Category Archives: 6 Looking Back // Memories!

I’m at that age where you have lots and lots of memories. When I am waxing melancholy…

My Memory-Keeper is Losing Hers…

Sometimes I feel sorry for myself about this, which is the most selfish thing ever!

She is the first human being on earth who knew anything at all about me, from that first tinge of morning sickness. The longing of her heart, and lucky me! God chose her for me.

My mom delighted in me, her first child, after losing other babies, “miscarriages,” not sure she would ever carry to term. But she did. Then she delighted again in my brother Joe when he came along 18 months later, then Tim, then Tami and finally Danny. She had 5 babies in slightly more than 7 years. And it has been her heart’s joy to love us and ponder all the things about us.

“I have the greatest kids in any city or state. That’s the honest truth. I love my kids and I want to tell everybody and I don’t care who it is. I have the best kids and now I have grandkids and greats and I love it. I love every single one of them! It might take me awhile to remember all their names, but if I had time I could…” -my mamala, today on the phone

More than all the “adopted” spiritual sons and daughters and  the thousands of devoted and treasured friends she has amassed along her life’s journey as a pastor’s wife, she has delighted and reveled in loving her five children, her babies more than anything.

There are boxes in her closet filled with scraps of paper, journals, and backs of church bulletins where she has scribbled notes, a story about one of us or a scripture she felt was meant for me or a sibling. There are lined pages with our names at the top documenting the funny things we said or did, cute quotes, all the things she thought were so brilliant she never wanted to forget. All through our lives, she has loved to tell and retell our stories. She’ll say, “Remember when you thought eyelashes  were ‘eye-blashes?’ Or when you didn’t like sour foods because you felt they were ‘screamy?'”

She kept record that my little brother, Joe, called hub caps “cupstacks,” and referred to his pant legs as “pant sleeves.”  And she wrote down that our baby sister, Tami, called cow’s milk “wet whip cream” and freckles “sparkles” because it was cute. Danny, the baby of the family, referred to yesterday as “last morrow,” which is pretty astute, actually. And what do these silly moments have in common? Nothing but a mom who thought they were amazing enough to save them.

june 4 mamala and me 2016

And because her attention to us and love for us are grooved so deeply in her heart and brain, many times she can still access these same memories as if nothing is wrong, as if this form of dementia  isn’t reaching in and stealing from her. But other times, she can’t.

The person who has carried the memory of me longer than anyone, who has documented and celebrated every day of my existence, the woman who has cried with me in hard times, paced the floor praying with me during crisis, danced and rejoiced over my victories, encouraged me to do things that scared me because she thought absolutely no one could do it better than me, the one who has believed that I was heaven-sent and wonderful in every way and has oohed and aahed over even the insipid mundanity of my life and days – she is living with Alzheimer’s.

This woman, who has catalogued our lives, collected the bits and pieces of us, set herself to create and then commemorate each memory, and share it with enthusiasm and joy across the years, she is battling a memory thief.

She is living with the disease, and she is working hard to hold on. She says to me, “It’s like I’m going backwards. What is happening to me?”

But here I am, feeling sorry for myself.

Who will remember my first solid food and be able to tell the story with such glory? Or how fantastically I navigated those concrete stairs when I first saw them and how even though she wanted to stop me so I wouldn’t get hurt, she let me try anyway? She tells the story with great tension and animation, as if I am the only baby ever to have climbed stairs, and she tells me how she cheered for me as I reached the top and turned around and sat down, satisfied with my victory. She was so proud. Who will remember or care about those things? In the scope of everything, what does that story matter anyway? But still. She was keeping it for me, periodically encouraging me with a glorified vision of myself as a baby…

No one else will ever know me like my mama does.

It’s what we do as moms. Like Jesus’s mother, Mary, she “pondered these things and held them in her heart.”

Today, when we spoke on the phone, as if everything were as it has always been, she blessed my future, she gave me a message for Dave and said I needed to get a dog, both for protection and to avoid loneliness. Such wisdom, such good advice.

Then she started telling me about a most wonderful day she had experienced ” a week or two ago,” about going downtown to a coffee place and eating outdoors at a sidewalk table and then going across the street to “that big, beautiful building” and how she so wished I could have been there and hopes she gets to do it again and I can come along. She forgot that I was there, I took her to those places.

It made me feel sorry for myself.

But it’s my turn to keep her memories for her now.

– – – -#endalz- – – –

Important information

June is Alzheimer’s Awareness Month and it is my mom’s birth month. I am talking openly about a disease that kills people because I want to raise awareness and say we need to act. There is no one less deserving of Alzheimer’s than my mom, no one. But it doesn’t care who you are.  The Alzheimer’s Association will say anyone with a brain is at risk, as this disease is set to reach epidemic proportions in our lifetime, according to researchers.

I want our generation to set themselves to stopping this disease before it reaches predicted, staggering numbers which will be visited upon our children and theirs. Let’s spread the word!

#endalz  #igopurpletoendalz  #someoneilovehasalzheimers

Here are the facts:

quick-facts-2016

Watch this 1 minute and 45 seconds to hear more:

I hope all your memories are in a safe place.

May I?

I love these things in May {a list}

  • I’ve got pieces of April, I keep them in memory bouquet. I’ve got pieces of April, but it’s a morning in May.“* All the hopes that sprang in April now blossom in May. Remember what your Kindergarten teacher told you, because it is true: April showers bring May flowers!  {*Pieces of April, a song by Three Dog Night, naturally}
  • Tara Jean, Stephanie May and Gemma May: all born in springs’ most surprising and spirited month. They’ve each taken on those characteristics!

steph and her cake

Stephanie let me make her a 4-layer, wedding-white cake with buttercream icing, topped with baby’s breath and scattered caramel macchiato macarons from Happy Bakeshop in Longmont (Cake design inspired by the amazing Constellation Inspiration).

