Eating Close to the Earth

There's a firehose on the news, social media and the bookshelves. It's all about the subject of health. I have an old-but-gold friend who has always said, "Just eat food that's close to how God made it." That's exactly what she has always done. Her house is full of fresh produce and fruit, no sugar or processed junk. I'd stop at the gas station and buy Little Debbies or a Chick-Fil-A Ice Dream (with chocolate syrup) on my way home from her house, because, well because I'm an addict. And sugar is delicious. I'd rather eat such things, sugary and chocolaty, than real food. It's an addiction, as bad as alcoholism. I have had bouts of victory interspersed with years of defeat. People always say, "You just need to be moderate. Eat in moderation!" To that I say you must not know me well, because I came from a long line of hedonists and we don't know what moderation means. For some of my people, that might mean smoking themselves to death or pickling their liver. But for me, one bite of sugary devilment, and I'm off to the races. I watched a sweet friend just last week eating an oatmeal cream pie. She ate half, then folded the plastic around it and said she'd eat that later. What planet is she from?! 

So for this body, I have to abstain from both sugar and bread, if I'm going to have health. Apparently, sugar is almost as bad for your liver as vodka (or at least my liver). Don't feel sorry for me. I've had more than my quota. I've been on the straight and narrow for seven weeks and I am already starting to feel better. Maintaining is key, and I'm placing helps all around, along with plenty of prayer.  

While we're on the subject of "natural eating," who knew that cats, in nature, kill and eat other animals? I thought that cat food only came in giant Walmart bags full of nasty kibble made of who-knows-what. I've had cats my whole life of all shapes and sizes. When our dear dog, Sadie, died this year, I thought adding a second cat would help fill that spot. Matilda, our old 17-year-old cat, loved dogs and humans but despised other cats. So it was not fun around here until she and the newby, Jillie the Jabberwocky, learned to at least tolerate one another. Sadly, Matilda died because of an accident caused by her deafness and blindness. I could not bear it (this is a theme) and got another Pixiebob to pair with Jillie. Enter Atticus, a cream-colored bobtailed lynx-point Pixiebob, shy and sweeter than honey. They fell in love pretty quickly and now I have these two zooming all over the house and sleeping together like a pair of fuzzy mittens. I tell Ken all the time that he should be happy, because even though he hates cats, they sure make his wife happy. 

Back to food... these kittens came to me on a raw diet. Raw. That means recently killed and not cooked. It's a whole day of work for me when I make a giant batch of it. I grind up pounds and pounds of chicken thighs, bones and all, and put organ meats, egg yolks, salmon oil and some supplements in it, then dish it out onto waxed paper in patties and freeze it in ziplock bags. When we put old Matilda on it, she was in heaven. Her terrible shedding ground to an almost-halt and the litter box doesn't smell like a sewer anymore. Who would believe that feeding them what God meant for them to eat would make everything better (except the one day every couple of months that I become a blood-covered butcher)? I'm rolling up my sleeves now, about to embark on said deed. 

My sugar cravings have calmed down, I'm starting to breathe a little better, the cats are salivating, the laundry is done, and Thanksgiving is coming soon. Putting up the tree this week, Lord willing, and thinking about what I'm thankful for. I was mobbed by a pile of grandkids last night at church and thought, wow, everybody told me this would be great. And it is.  

Sowing Love

Back when we were young, early to marriage, I heard a counselor say that it was prudent to deal with issues as they crop up, because those issues become seeds that grow and then sprout and bloom twenty, thirty, fourty years later. In other words, pull up the bad weeds as soon as they poke their heads up. That is easier said than done, but especially when you don't heed the sage advice and the roots grow deep and twisted over time. I am currently helping a divorced couple that we have known for decades to sell their home. They had a pile of kids, a beautiful house, a full life...but the early weeds were never pulled up. Now it's a mess and a tragedy in their "golden years." When the commotion of raising children begins to calm down and the thicket gets mown down, the bad roots show themselves. Can they navigate the rest of their lives, now that everything seems done for?  

