Love is a process and we can all learn to do it better. I know we can, because we were given the blueprints. 

And those blueprints even come with a guarantee...

Love doesn't fail, y'all. 

We do.

Aren't we just a bunch of  knuckleheads?  

God gave us this perfect love, and we just keep on messing it up. We get stupid and fearful, insecure and petty... and all of a sudden we convince ourselves that love is something we can withhold or ration like a miser. Pfffft!

Either that, or we become so egotistical that we must display our love in such a grand and magnificent fashion that people can't help but sit up and take notice...

Big love is fun! It's flashy! It's enviable!  But, for reals, it is ridiculously hard to maintain.

All we really need is the kind of love I witnessed between my G-girl and Baby P.

A simple, nonjudgmental love that doesn't ask whether or not someone is worthy.  The kind of love that sees through the brokenness and accepts each other for who we truly are.  Love that reaches across religion and race and politics and old family wounds.

We need to get better at it, this thing called love.  We need to practice and practice, until we get it right.

Because, this I know for sure:  God doesn't break promises.

There are only two things I want for Christmas this year:  a forever home for Baby P, and a world filled with love that does not fail.

I hope you like your gift from me.  And I hope it won't bother you when you find out I've been doing a little re-gifting.  

This year for Christmas, I'm giving everybody the promise of Corinthians 13.  I'm going to take that old promise, fold it neatly into an over-sized box, wrap it with shiny paper and tie it up with a big fat red ribbon.  

You can act all surprised when I give it to you and say, "Oh, you shouldn't have!".  And I'll just smile and say, "Oh, it's not much... just some lil' ol' thing I wanted you to have.".  And I hope when you open it, you will rub your face in it and wash your hands with it and share it with everyone around you.  I hope you will hang it over your mantle, tattoo it on your bicep, and sprinkle it in your spaghetti.  Whatever, man!  Just don't be afraid of using it up...  there's plenty for everyone and more where that came from. 

Love, Love and More Love.  That's what you're getting from me this year.  

A patient, kind, hopeful, trusting, persevering kind of love that never fails... all wrapped up with a pretty red bow.

Merry Christmas... from me, Mandie Lee and Baby P.

THANK YOU, JESUS

"For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways."

Psalm 91:11

The first memory I have of him is walking through a shopping center in Odessa, Texas on our way to see Santa Claus. I remember reaching up to grab his hand, because, you know... Santa is a big ol' scary dude when you're a little girl. 

He was barely a teenager, but he was My Rock.

The sweetest memories I have of him are during the weeks following my Daddy's funeral. I was so sad and overwhelmed and ready to drop out of graduate school. But almost every evening, Rocky would call just to see how I was doing. Several times a week he sent cards to cheer me up and encourage me along the way. 

I keep his cards in a special place.

The saddest memory I have with my cousin Rocky is the day we had to tell his Mom (who had suffered a severe stroke two years earlier) that her husband of more than five decades had suddenly died from a blood clot. Rocky's Mom – my sweet Aunt Betty Bob – could not talk or understand language due to the effects of her stroke. But in that moment, she clearly understood our tragic jumble of words. I climbed in bed beside her, our tears mingling on her pillow, as my Rock held her in his arms.

The most sacred memory I have with Rocky is when we were once again on either side of my sweet Betty Bob, holding her hands as she struggled with her last breaths. I remember telling him a funny story about his Mama, trying to lighten his burden. He threw back his head and laughed that big, boisterous laugh of his.  In the very same moment, his Mom stopped breathing. I've always loved that the last earthly sound she heard was the laughter of her beloved only child.

We've been through a lot together, my cousin Rock and I. He has helped me climb some mighty tough mountains and I've talked him down off cliffs. Somewhere along the hills and valleys of our journey, we became so much more than cousins...

He is my friend, my soul mate, my brother.

On November 4th, I received a call from Rocky's daughter, Camille. “Dad has been in a wreck,” she told me. “He rolled his truck and flew out through the windshield. He's been airlifted to the hospital, but he's conscious and talking.”

Angels.

That was the first thought that popped into my head. 

It was Rocky who taught me to pray for angels to surround our family and protect us from harm. I prayed that prayer for Rocky the night before his accident, just as I had every night for years.  

And every single night, I fell asleep knowing he prayed the same prayer over me and mine.

As the events of the wreck unfolded, it became apparent just how huge a role angels had played in his survival.

Rocky was thrown twenty feet away from his truck, which was a mangled mess of glass and metal. He had gashed his head in two places, lacerated his spleen and broken his neck and ribs. A Good Samaritan found him trying to crawl away from his truck, afraid it would explode.

He doesn't remember much about the accident, but remembers being strapped to a gurney and loaded into a helicopter. He told me he could feel blood trickling down his face, and did not think he would survive.

“Were you scared?” I had to know.

“No... not at all. I felt a deep peace.”

At the ER, the trauma doctors and nurses were amazed. “You are a miracle, you know. We seldom see patients with injuries like yours who are conscious and talking coherently, much less moving their arms and legs.”

He should have been severely brain injured... or paralyzed... or dead.

Instead, he was talking to me on the phone, complaining about having to wear a neck brace for the next three months.

I went to see him as soon as I could. Even though I knew he was going to be okay, I just needed to see his dear, precious face.

He never looked better to my grateful eyes...

I kissed him on the cheek and whispered, “Thank You, Jesus”.

He laughed his magical laugh and said, “Funny you should say that...”

Just before his wreck, Rocky was climbing into his truck when he heard someone yelling his name.  It was another trucker he had prayed with recently, as he often did with the truckers God placed in his path.  She ran up to him, waving a paper in her hand.

“Here, I made this for you, Rocky! I want you to keep it and carry it in your truck while you travel.  I thank Jesus for you.”

Rocky thanked her and laid the paper on the seat beside him.

The next day, a friend of Rocky's went by the accident site to have a look around. 

Inches away from a blood-stained patch of grass, he found this paper lying on the ground...

 Thank You, Jesus.  

(And be sure to thank those angels for me,  too.)