  • Fully leafed trees, that bright, light, spring-green thing that happens. And carpets of lush green grass, chlorophyl all around!
  • I love these bright, sunny days that give way to sudden, dark, thundery showers, then perk right back up to sunlight and a spring song. The sunsets are more colorful, the air is cleaner, and the grass even greener.
  • Memory: splashing in curbside puddles after a spring rain as a kid. Wish I’d done that more. I wonder what the neighbors might think if I…
  • Store-bought tomatoes (at the best markets) are beginning to have some flavor again while my heirlooms are settling in their soil, gearing up to give me brag-worthy homegrowns come July.
  •  I painted my nails with purple polish to match my pansies and freshly potted petunias, but it didn’t last, not even 2 days, because it’s May! Yes, of course I have very pretty sky-blue gardening gloves. But sometimes, you must sink your hands into the soil, to really understand the essence of living. I came from the dust of the earth. Plunging my hands deep as I plant, I am home…
  • It is the anniversary of our very first date, Dave and I. He said today, on Facebook, “The beginning of my life…” I melt.  I didn’t know it was a date (I hoped), he did. It involved a Rock Hudson movie and Barry Manilow. And it has worked out for us, I am happy to report. Dave is the one. :)

The world’s favorite season is the spring.
All things seem possible in May.
Edwin Way Teale

I love the month of May and wish we could have another 3 weeks of it, at least. And I love making lists. May all things seems possible for you today! In May… :)  xoxo

God’s Pleasure, A Prayer for Mi Familia

Before I forget ~ I love you, mi familia. That has been my heart motivation towards you from the beginning. Some days my motivations were obvious. Some days, I am certain, they were a total mystery, and had you scrambling to understand.

But if I could exchange, in your mind, the times you got the “mom look,” which made you squirm or feel anything less than the true brilliance I saw in you, if I could trade that out for the gazes you didn’t see, for the times I was pondering you in my heart and I was beaming out of sight when you were singing at the top of your lungs in your bedroom or being nice to that rascal-of-a-neighborhood-kid who needed a friend and I just thought, wowmy children are the most amazing ones ever...Yes, if I could trade some of those moments so you would know the depth of my admiration, my respect, and my abiding love for you (still, more than ever), so that there would never be a way for you to doubt how proud I am of you, well, then, I would. I would do it in a flash.

Meanwhile, this is true: your dad and I pray for you and we pray for your {JOY} because the JOY of the LORD will be your daily, ever-present, help-in-time-of-need, STRENGTH for all the life and living ahead! If you’re choosing between utilizing your own gifts, talents and abilities to achieve successful living, life and love (which you could do, because you have so much in you), versus living a Holy-Spirit-empowered joy-strengthened life, and an abundant joy-strengthened life at that, well, please, my darlings – choose the JOY-strengthened life for sure!

A & G, summer 14

What does that look like? It looks like when Averi and Gemma start doing cartwheels all over the lawn. Here they are, sweet littles and they just start going. And it takes all their arms and legs and gravity and muscle-control and trust and having their hearts and arms opened wide. But when they start and we clap and cheer, those two girls just keep going and going and going like it is nothing at all. They are filled with joy in the moment and the only reason they usually stop is that it’s time to leave or night has fallen. There is no worry about how they will feel tomorrow, for they know tomorrow, they will more joy-strength for many more cartwheels! That is some joy-strengthened living!

Let’s plan to get more {joy}. We are praying that for YOU!

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“Since we first heard about you, we’ve kept you always in our prayers that you would be filled to overflowing with the revelation of God’s pleasure over your lives. This will make you reservoirs of all wisdom and spiritual understanding. We pray that you would walk in the ways of true righteousness, pleasing God in every good thing you do. Then you’ll become fruit-bearing branches, yielding to his life, and maturing in the rich experience of knowing God in his fullness! And we pray that you would be energized with all his explosive power from the realm of his magnificent glory, filling you with great hope and {JOY} in the Holy Spirit!”
Colossians 1:9-11 The Passion Translation

AMEN! Oh, yes – Amen!!!

Before I forget to tell you ~ God is pleased with you.

And so am I. {mom}

 

So kiss me and smile for me

So kiss me and smile for me

Tell me that you’ll wait for me

Hold me like you’ll never let me go*

My mom asked me a few months ago, having watched a documentary about the late John Denver on PBS, if I would maybe “go in” with my siblings and buy her a John Denver CD for Christmas. She didn’t want to tax me too heavily, lovely woman that she is. <3

jdenver leaving

So, Dave made a CD of John Denver songs from his iTunes and I took it to her when I went to visit 2 weeks ago. She was so surprised. She barely remembered the documentary, if at all, and certainly didn’t recall asking for a CD, but she was happy to have it.

My visit this time has a musical soundtrack. And it is the sound of John Denver music drifting from her corner room, from a little CD player she can no longer remember how to work on her own, even though my sister painted “play” in large white letters.

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My sweetest mamala is suffering dementia, being treated for Alzheimer’s Disease. And the changes are so gradual if you’re in the room with her, that they’re much less perceptible. But I am not there, so when I visit, changes are glaring, and I lose my breath for a moment when I see another part of her gone. My dad always asks me what I see as different because he is “in the room,” day and night, night and day.

When I visited 2 months ago in August, during our family reunion, she kept asking me what words were on a stitched pillow her best friend had sent to her. “Friendship,” I’d tell her. She’d look intently at it and then say, “Oh right, there is the ‘i.’ Oh, and that’s ‘f’.” Then she’d say, “Friendship.”

15 minutes later, she’d pick the pillow up and ask me again. Everyday I was there, several times.

I asked my dad, “When did she begin to lose reading?” He was so surprised, he had been wondering why she wasn’t reading her Bible each morning like she always has. Reading is not totally lost to her yet. But it mostly is. She still keeps her Bible and her beloved dictionary close by at all times, but they are rarely opened. Sometimes she has to really focus her gaze for a long time to make out what the newspaper article is about. And if the article is continued in another column, or heaven forbid, on another page, she thinks they somehow just quit writing and finds it foolish for them to have done that.

This time, my most recent visit, she couldn’t sing Mairzy Doats, a beloved song from her childhood, with me anymore. Wherever it is she is going, down whatever hall dementia is taking her, that song doesn’t make sense and those aren’t real words so she cannot remember them at all. And she has no desire to recall them. My mom sang that to me my whole life. Then she sang it to my children. She and I sang it to some of my grandchildren. She always thought it was so funny and delightful, singing those tricky words that were really other words. But now it’s just “nonsense” to her, which it really always was, I guess. But still.

mom laughing oct 2015
My main goal, when we are together now, is to laugh with her. Laughter is so good for the bones.