I am in the empty nest myself. It was finally, fully manifested about six years ago. It didn't happen overnight...the three sons married 17, 14 and 14 years ago (yes, two of our sons married four weeks apart. FOUR!) All through our 43+ years, Ken has always made it a priority for us to date, so I was acquainted with the man, but nothing prepares you for the day that last one leaves and there's a lot of space between you and him. And the differences between us, the opposite-ness, the things that drew us towards one another back in the dewy days of youth, suddenly become irritating. There are wars of no small nature occurring: The Thermostat Wars, The War of The Minutia, The Battle of The Extrovert vs. The Introvert, The Crusades of Redistributing Housework, and The Who-Has-The-Most-Aches-and-Pains Skirmish. Trivialities can kill a marriage. If we let our world become too small, the lint in the bellybutton can ignite a roaring fire.

Giving thanks is one of the golden keys to staying married. I tell young women who ask me for advice that if they will do this one thing, it can start a transformation in their marriage: as you go about your day, find one thing to praise your husband for. Not a list, just one single, honest thing. It has to be truthful. Then tell him that evening. If I put that one item in my head early in my day, by the time Ken gets home, my attitude has bloomed to glowing. It is human nature to forget the things that put us together, to not remember the better parts of our partner. I keep a picture of my 24-year-old hottie husband taped to the computer on my desk. I remember him, with palpitations. But what matters more are the mountains and storms we have traversed over these years, the ways that we forgive each other along the way (because we are both excellent sinners), the places we have grown, and what we have to be thankful for. The wrinkles, the gray hairs, the chubby parts, the grumpy parts, the difficult years, these are not the things of Hallmark movies...but they are the marks of life ongoing. And love can walk through fire without blinking.  

The Grapes of Wrath and Other Tall Tales

If you're alive and have been around this planet for, say, the last few decades, you probably remember what happened to America during the years between 2008 and 2012. We were riding high. Real estate was booming, houses were being thrown up and selling for the highest prices in history. Every jackleg dude with a little gumption and a hammer was throwing his hat into the ring, making up a name for his LLC and signing away his house, boat and first-born child to the bank to get construction loans. Banks and lenders were writing checks left and right, qualifying practically anyone for mortgages well beyond what they could repay. There's a lot of technical reasons behind why this happened, of which I am (mostly) ignorant, but the basic problem was that many, if not most of us, were presuming upon the future. We assumed everything was going to keep going like it had been for a couple of decades. There were warning signs, but we did not heed them. 

I've been musing on the effects of what occurred during the Great Recession for many years because we were right in the middle of it. I have been intrigued with how marriages and the roles of men and women were affected. My perspective here is as a woman, and I don’t want to disrespect the men discussed here, but they get a hard rap. It was really rough on them. I am a wife to Ken (43 years now), mother to four grown children and four in-loves, Yaya to 14 grandchildren under the age of 13, an entrepreneur (Realtor and decorative painter), as well as daughter, sister, aunt, neighbor, pet owner, and not-so-model citizen (I've jumped ship on a few of the committees around here). Been around the block a time or two, with too many layers of life experience than I care to admit. For us, the decline started way before 2008. My husband had been working for AT&T/Lucent Technologies (under many different name changes) for twenty-two years when a random Tuesday in September 2001 changed all of us forever. The scales started to tip against Lucent and its subsidiaries those next months and Ken lost his job when they outsourced most of his facility to another country. His stock was reduced to a pittance and what was left was sold for pennies on the dollar. His retirement was gone too, so we got into our own recession several years earlier than the rest of the country. With our extensive experience in fixing up our homes, it was natural for Ken to morph over into construction. The financial tsunami that was coming would affect us and most of America. At the time, we had been homeschooling for many years, with multiple side cottage industries that augmented Ken's salary. Our schooling included our boys working in the construction trade with my brother at least one day a week and our daughter painting alongside me. As things began to unravel, however, Ken went through job after job. All our presumptions about the future went down the drain. The beautiful home we had built on five acres in the country began to become an impossibility to maintain. Our goals of becoming debt-free were engulfed with the strain of simply surviving. Then Ken got deathly ill with a strange liver abscess (with subsequent doctor bills and hospitalization) that swamped our proverbial boat. That was just the beginning. 

I have spoken to many different women over the years whose husbands lost their livelihood. Men who were very successful in their careers and callings. Men who got their legs cut out from under them unexpectedly, without warning. To recover from this was difficult. To recover after having it happen many times was untenable. What follows is a few of their stories that occurred during and after the Recession... the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

The Aggressive Man
Misty was a Realtor who was making bank when the mess hit. She was married to a successful builder. They worked together with her mother (who was a Realtor as well) like a well-oiled machine. Their advertising budget alone would have curled your hair. Money was rolling in and life was good. When the Recession hit like a bomb, her husband and their bank account were devastated. He sunk his despair into a bottle and before long, his frustration and anger welled up. He lashed out at everyone around him, winding up in jail for beating his beautiful wife. He lost his company, his good name, and his marriage. Misty recharged her batteries, reinvented her business, plugged through and figured out how to live on a shoe-string while working the "new" real estate system. She's successful, bitter and remarried to another man now.

The Hippy Man
Julie had a house full of kids, with a gorgeous home and life that were the envy of other people. They were a stunning couple with darling children. The kind of people that seemed to have never suffered a minute in their lives. He was another successful builder, handsome and charming. The fragile tightwire that they had built their business on simply broke one day. Within a few months, they had to move their whole family in with a relative as the cards flew. Years went by with no work. She was broken. He seemed to be oblivious, cheating on her several times as he took temporary work in other states. Somehow, they are still together. She has raised the children mostly on her own and they are quietly making their way. He's churning out the charm but I believe he's crumbled on the inside, trying to prove he's still all that.

The Fishin' Man
Anne and her husband were laid-back but resourceful. She didn't care if her house fell down, as long as she could cook. Her main forms of entertainment were canning, drying, cooking and inventing delicious new recipes. He worked in a large factory, with a great job and benefits, until it all went south in '08. They gave him over a hundred grand and said goodbye. He decided he was going to be an artist. After frittering away two years and the money, he was at the lake fishing every day and she was pulling her hair out. She muddled through, learning how to stretch a dollar with couponing, gardening and raising pigs. He eventually woke up and started working as a handyman and janitor. They recently sold off a piece of land and were able to eliminate their mortgage. They're going to make it, but it's been rough.

The Golf Man
Priscilla and her husband worked together in a successful business for many years. They were conservative and careful, paying off their home mortgage and raising their kids. When everything hit the fan, though, they lost the venture they were working on as well as other entities, numerous properties and their timeshares at resorts and in the mountains. Eventually their home was re-mortgaged in order to survive and they found themselves strapped. Thankfully, a generous relative needed their help and reciprocated with generosity. He was emotionally immobile for years, filling his time with the golf course and TV. Eventually he got part-time work; she mustered up all sorts of ways to make ends meet and they crawled through. Now his days are filled with time in the recliner, watching other people live, content to live small and unthinking. The earthquake leveled his world and he's too tired to build it back.

Bully Man
Irene was another enterprising woman who worked alongside her husband in the construction business -- building and selling. They had their dream home and years of work together when the bottom dropped out. Her husband lost all self-respect and began acting irrationally, drinking heavily and becoming more and more violent. On the night that she found herself with a gun pressed to her chest (by her husband), she decided enough was enough. Thankfully she lived to see another day, and she moved out and got a job at a hardware store. She won't divorce him but she won't live with him either. He comes by and helps her out occasionally. She was able to retire recently and is living a quiet life. 