So she wanted to listen to John Denver’s soothing beautiful music. She particularly loves Rocky Mountain High and Sunshine on My Shoulders. And the song all our family legends are made of was on repeat one day, Back Home Again. She had to call to play it and sing it for her best friend in Tennessee. She mostly hummed, unable to recall words she has always loved. And she’d comment to her friend when a line of the song said something sweet, like, “…the light in your eyes that makes me warm,” She’d say, “That reminds me of you, Ronnie!” It was sweetness.

mom at sundown

But all week, Whenever the song, “Leaving on a Jet Plane” began, she’d come and hug me and say, “Oh, I don’t want you to go…how many more days do I have?” And I’d usual just say, “I’m here for a whole week,” even as the week was moving along. Because it would put her at ease and she’d say, “Oh, good.”

Then we’d giggle and sing along with John Denver, mom mostly humming and inserting comments.

All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go. I’m standing here outside your door*

“Oh no, Jeanie. Here let me help you un-pack your bags!”

I hate to wake you up to say good-bye.*

“Don’t wake me up for that!”

‘Cause I’m leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again*

“You better get back here again quick!”

That is so true, mamala. I know you won’t see this blog (computer navigation was one of the first things to go), but we’ll laugh about this in heaven…

A couple of days before I had to leave, three of us were sitting on the love seat singing together, my mom, my little sister, and me. It was hard finding songs my mom could recall the words and following lyrics on the computer was’t working either. I went to a karaoke site and pulled up “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” We started singing away, getting that tight 3-part harmony from heaven found among family members alone.

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But as we came to the words, “So kiss me and smile for me, tell me that you’ll wait for me,” I had to look away and I couldn’t sing. A catch in my throat and the tears began, because I heard her singing the words, but I knew, she won’t be waiting for me. She is going to keep walking this path and each time I see her, there’ll be a little less of her there.

I have heard Alzheimer’s called The Long Goodbye.  And so it seems it must be. My sorrow at watching her have to endure not just the memory loss, but the confusion, the frustration, and the growing inabilities to do what she loves is compounded by living over a thousand miles away. Knowing my time with her will be so limited by the miles between us, I will take every possible second of this long goodbye to hold in my heart.

Every chance I get, I will go to her and bless her and praise her for the woman she is and hug her tiny self as long as she wants (and she loves long hugs). I’ll massage her shoulders and brush her hair and stroke her face and let her curl up on my lap like she is my little girl. There is so little I can do, but I’ll hold on as long as she needs me to….

Hold me like you’ll never let me go*

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Give her everything she deserves!
    Festoon her life with praises!” Proverbs 31.31 The Message

Learn more from The Alzheimer’s Association Alzheimer’s is the 6th leading cause of death and is not just about having a diminishing memory. As the disease progresses, a person with Alzheimer’s loses their ability to walk, to sit and eventually to swallow.  Please pray for my sweet mamala, if you will. *Norma Jean*

*Lyrics to Leaving on a Jet Plane, John Denver.

“I collect pretty things”

mom alzheimers

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“I don’t know why I have all these things,” she said.  “I guess I just like to collect pretty things, anything at all that is pretty.  I just like them.”

Mom is aging.  Mom is losing memories to that dreaded disease {we can barely whisper it, dementia}, like the autumn tree loses leaves, softly, quietly ~ leaf begins its’ descent, down-down, a swirl and a sudden swoop upward, then, swept away in the wind, settling in a crevice on the earth’s floor.

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And she has a drawer, or two…maybe 4 in which she has stored photographs and newspaper articles and pictures of puppies and magazine tear-outs of scroll-y art which she plans to glue to an envelope or piece of paper for writing lovely, loving letters to some one she cares about.

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“I just wanna take pictures of the whole world.”   -Norma Jean, my mamala. November 2013

Some of us wish to “help her clean” those drawers, to lighten her load by getting rid of things and scraps we are certain she doesn’t really need.  I start to offer my help, I resist this urge.  Because despite the diminishing certainty in her brain,  and that facts and details are being swept out to a sea of forgetfulness (how very God-like, really, isn’t it?), these notes and papers and pictures and print-outs are all important to her, her tangible hold and her physical memory.  She wants them, needs them, she desperately clings to the information they hold for her.

I resist my urge to purge on her behalf. Instead, I let her pull them out again to recount the story of why she loves each one and her plans for what she’ll do with them. “I’m going to make a book of cars for Hunter to read to Kai. And this is a cartoon I thought Ronnie May would find so funny. Oh – look, here is my pattern for those Christmas-card trees I’ve been wanting to make…

I note something very new on this visit: I have a terrible time getting her to go for walks – this woman who has always loved outdoor activity and horseshoes and playing baseball and lassoing imaginary cattle.  Fear is the cruelest part.  She fears the walks on uneven surfaces because of the falls of the past year.  But when finally I get her there, her most vibrant, youthful, excited self shows up to investigate the woods and explore the paths with utter abandon and childlike enthusiasm. She out corn-holed both dad and me, twice! And she’d have kept throwing those corn-filled bags if night hadn’t fallen fully.

For my mamala is losing pieces and snippets

{a few leaves flutter to the ground around us on our walk}.

She is missing moments and words are escaping her

{a breeze – then swirls of yellow leaves swish and swoop finally making their way to the ground}.  There they go–

{the larger Elm and scarlet Maple leaves whisper as they pass us falling to the earth}

and simple tasks and skills slowly, slowly falling down.  Leaves flutter toward our feet {gravity is winning} catching the late day sun and something

 ~{a memory, a knowing} ~

once so sure, falls with them.

Then in a sudden flash of exuberance, “Oh look at that leaf, will you?” she’ll ask, and she picks it up from the ground and with it comes a vibrant, razor-sharp recollection.  And I’ll hear a story with detail-complete clarity and accuracy, but one I may never hear again – because she’ll remember it no more.

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She sometimes knows with utter and complete understanding, and seconds later is completely unaware that it is so.  And I have no desire to rush this process.  For whatever she loves, I will love.  Whatever brings joy to her heart, I will find joy in, through her eyes, Please help me with that, Lord.  Help me not to rush these days and these “silly things” she collects with child-like delight. Oh God, help me hold her most valuable treasures for her, as she loses the strength to do so…

She makes me laugh, her sweetness.