What intrigues me about all of these scenarios is the unique reactions of men and women to this kind of strain. In my limited experience, men seem inclined to get their self-esteem and worth from their work. Their masculinity and their sign to the world is intimately connected to what they do for a living. When that worth is stamped on or crushed by multiple hits to their career, it is difficult to swim past it. It is as if their very core is destroyed. To rebuild it takes a supreme amount of effort. If a man can't get past his defeat, he tends to either lash out (thus the violence or drinking) or retreat to his recliner or hobbies that disconnect him from the world. Women, on the other hand, generally have a wider net of connectedness -- it could be many different arenas that stamp a woman's worth: career, children, talents, her spot in the community, even her husband. Whereas men might tend to see their trajectory as a one-way road, women tend to see theirs as a network, with many side roads. As I look around me at my middle-aged friends, empty nesters who are finally able to breathe a bit, the men seem ready to take their boots off and relax. The women, however, are looking around at all the possibilities still out there. Maybe it's because many of them have been raising children and those children are now grown. These are just tendencies that I see, mind you. There are no two people alike on the earth. As someone who has experienced first-hand the trials of the recession, I have had to reinvent myself several times. One of the difficulties for all of us who are resuscitating after the fall is not to become cynical or bitter. If your trust is placed in banks, money, the economy or even the scruples of humans, the hits can keep on coming when times are hard. As a Realtor, I see on a daily basis the results of lifetimes of mistrust in some of my clients. It can make life a very miserable place. 

So what is the answer? What is the other side of recovery? I have wrestled with these questions for years and there are no guarantees that we won't go through these kinds of trials again. Buildings fall, terrorists invade, markets crash, people are born and they die. Life goes on. The sun keeps coming up and going down. We are living in a day when the ideas that women and men might be different are challenged at every corner. The conviction that a wife should serve her husband or vice-versa has become old-fashioned, except when it comes to the husband serving the wife. I am more convinced now than ever, after going through these difficult times, that God intended the sexes to complement each other. Too simple an explanation perhaps, but the resiliency of a woman, combined with the strength of a man, is divinely and uniquely designed to work together. In my personal life, the biggest challenges to marriage were not in those first, fumbling, bumbling years. It wasn't in the decades of no sleep and profound tiredness with pregnancy, babies, toddlers and raising four children to adulthood. It wasn't even in the ages of finding creative ways to stretch a dollar and finding myself working on scaffolding or contorted in a corner with a paintbrush to make a buck. It was in that aftermath, where my husband and I had to cross over the stillness, the elephants in the room that had mysteriously grown up over the years. When he was thoroughly defeated but in denial. When I was angry but not telling. When life was moving on but we were still stuck back there somewhere. I stand back and think about our (and others') failure and triumphs. What went wrong and what went right. I don't think I know the answers to dealing with these scenarios like I'm sure I should. I recognize how poorly I handled our situation. It's easy when things have resolved and time has healed wounds to forget the hard parts. The tongue has in it the power of life and death, and it is often where our sin shows itself. I know that these are principles that contributed to getting us through:

1) Honesty. If a couple cannot carefully traverse the waters of honesty, they are doomed. The strain of either ditch: deceit or delusion, can kill any relationship. It is hard to ever trust again, after serious deceit. And if there is delusion, where one or the other party cannot be honest with their situation or relationship, it is difficult to get down to the realities of digging out from under hardship. We wrestled mostly with delusion: it's comforting to tread water underneath the surface, to act like there's no tomorrow and there are no sharks in the water. Too bad you'll drown under there too. Facing reality was and is something that my husband and I have to work at. He's stoic and I'm a fairy, so there. Reality has to be cracked open carefully and with a lot of love.

2) Foundations. We had layers of truth built into our heads from years of sound scripture, sermons, and counsel from good pastors, elders and parents. Even though people often depart from those wonderful gifts, God was merciful to steady our ship through those means. I grappled with trusting God. It's easy to trust Him when all is well. The truth of the matter occurs when the vultures are circling.

3) The grace of God. This phrase is flippantly plastered onto coffee mugs and Pinterest pages, but it is the reason we are still standing. When I don't trust Him, He still holds me. When the cracked places inside of us threaten to undo everything, we have found grace where it shouldn't have been. Grace is His unmerited favor, not something we muster up. We pray for it, hope for it, desperately need it. We've all experienced it, whether we realize it or not. God indeed loves for us to trust Him and to call on Him. I've seen Him answer from the pit of despair, over and over.

To quote somebody's Mama, "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." We laugh, but it's true. I am grateful for a good husband who, in his dark days and when I was always believing that now was a perfect time to panic, ardently loved me and was the wind under my wings. Whatever I have wanted to do, he has been my cheerleader. But at the end of it, and for our future trials that will surely come, I have found that honesty, coupled with much love, takes the day. We have many layers of God's Word laid down in our heads and hearts. Neglect it and we go astray, falling into one ditch or the other. Dwell in it and we find all the good paths, teaching us to love, forgive, tame our tongues, walk and think rightly. And lastly, the grace of God, which is beautifully summed up in the Chris Tomlin version of that old hymn, Amazing Grace: "The Lord has promised good to me. His word my hope secures. He will my shield and portion be, as long as life endures. My chains are gone, I've been set free. My God, my Savior has ransomed me. And like a flood His mercy reigns. Unending love, amazing grace."

Wake Up, Oh Sleeper!

I threw open the doors and windows this morning, a gentle breeze blowing the delicious air through the house. We want it to be Fall, but the Georgia summer is clinging to it like a baby to its Mama. For those new to us, know that it's not truly Fall until it's Winter. We rotate through four seasons until January or February, then it becomes a greige-y, blustery, miserable kaleidoscope of sleet, rain and occasional winter storm. The mercy is that winter is very short and then daffodils start poking out their heads. Of course, they get frozen somewhere in there and start over. I'm already looking forward to it. I need to calm down, enjoy this day and forget about the coming spectre of winter. There's Thanksgiving and Christmas somewhere in there, thank God. Live in the today, I keep telling myself. Except those Christmas gifts don't get bought all by themselves. 

Last week was a whirl of doctor appointments, wrasslin' with insurance providers over my wrecked car, practicing for our upcoming Fall concert (John Williams on steroids at the Carrollton Center for the Arts -- October 18!!), eating better and seeing lots of soccer games with grands. The weeks fly by, behaving more like the "days" back when we were younger. The consolation of mature age, for me, is the sweet faces of our grandchildren, full of life and promise, unjaded. 

Our daughter took a day out of her life to take me to downtown Atlanta for a test I had to have (which included sedation, so I had to be driven home). She has her Father's DNA when it comes to many things, particularly driving. If I haven't said it a hundred times, I simply have to say it just one more: they don't drive, they qualify. We were squeezed into her little Honda RV -- Liz, me, and her three babies. Little 9-month-old Zariah was hangry-hollering like a siren, when we got pulled over by the police. Liz said, "Don't say a word, Mama. I got this." I restrained myself, with great effort. The police lady took one look (and listen) and gave Liz a warning. She deposited me and proceeded to go to the park and the library while she waited. In the hospital, I found myself surrounded by several nurses and support people - angels, surely. The doctor was late getting there, so we had time to get acquainted, swapping stories and connections. By the time he arrived, we were in full, laughing, party mode. The anesthetician put a mask over my face, and before I knew what was what, I was waking up in a recovery room. I always try to stay awake in those situations but can't ever override the pull of the Sandman. The kind nurse who was attending me had already called Liz to let her know I was awake. He spoke to me about my life, my children, and the goodness of the Lord in his own world. I left that place feeling like I had been in a love cloud all morning. 

It took us over two hours to make it back home (what should have been a 45-minute drive), but that's Atlanta on a Friday afternoon. We collapsed like spent balloons, just about the same time that Papa got there. Then there was the blur of the rest of the weekend. Here it is Monday, and I intend to embrace the zephyr wafting through the house, our sweet, sweet, old Magnoliarose (Ken's name for her). That and a stiff cup of coffee...  