An assortment of colorful leaves falls from her handbag as I help her search for her wallet.  Because.  They are pretty.

“That’s just me, I reckon. I collect pretty things.”

This morning, rising early, I saw her on her back deck which faces the eastern-sky, just as the sun was rising and flickering through the tree branches which have formed a black lace as they have started to bare.  Beyond the expanse of grass, a wooded area where she daily enjoys the deer family as they graze, the sun began to emerge, finally exploding into bright light just above the trees.   It is where she goes to watch and wait for the return of Christ each morning.  I stood in the shadows, on this morning, and watched her worship, watched her raise her arms to welcome the day, to tell the Lord she looks for His return.  Every part of her open, loving heart belongs to the One she longs for…

“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.” Revelation 22.17

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True story: {she is this very second showing me her biggest, prettiest Maple leaf, making sure I know all the reasons it is as beautiful and special as she thinks it is}…and I look at gentle and animated, piercing-blue eyes with a halo of ever-whitening hair, and I say yes, so beautiful, mamaladeeply beautiful, for so she is.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus…my mama is looking for You. And that, she does not forget.

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NOTE 10.28.15:: I just wrote about my recent trip to visit my mom and mentioned the dreaded “A” word for the first time (Alzheimer’s Disease) on this blog.  You may read about it HERE

They call it labor because it’s hard work

One of my most stunningly incredible life’s successes is that I had 5 babies. I brag on myself that I did pregnancy and delivery so well. I have proof: 5 gorgeous adults, ages 29-36 walking around the earth. :)

Maybe I wasn’t as good at it as I remember, but the end result turned out, anyway.

Labor is hard work!

My sweet niece is in labor today, a baby girl to arrive soon. She texted to let me know because I predicted today to be the day (I LOVE being right) and I texted her back: you were born for this…baby girl is coming today...adding pink bows and hearts and happy emoticons, like aunties do.

Then, I had to give a little advice, because I love to give advice. All women who have ever had a baby in the history of humankind like to give birthing advice, but I know mine is good because of previous evidence presented here! :)

I told her what I tell every mama who is heading into labor. Because labor is work. It is hard work!  And as exciting as it starts out to be, somewhere in the middle, your uterine muscles contracting with strength that could knock you flat, when you’re tired and the centimeters are not reflecting what your body is doing to you – somewhere before the baby comes, almost every woman starts to doubt she can do this, she begins to wonder if she can’t just quit for today.

christiana at 40 weeks and 1 day

So, we breathe deep and slow. We moan so those vocal vibrations reverberate deep into our own bodies to relax them. And I tell all the mommies, all the young beauties about to give birth: you were born for this. You are the chosen one. Baby is almost here. Now – see the ocean. You’re on shore wading towards it, you have the strength to meet that wave that’s coming. Don’t wait – go meet it… 

The waves grow larger and stronger.

The way I see it, there are three ways to deal the power of the sea heading your way while you’re in labor:

  1. Run back toward land as fast as you can, screaming in fear.
  2. Clench your teeth and fists and close your eyes and plant your feet firmly and let it hit you while you attempt to resist.
  3. Or, and this is the best way, take a deep breath and meet that wave – go to it, go deep. Let the waters rise and cover you, but keep those hands and your heart wide open and tell the sea, I am here for my baby! And you’ll find the the wave has taken you out further towards your destination when it subsides. It’s true!

I have gotten to be in the room with a few mommies now as a doula (“a woman who serves”), experiencing the moment of birth, getting to pray laboring women through, encourage and cheer them on. And that is how we do it.

And it takes incredible bravery and so  much strength, in spirit, soul and body. But a contraction starts to rise, and mommy breathes slow and deep (in through the nose, slowly-slowly out through the mouth) and into the ocean she goes. Those of us near a laboring woman can cheer her on, we can breathe along, and we can pour our courage in to her, but she faces this daunting task with a power she did not know she had, just mommy-to-be and the wild, holy waves of labor.

I often think of the birth experience and how it relates to the rest of life, for God had this amazing way of placing repetitions in creation, things that became signposts and touchstones for us.

And today, as I was thinking of sweet niece and this amazing day of adventure, one that will change her forever, a day she will never forget, I was thinking about the waves. Right now, they’re easier and she can handle them and still text her aunt. But soon, they’ll begin to almost overtake her and there will not be time for idle chatter. She’ll have to wade out and show her strength.

Life is hard, too, sometimes.

And I was thinking about things we face in life, less noticed – the things no one will throw you a fancy shower to celebrate (though you deserve it now, if ever!). But they are life-changing nonetheless. They are things that will change you at the core, and you’ll never be the same. Things happen. And they aren’t always what you would have chosen. And I have said, in the not too distant past, “I didn’t think I’d be here at this age. I don’t think I can do this…” 

And quite honestly, I have run screaming the opposite direction, and stood bracing myself, fists clenched, eyes shut tight – trying to ignore and wait for certain things to pass. There are just things I absolutely do not feel like I can handle and I don’t want to handle and I am so afraid of the unknown sometimes. Am I up to the challenge? Pretty sure I’d like to wait awhile, thank-you very much.

Deep calls to deep at the [thundering] sound of Your waterfalls;
All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.  Psalm 42.7 Amp.

But I was minding my own business thinking about the niece, when it hit me (is that You, Lord?) we can face whatever happens this same way. Birthing babies is proof. I can resist all day long or I can believe I was born to conquer this thing, whatever “this thing” is. I can, after all, do all things through Christ who strengthens me! See Philippians 4.13.

Let’s open our arms wide, throw our heads back in courage, take a deep breath and go meet those waves. We were born for this! We’ve got it, baby! All the new things are out there waiting for us to come and get them! And if we get knocked down a few times along the way, if the waves overcome us now and again, the One who promised never to leave us nor forsake us is right there, cheering us on, pouring His courage into us. Let’s birth some promise here!

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Image from Pinterest, Calling by Yongsung Kim, oil on canvas

Christiana-girl: your birth signaled the entrance of spring and new life to me so many years ago at a time of  “beginning again” (Spring, your middle name). I am cheering you on from Denver today! xoxoxo

Seven Sweet Summer Things // Thought-Collage Thursday

1.

Hot coffee and ice-cold watermelon. It’s what’s for breakfast. Although, this morning, it was actually a luscious peach from Colorado’s western slope. Oh. my. word! Mmmmm!

2.

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Memory: The best summer meals I ever ate were as a kid at my Aunt Rosie’s house: grilled burgers, garden fresh tomatoes and corn on the cob, straight from her backyard. Watermelon for dessert. The tomatoes and the corn were all I really needed, though. Still.

3.

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Garden Talks:: I approached the chorus of 6-foot sunflowers near the back line this morning, after a 2-week absence. I am quite sure they hadn’t heard I was home, as they had their gazes firmly fixed eastward, probably wondering where on earth I had gone.  “I’m back,” I announced, “you may now heliotrope to your heart’s content.” Hopefully they won’t be all stand-offish and soon I’ll see their gaze coming my way. West, my sweets, west.

The pumpkins required a stern talking to, spreading out and covering the sage and butterfly plants as they were. They do require a great lot of space, to be sure, but they mustn’t just override their garden companions with no thought for the ‘morrow. They are safely tucked about now, room to spread and grandly producing round spheres for autumn pies.

Some tiny varmint is eating the white petunia petals and I don’t wonder why, scrumptious as they are, all frilly and pretty in the late summer sun. But still, this may require a squirt of cayenne pepper sauce to dissuade their voracious appetites.

Left to her own accord, the basil is attempting a one-woman show in glorious floral bloom. “Not yet,” I must insist. For once the flowers burst forth, the plant’s usefulness is limited. There is more pesto to be enjoyed, more hand-crafted pizzas to be flavored. She’ll get her stage soon enough.

Naturally, while I was gone, the thistles and goat-heads thought they could safely become one of my garden family, just tucking themselves in here and there. Not a chance, little outlaws. I am coming for you!

All the potted flowers and veggies are moaning a bit under the distress of timed waterings instead of being coddled and cooed over daily. The tomatoes, my garden’s royalty, are fruit-full, yet sort of droopy and whining laments. A little extra attention twice daily should have them perked up soon enough.

flower

4.

Family reunion. 38 of us gathered in mid-America, or was it 39? The mamala and papasan, their children (we original 5 + spouses), most of our children’s children and some of theirs (the greats).

koob game

Come and gather around at the table
In the spirit of family and friends
And we’ll all join hands and remember this moment
‘Til the season comes ’round again

sadie

My great-niece-dog, Sadie

Family is so important to me. My family-of-origin is scattered across the nation. We’ve never all been living close together, not since the late 70s, before families of our own, careers and ministries…but the testament of our connection shows up semi-regularly.

Our very first Ross & Norma reunion was in 1995. My parents were celebrating their 38th anniversary that year (Dave and I, our 14th). In a few days, my parents will mark their 58th anniversary and my daughter Stephanie and her husband, Tristan, will be celebrating their 14th anniversary. Wha…?

Did that really just happen? Life, it speeds. No bumps can slow it down. You may quote me on that.

koob girl team

Let’s all try to smile for the picture
And we’ll hold it as long as we can
May it carry us through
Should we ever get lonely
‘Til the season comes ’round again

the mom

5.

etsyprint

{purchase this print here}

Indiana was filled with lightning bugs. And the cicada’s song, rock stars all, I tell you. And swooping bats (perhaps driven crazy by the loud singing?).

6.

The weather report:: The daily sun is hot in the bluest skies, but fading to gentle evenings, perfect temps and fire-y skies. Brilliant sunsets dazzle me. And remind me how quickly the days pass, making me a bit melancholy, too.

my mamala

My mamala

But sunrises fill me with hope, every morning. There is an undeniable mercy in the gift of a new day. The early mornings have become downright cool now, requiring sleeves. The relentless sizzle of mid-summer when I left in late July is transitioning to something new, a season shift. It’s good, but it came so quickly. I am always tentative about change and concerning summer? I “never can say goodbye.”

7.

Summer songs. There is something about songs that remind you of summer, the ones you sang in younger days with the windows down after a DQ ice cream cone or a Dr. Pepper and McDonald’s fries.

pinterest image summer song

{source}

“Summer Breeze,” Margaritaville” (a Moslander-reunion fav even though the bunch of us are tee-totalers); “Summer Loving” from “Grease,” “Indian Reservation” and “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.” “Close to You” by the Carpenters! “Annie’s Song,” by the incredible Mr. John Denver and “Kung Foo Fighting,” because I had brothers. A weird mix, to be sure, but some of these just showed up during the summers of our youth and never leave our hearts. It is always about the song to me. Always.

Hope your summer is sweet.

As the blog header says, “Summer should get a speeding ticket.” It’s like getting bangs. You can work for-ever trying to grow long hair, but the minute you get bangs, they just grow right on out in like, a week!

Summer is like the bangs of a hairdo. We wait for a looooong time for it to arrive and then, BAM! Over.

So enjoy it all you can!

What’s been your bets part? Tell!

Thought-Collage Thursday // Through the Open Window

An open window is a two-way relationship.

open window

Saw it on Pinterest. {Source}

I am quite aware of the sounds that find their way in to my house through my open doors and windows. In fact, truth be told, I can get a little annoyed that I am not living on a remote piece of land, unbothered by auditory clutter. But I just sometimes forget that some of me drifts out, too, to passersby.

“If your neighbor has wind chimes, you have wind chimes.” On my cousin’s FB timeline

These perfect, wide-open-window days and nights I hear things like:

The whistler. He lives across and down, a retired man, a gardener. His yard might be considered over-planted and a little too fussy with its’ stone deer and owls and whirligigs, but he provides us all with a dazzlingly array of flowers in shocking oranges and hot pinks only broken up by the perfectly coiffed green grass.  His yard is tiny compared to ours, but he walks it, he tends it, he improves it and enjoys it. And he whistles, non-stop. He whistles from sun up to sun down. You are never unaware of his time outdoors, because. Whistling.

The doggies. I guess because I don’t have one now, I am more aware of the neighbor’s dogs. One comes outside and announces his presence. Down a few houses, another answers that he, too, is outside. Across the way a couple of pups excitedly get in on the conversation. Soon, from many directions, the dogs, in almost a chorus, yelp and bark and woof away for just a little while, catching up on the events of the day. Then, just as quickly as it started, it dies down. But they’ll gab over fences again soon, several times a day, without fail.