Bless the Great Weaver

 It was to be my next-to-last trek into Rome for a client buying a house there, doing a walkthrough a couple of days before the closing. We needed to make sure the junk left in the house had been cleared, and I was also helping them come up with color choices for the walls (my favorite job!) The car was loaded up with samples and paint fans. There's a spot on that trip, where the speed limit suddenly drops to 45 then 35...and there are danger signs all around, because you find yourself dead-ended into a big four-lane highway. Even though I've made that trip many, many times, I am never quite prepared for the sudden stop.

I was stopped, sitting behind two cars who were waiting for the traffic. There were also two cars behind me, when I heard a loud screeching of locked-down brakes. I looked quickly around, not sure where the sound was coming from, but thinking "Somebody's about to have a wreck." In my rearview I saw a big utility truck (with a large trailer attached) barreling down the hill. I heard several crashes, then knew I was next. I was rear-ended by two vehicles, one on the right panel and another who ran right up under my bumper. There was a car over in the grass, and two others behind me. There's nothing like the shock that hits you after an accident. My head was buzzing, neck already seizing up. I sat still, trying to relax and wait for the next things. It seemed only a couple of minutes and we were surrounded by firefighters, EMTs and policemen. I called my people, and within ten minutes our firefighter son and Ken were there to check on me. Ken insisted that I be assessed in the ambulance, where it took a battalion of people to fight the hill that the gurney and fluffy Yaya were placed on. How humiliating. I saw so much kindness and tenderness by those who cared for me. There is much good still left in the world. I decided to go home with our son (with Ken following) because it was a mere bit of whiplash and nothing serious. My daughter-in-love fed me soup while we sat on their front porch. The wind was blowing and I watched our grandkids playing and enjoyed the love of family and God while my brain settled and we went home. 

What struck me that day was the precise timing of all of it. I had redirected my steps earlier, where if I had not done that, I would have "avoided" this wreck. So then it seemed as if this was meant to  happen to me, if you believe like I do, that everything happens for a reason. For all I know, my redirection kept me from something much worse. Or, as it is, God is weaving much tapestry from what did happen. I have to know that the latter is true. That mysterious tapestry that goes beyond the things that I plan, the steps that I take, the places I go. It's a lot to think about.

As for today, I'm thankful. My car is shredded and the insurance is complicated. But I'm still here in one piece, the wind is still blowing and hope brings forth another day... 

Rearview Mirror

The first time I saw her, she was standing in the middle of her garden in the early weeks of a hot Georgia Fall, picking tomatoes. She had on a giant floppy hat, a full face of makeup, a long-sleeved double-knit pantsuit (that she made herself), replete with painted fingernails and kitten heels. She was my fiance's grandma, affectionately known as "Babe." When she saw us, she threw up her hands in glee and practically ran to the car. She welcomed me as if she'd known me all my life. I was shown around their huge, rambling farmhouse and grounds, then she and I settled in the kitchen to prepare lunch. The ceilings must have been 12-feet high, the walls made of ancient beadboard. I loved it and her immediately. I quickly learned that, in her eyes, Ken could do no wrong. I think that if Ken had up and murdered somebody, she'd have blamed the other person. She loved him to pieces and for that, I am grateful. 

Peggy Ann, her only child, tragically died of pneumonia at 24 when Ken was 2-1/2 years old and his brother was five months. Babe and Pop kept the boys for three years, until the boys' Dad remarried. In the many years following our engagement and marriage, Babe could not bring herself to speak of her. If the subject was broached, her eyes would well up and she would excuse herself. I can only imagine the pain behind those eyes. Her only, beloved child, lost so young. She did tell me that those two boys saved her life after the tragedy. It gave her something to live for and a purpose in the midst of the worst of days. 