The birds are just delightful. I have a yard the birds love. At first light this morning, I pulled the curtains open to watch some blackbirds and robins searching for seeds in the cool morning grass. Some walk, some hop (**boing-boing-boing**).

A couple of stealthy squirrels were ambling down the neighbor’s roof-line, trying to wage a secret attack and eat whatever the birds had found first, but when they tried to shimmy down branches on a very young, supple tree, they fell 3 feet to the ground, ker-plunk! They were found out. The birds chirped some “I-don’t-think-so’s” their direction and went back to their search. Said squirrels scampered away.

I see the bunny, “Peter-Cottontale,” I call him. He first appeared the evening Sandy died, mourning with us. He munches on grass and co-exists with us. Every evening, as the sun is setting, I know he’ll be right there, just outside my window saying, “Yes, I miss Sandy, too.”

Through the open window, I hear the early birdsong and the all-day bird chatter. I hear a fly try to get through the screen, buzzzz-smack. Foiled. I hear the car horns toot, girls driving by a popular boy’s house across the street. Sirens in the offing. Conversations between neighbors are carried on the breeze. Children are playing on the sidewalks, lots of laughter, an occasional crying bout. Every morning a young dad and his two girls bicycle past, always talking excitedly, having genuine conversations. Then they come back on their way home, planning their day, enjoying each other. The mailman, heavy-footed stomping up, then down the stairs, talks loudly on his cellphone on my front porch. And passing cars with their windows rolled down “share” their music.

And what drifts out? I hope goodwill. I hope they aren’t annoyed that I sing all. the. time. I hope if they hear the song, they start singing, too. And I hope they don’t think badly of me for setting off the fire alarm several days in a row.  I do hope they enjoy the wonderful smells coming from my kitchen. An open window is a two-way relationship. It’s good to remember this.

breeze open window

Is it sacrilegious to question this?

You know how everyone always says, “When God closes a door He opens a window?” It’s usually to try to placate us when something hasn’t worked out like we thought it would or when times are hard. But I’m not a fan of it. I think God knows I have a bad knee and climbing through a window would be risky. Plus, He doesn’t seem to be the type running around closing doors and locking them on people. He said Come, knock, the door will be opened to you. Not Ha-gotcha! Go find a little window to jump through! I mean, I might do that. But not God. Pretty sure.

I’ll just try the back door, thank-you very much. Or maybe just remember to knock and wait for Him to open it.

I did climb through a window once, though.

I did. I climbed out a window to go see a boy. I was 16 and *gloriously stupid.* I told my sister to leave the window cracked. I’d know my parents had discovered my absence if it was closed when I returned and I’d have to come in the front door and it wouldn’t be pretty. So, I went. I saw him and it was uneventful and certainly not worth the risk.

I came back and the window was closed tight. Closed! Dread, panic, doom, gloom…I felt nauseated, a rush of blood to my head, the tingle of hyperventilating stinging my face in chaotic patterns (having just run a mile home in the dark; see “*gloriously stupid*” above), scared-stiff! I pondered my options. Heart pounding, I tapped very lightly on the window, once, then twice, again…finally, my little sister got up, groggily, and opened the window. “Do mom and dad know I left?” I asked anxiously.

“No,” she whispered, “I just got cold.”

O-m-gee!!! I couldn’t be mad because she was keeping my secret, but geez! Even now, at fifty-something, I hope my dad doesn’t see this blog post!

A scripture about an open window, but not the one you’re thinking:

“We met on Sunday to worship and celebrate the Master’s Supper. Paul addressed the congregation. Our plan was to leave first thing in the morning, but Paul talked on, way past midnight. We were meeting in a well-lighted upper room. A young man named Eutychus was sitting in an open window. As Paul went on and on, Eutychus fell sound asleep and toppled out the third-story window. When they picked him up, he was dead.” – Acts 20.7-9

I know you were expecting the tithing scripture from Malachi 3 about not robbing God and then He will open the windows of heaven. But I thought this story from Acts was fun and different. Ends well, btw. Go. Read!

Open your windows! I suggest:

Let in the sweet spring air and the bright, lingering light. Hear the neighbor’s mowers and dogs and children. Speak a blessing out those same windows, let what drifts through your windows out to the world be good and godly, life-giving and love-filled. Think of the possibilities!

open window chalk

{source}

Thought Collage Thursday // Therapeutic Things

eleanor brownn quote

That’s my mom in the picture, enjoying her back yard! :)

Oh, it’s that time again!

That’s right, friends and familia, far and wide. This Thursday’s child is wild about Thursdays and my brain is inevitably running-over with an assorted array of somewhat disconnected thoughts and observations. Although I must tell you, I love finding the common theme after I have blurted it all out. That is always when the finished title emerges. Today? Therapeutic things, because you can and should attend to yourself, spirit, soul and body. Stay strong and healthy – it will bless everyone you love!

Enjoy spring.

I mean – can anyone really comprehend what it is like to have to live in a state that is so sunny-bright on these 70-some degree days in the spring with almost-zero humidity? Must I bear this cross alone? …Just kidding around with you, and maybe gloating a little.

The rainy days just past were purely lovely (more to come, I hear). They did what only spring rains can do. But the warm sun that follows, releasing the lilac’s deepest perfume – well, ’tis a glimpse of heaven, I am certain.

common lilac

NOTE:: If you do not own a lilac bush, go (immediately) make friends with some one who does and ask them if you might just stuff your face into the fully-florrid blooms in the heat of one of these spring-afternoons for just a few minutes. Therapeutic!

I wish I could dance.

I can’t. I can. not. Really. Everybody tells me it is possible, that even I could learn, but it isn’t. I was raised that dancing was a sin. My parents became Christ-followers through a “holiness” group that put the kibosh on most anything fun as being a “worldly amusement.” They pretty much lived by the mindset I am in the world, but I will not be amused by it.

Now my mom did say, many times as I was growing up, “Well, they tell me dancing is a sin. but if it weren’t, I’d get you ballet and tap lessons.” Haha. The obvious dilemma being that there was no differentiation, in the holiness standard, between dancing for joy, for art, for the beauty of movement and that shady stuff happening at dimly-lit parties with men putting their arms around other men’s wives after a few martinis, lusting and smoking cigarettes. No, just to be careful – rule out ALL dancing.