Pop and Babe lived at the farm where he grew up, tending cattle and farming a huge garden. Much of their sustenance was home-grown. They knew how to do and fix most everything. By the time I came along, however, Babe thought that modern conveniences and the whole plethora of food shortcuts was manna from heaven. She particularly loved the ideas of canned biscuits, whipped topping and orange juice concentrate. We could make a recipe book out of the different ways she used canned biscuits. She made all sorts of goodies out of them: pigs in a blanket, fried pies, fried donuts, chicken and dumplings, for starters. One time, when I mentioned that we were planting a garden at our house, she said, "Don't do that! Just go to the farmer's market!" She didn't assign any merit to going back to the land. I guess she'd already done her time and was ready to be done with it. She also loved sugar, which happens to be my drug of choice. I've never seen anyone as sugar-obsessed as her.  She put it in and on everything. Her iced tea was more like syrup than a drink. She loved to bake and would make several different kinds of cakes, all on the same day. There was coconut cake, vanilla cake with chocolate icing, fruit cake, orange slice cake, chocolate cake, pound cake, and several others I can't remember. She would bake the cakes, and while they were cooling and before they were frosted, she'd pour boiled sugar syrup all over, and poke holes in them (to let the sugary goodness penetrate the whole cake). After everything was cool, she'd frost the cakes and then slice them. She'd fill up tupperware containers with various slices, sandwiched with waxed paper in between. These then went into the freezer. After any meal, maybe even breakfast, out would come a container filled with all the different kinds of cake. You'd eat until you were bursting, and then she'd start in with wondering why you stopped. She kept her house blazing hot, summer and winter (she must have had a refrigerator inside her spine, because she was always cold)...after her gut-busting meals we would all sit around the living room, fighting the urge to nap. But Babe was no napper. Her word box was eternally full, with strong opinions and suggestions and optimistic views of life. She was a sober-minded Christian, one who did good for others and helped when she could. Her and Pop both read their Bibles every day. They were the salt of the earth people, content with little and good stewards of all they surveyed.

I think the Alzheimers started years before any diagnosis. Pope knew, and sold the old farmhouse and moved into a little house right in town. She was naturally a bit OCD, with little variance in her routines or daily life. She was tidy and feminine, with the strength of a farm wife. Her house was minimally-decorated (she might have thought I was a little wacky with all my painting and rearranging) and clean. Food and meals were ordered and of very high importance. Her disciplines and methods were streamlined and simple, but over time, the grooves were laid down and the disease took over. She began to repeat herself incessantly. I was young and yet to understand it all. I sometimes thought she was purposely trying to irritate me. She would call me "Annette" (my husband's stepmother) over and over. Pop began to call and say that he was going to need help with her. We would make the 2-1/2 hour trek there with our four children and Ken and the boys would work on the yard while I did things in the house with Liz and Babe. She would be chipper and happy when we got there. We wondered at why this was hard for Pop, as she seemed pretty easy to deal with. We weren't seeing the daily of it, which was actually hellacious. 

Ken and I bought land and moved our four kids into a leaky old camper onto our land and proceeded to start the build on our house. This was no typical project. We were literally building the house ourselves from the foundation up to the rafters. It was right about when we got settled on the land, that we got a call. Pop had to go into the hospital with a stress heart attack. Taking care of her had finally called his bluff. I drove to Lincolnton with our four children, to watch over Babe. I had no idea what the next weeks would entail. She never slept more than 15-20 minutes at a time, wandering through their tiny house all night. I had the children lock themselves in their bedroom so they could sleep. When Ken's aunt relieved me for a week, I won't even tell the crazy story of our trip back home. Suffice it to say, I was so sleep-deprived that it's just the mercy of God that I-20 was mostly deserted that morning. 

The next five years were torturous, to say the least. We didn't have any choice except to put them in a nursing home close by, as we were six people living in a camper at the time. Pop never walked again and only wanted to go home to Jesus. Two years later, he did just that. Babe lived another three years past him, living in that smoggy half-life zone that is Alzheimers. She was internally so fractured, violent, frazzled. The only peace she had was when scripture was read to her. She could be in a crazy fit, but if you pulled out a Bible and started reading, she would sit down quietly, close her eyes and move her lips to the words. The Spirit was there, even if her brain was not. 

I think of them often. They rescued my husband and his brother, instilling in them the meaning of unconditional love, the goodness of the Lord, and what it means to be constant and devoted. I am sometimes ashamed of my aggravation, of not understanding her disease, of my lack of faith in the face of such a difficult season. Death, disease, diminishment come to us all. The world and our fragile flesh are cracked and in need of redemption, especially when our strength ebbs. How grateful I am that they trusted in Someone higher than them.    

Laborin' in the Love

If you've already heard this story, please forgive me. It floats in my head like a melody and I can't help but repeat it every once in awhile. They say that if you are ever having marital trouble, you should go back to your beginnings, to the things that attracted and brought you together. We aren't having marital trouble, but I find that thinking of those early days is always a boost to our collective love story. Every Labor Day holiday brings it back around... 

In the summer of 1980, our Daddy moved us to a different church. He said that he wanted to go somewhere where his children would be able to meet their spouses (which all three of us did!). I had come close to marrying someone (definitely the wrong someone) while away at college, and came home bereft of emotions and resilience. I needed to stay home with the safe haven of my good people, to heal and remember who I was, that 10-year-old-self combined with new life lessons. I worked during the day, went to community college classes at night and hung out with my family. And went to church, where I saw Ken and knew that he was it. He was a whirling dervish, newly saved and full of life, handsome and strong, funny, charming, and always saying the wrong things because he had no filter. I was dating someone else at the time but told my Mama, "I think that that is the guy I'm supposed to marry." She said, "What about Jeff?!" He was swiftly dispatched, as I knew that if I could be that distracted by someone else, I had no business dating him. 

But we didn't date, except for about a month, where things were awkward. We were both still recovering from past serious relationships. It was decided we wouldn't, so then we commenced becoming the best of friends. He, his buddy Brian and I tooled around town. We went places, ate together, they picked me up for lunches from work, talked for hours and had just general fun. The girls who worked with me asked which one I was dating and I said, "Neither!" This was a precious gift to me, to help me believe in mankind again. They were like brothers, but I always had Ken in my heart. There was a raw but very masculine vulnerability in him that called to my empathetic nature. 

The guys were always teasing me and the sarcasm was thick. Brian started dating my sister, which put an odd twist on our socializing. Us four wound up together a lot. One evening, Brian and Ken dropped by my parents' house on the way to a mutual friend's home. Brian asked Melanie if she would go down the river with him (the Chattahoochee) on the upcoming Labor Day. She said yes, and Ken turned to me and asked if I wanted to go as well. I said sure (nothing out of the ordinary for our history). I didn't see this as a date. Ken, with his smart mouth said, "Well good.  I already asked everybody else and nobody could go. I knew you would go." They then left, with the steam rising in my ears. I gave it ten minutes, long enough for them to get to their friend's house, then called. "Hi Ricky, can I speak to Ken?" I proceeded to rip Ken a new one, stating that I was not one of the boys and was highly offended at his words, said I was NOT going, then hung up on him. Our family left right after, to go to a movie together. When we got home around midnight and Daddy was unlocking the door,  we heard the phone ringing. Daddy said, "That'll be Ken. Now it begins." I said, "huh?" Sure enough, Daddy handed me the phone and it was him. He said, "I've been trying to call you for hours. I am so sorry for how I spoke to you. Please forgive me! I don't know why I said that, because you're the most fun one and I didn't mean to hurt you. Please, please go with us down the river." I begrudgingly said okay and that I forgave him.

Labor Day was warm, beautiful and pleasant, but I was still grumpy about Ken. I barely spoke to him and just enjoyed the rafting. For whatever reason, for Ken, now it was on like Donkey Kong. He pursued me like there was no tomorrow and it didn't take much before we were engaged (like, a month). his poor Mama was flummoxed. We were already very close friends and it took just a spark to get a fire going. A short engagement (3-1/2 months), 4 kids, 14 grandkids and now 43-1/2 years later, God's goodness to us in the land of the living still astounds me. 

That is why I love Labor Day.