Never mind that the Psalmist, a man after God’s own heart, danced in the Bible! He also took his clothes off to do it. So that story never got told with flannel graph in Sunday School!

Somewhere along the way my parents figured out that dancing, that joyous release and movement celebrating being alive, and even the slow dance between married lovers, isn’t a chute straight to hell. They dance now! I even have video and photos of it, which makes me happy!

But it’s too late for me.

My feet are nailed by the heavy stakes of holiness-past to the ground. I’ve got rhythm. I just can’t seem to use it. I dream of it, though. I have dreams where I can run and twirl and leap and dance and practically fly. So, I can’t dance for now, but in heaven, I’m thinking I’ll be able to and wow, loving the thought!

HOWEVER – if you CAN dance, you should. You MUST! Therapeutic and free!

This really works.

Want to feel accomplished? Want your mind to be cleared and your life ordered in a way that makes sense? Grab your garden gloves (buy a pair at the dollar store), and a grocery bag. Head out to your garden squares or borders, the places where last week’s rains made the weeds feel all haughty and strong. Set your phone timer for 5 minutes. Grab hold of the obvious weeds at the base, the ones emerging in your borders and along fence lines. Pull. Tap lightly to return the soil to which they were clinging to its’ rightful place and fill your bag. In 5 sweat-free minutes, you’ll have stuffed that bag with unwanted, noxious weeds and given yourself a gift to enjoy later.

You can do this in the morning when you first arise, the cool of the day (God is always hanging around gardens, I have found). You can do it when you’re on the phone, or while the coffee brews. It works when you’re heading out or just getting back home, a 5-minute weed-pull here, another 5 minutes there.

dragonfly

Today it’s a chore, sure. But next week,  when you look at that small area, the ones where the weeds threatened to overtake your yard and garden (or where the grass hopped happily in to your garden beds), you’ll smile and reap the rewards of the time you tended your space. 5 minutes a day or a few 5-minute grocery-bag stuffings throughout the week: you’ll stretch and move and breathe and tend and have accomplished big things in short spurts. Good for the brain and body, satisfying for the soul.

“The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it.” Genesis 2.15

WARNING: Unused winter muscles will feel it and hurt, but in a good way!

Why you should sing.

Singing is amazing. This articles says singing (1) boosts cardiovascular health, (2) stimulates the brain, (3) reduces stress, (4) naturally heals and (5) builds confidence. But it’s also just fun.

You also need no special equipment to do it. And if you want to sing and be courageous, too, join a karaoke site. There are thousands of songs you can sing with just your smart phone and ear buds and it’ll be simply for your fun and enjoyment. And while I suspect it may have been considered “worldly amusement” by some for all of the “secular” songs there, I think it’s fun for the heart and soul. And they even have worship songs and church music if that’ll make it better for you. ;)

life is a song

{source}

You have to be brave and silly to sing on a karaoke site, but I’m doing it and it’s making me breathe deeper, which I need. I just posted “Harper Valley PTA” on a karaoke site this week and it made me laugh so much at myself. I loved that song as a kid, even though, as you might imagine, people who don’t dance also don’t like these types of drinking-adultry-miniskirt-type songs. :) But I did it. I just sang it anyway.

Len Sweet’s Bible Credo.

reading your bible

This poetic post about the Word of God, the scriptures, our Bibles – just made me want to go grab mine right away and get started on digging out the treasures, trying to comprehend the mysteries and just knowing the author of Love better, all over again.  Too much of my life has been spent shooting {or dodging} “scriptural truth bullets,” reading to try to figure out the “rules” or staying on the doggone one-year reading schedule** to earn divine points (true confessions). Sometimes this magnificent treasure has felt burdensome or life-killing. I do not want to pass that on to my grandbebes. I want them to experience the Logos and the Word made Flesh the way Len Sweet has so poetically  shared here.

“I believe you can’t go through the Scriptures without the Scriptures going through you… changing the drumbeat of your life as you dance to a new rhythm….I believe reading the Bible is not a disciple’s homework but a disciple’s holy play.”  ~Leonard Sweet

Did he say something about dancing??? :)

Read it. You’ll find yourself looking for the first available free moment to crack it open, to devour its pages and receive the words of life again! And again!

**PS I am not against reading plans…I have just botched them so badly I end up hurrying through and miss the whole {beautiful, “holy play” } point!

Call your mom.

Seriously. If your mom lives nearby, VISIT her. If she is far away, plan your next trip and call regularly. NO ONE has loved you longer! Except the Creator. But He chose her for you!

My mamala:

mamala collage

Let’s throw a parade!

As kids, parades were so easy, nothing but excitement, sound, color, horses (and shovels), Shriners in costume jewelry and little cars doing circles and patterns, with princesses on floats and marching bands. When you’re a kid, you don’t have to worry about where you’ll park and how you’ll fight the crowds or worry about who will clean up the paper mess afterwards.

But I liked this (from Pinterest, via Etsy):

kindness confetti

Let’s throw a parade! Let the kindness fly and the fun begin. First in our homes, with the people we love the most and then every where we go each day (school, work, stores, church) and give everybody the best parking spot and the curb-front seats to just being nice, in word and deed. We can make everyday a celebration-worthy holiday for some one, I am convinced!

I promise you, you’ll have the chance TODAY to be kind, or not. The confetti is in your hands! {No clean-up…now that IS therapeutic!}

Happy and Blessed Thursday, friends and family.

Take care of yourself and “Hey!” as they used to say on Hill Street Blues (which coincidentally aired on NBC’s Must-see-TV Thursday night line-up, “Let’s be careful out there!”

Turn around and you’re 2…

“Where are you going, my little one, little one,
Where are you going, my baby, my own?
Turn around and you’re two,
Turn around and you’re four,
Turn around and you’re a [grown boy] going out of my door.” -Harry Belafonte, 1957

The grand-boys

Only four of my 10 grandbebes are of the male persuasion. Hunter, who is 10, is keeping score and wants everybody to work diligently on even-ing the tally a bit.

the four grand-boys

Gavin is 12, holding Oliver who was about 4 weeks here. Hunter is 10 and Kai, 2, did not want to be in a picture!

Kai is 2 – this is mostly about him…

Kai on a walk

Malachai spent the night last week when his parents were doing a concert in the Springs. He is two, in all its’ glory. He has shot up like a spring weed ready to take over the world. He has opinions and understands every single thing I say, even if I cannot quite return the favor. If a request I have made vexes him, he need only cover his eyes with his hands and slump his shoulders for Nonna to take it back {{No, no, it’s ok – you don’t have to put the toys away, Kai-Kai}}. If he’d like one more piece of candy (after too many, already), tilting his head a bit while drawing me into the liquid blue pool of his gorgeous eyes and jabbering away (saying something quite funny, which I know because he then laughs uproariously) is all it takes. Ok, one more…

Alright, I must interject here: he is soooooooo smart! Malakai randomly pointed to the Excel icon on my Mac a few weeks ago and said, “Oh, Nonna – X!” I was like, “Kai-how did you know that???” Whereupon, he jabbered a long paragraph of explanation in his own Pentecostal-toddler language before clearly and assuredly saying, “I know that!”

Then the other night Dave was wearing a Broncos shirt and the font was kind of scrolly-semi-cursive. Kai said, “Oh, Poppa: B-O-O,” pointing to the letters that were obvious. Can you believe that? He is TWO…and pretty much extraordinary! IMHO.  ;)

Kai and his toys

Life is a vapor, people. James 4* was not kidding!

It is here and then, like a breeze just lifting a dry leaf and blowing it across the lines on the front walk, time is blown quietly way on down the road, section by section and everything has changed. And you wonder – how did we get here, already? You don’t notice it much day by day. But my little leaves, my darling grandbebes, are swirling and growing and each time I turn around, my breath catches and I wish, with eyes closed tight and fists clenched, I wish I could just stop time for a little while. Oh to love more, hug my bebes, kiss-kiss sweet cheeks and just soak in everything each one is right now, today.

But time marches on and there is nothing to stop it.

Gav & Hunter devices

Gavin will be twelve soon. He was only 3 when I started writing here on the blog. So it is here I have wept and laughed and tried to put words to the depth of my love, the increased capacity to feel and rejoice that grandchildren have brought me.

“Being a mom was the most wonderful thing.  Being a Nonna, I am completely undone.” ~From a post I did about Gavin, Hunter and Guini in 2007 SEE MORE HERE

And every now and again Kai says or does something and I remember Gavin or Hunter doing the exact same and it nearly knocks the wind from me to realize how fast that happened.

Gavin was building wooden block towers with Poppa just so very recently, wasn’t he? He was two, like, minutes ago…But now he texts me and we play games with our iPhones (he teaches me little tricks and secrets for using it). He seeks me out in crowds to give me very warm hugs and never leaves without kissing me good-bye, so thoughtful and grown-up. He was 2. Then a *snap of the fingers…Now he is almost 12.

Kai is 2 and I dare not look away, because he is also, I know now from experience, almost 10, nearly 12.

Gav & Hunter

Where are you going my little one, little one…

Kai woke up at exactly 5:55 a.m. the morning he was here. Even though his mommy told me that when he does that you can tell him he has to wait until the sun is up high in the sky to get up, I didn’t want him to feel unheard or uncared for being in a different place. I went to him and picked him up with such great affection I thought my heart would burst. “I’m here, Malakai, Nonna is here.” Dragging his blankie along he reached for me, then wrapped himself around me securely. In the quiet I hesitated, memorizing this fleeting moment, this tiny sliver of space and time in which you know that you know you are fully loved and fulfilling your purpose exactly perfectly. He relaxed, then, and he felt the  features of my face with his little hand in the early morning dark, “Nonna?” he asked, just to make sure.

Oh yes, I am, I thought. I’m your Nonna, baby boy. Let me hold you, let me carry you while I can. Let me love you and cheer you on and keep you safe and drink you in.

I brought him to our bed and placed him between us, his Poppa and me. He wanted to chat, but I whispered that we needed to wait until the sun was high in the sky. “High and ‘lellow’?” he asked. For “lellow” is his favorite color. It’s the color of his ultra-blond hair and his favorite cars and school busses and everything he loves the most. It’s the color of sunshine and it’s warm and happy and all the things Kai is to us.

Yes, bebe. Wait until the sun is high in the sky and bright lellow…

So he closed his eyes, he settled into plump pillows, his little feet resting against my leg. And as if my wish for making time stand still came true, a wave of deja-vu came over me: Gavin at not much older, in this same bed, he and I watching a Christmas movie. I kept drifting off and would be awakened with his little hand on my face, whispering, “Don’t go to sleep, Nonna – watch with me.” Then he would hold my face and look into my eyes making sure I stayed awake with him. I did.

And wasn’t  it just yesterday little Hunter would spend the night and when I’d think he had gone to sleep finally, on a special bed right beside mine, I’d wake up to find him, head propped on his hands, leaning on his elbows, practically nose to nose with me – just watching me. When he saw my eyes were open, he’d ask, “Are you awake, Nonna?” He just wanted to chat, middle of the night or not.

The memories felt thick and real.

For a second I couldn’t tell what year it was, suspended in timelessness and love.

I opened my eyes to check. And there was Kai, looking right at me in the slowly increasing light. He whispered something about us waiting for the sun to get high and lellow. He was holding his blue blankie and his little ‘lellow’ motorcycle {aka Vroom-Vroom}. He took the tiniest corner of the blankie into his mouth. It’s his comfort, the way he deals with things. You’ll see him just barely, very gently bite the very corner. It’s his alone, his thing.

We looked at each other in silence for a little bit, me, mesmerized by his baby blues, him, just barely touching his teeth to soft blue fabric.

Then he offered it to me – the corner of his blankie. He extended it my direction. “Bite? Want a bite, Nonna?”

He was giving me all of his earthly treasure, sharing the deepest love he could possibly share. Even recalling it now, *melting…

Kai and his umbrella

He is two. But he is already almost grown, too,  and the man God created him to be (so quickly). And I am not only undone, I am blown away at the power of the beautiful love of God through him.

Oliver is 7 weeks and 2 days old. Soon, so very soon,  he’ll be two, too.

See his newborn pics by Stephanie HERE.

oliver-small-size

Photo by Stephanie www.maydae.com

Thanking God for my grand-boys, His little men, today!

*James 4.13-14