I Love My Kids, I Do....

There are times in your life, well, maybe just in mine, where you realize that you might have been on the verge of insanity. I was never a "wild" child...I didn't experiment in the 60s and 70s. Caveat: there were those rollicking nights that I pretended to be smoking pot with my girlfriends in the dorm at our very-conservative Christian college...we'd act real stupid, play loud music, roll tea leaves up in the rice paper I had for art class, and blow smoke while we walked around in our underwear. Scandalous.

My actual insane moments were more bizarre than that and certainly more hazardous. Here's one example...

It might have all started with the fact that we were living in a small camper with four kids, building our home with literally our own hands. I refer to this season of life often, because I'm still counting on the street cred and it might have left part of my brain slightly warped...so it has affected everything since.  

We had moved the camper onto our land (after living in a campground for a few months) when we got the call that Ken's beloved maternal grandparents, Pop and Babe, were in crisis, living in Lincolnton, Georgia. She had advanced Alzheimer's disease  and Pop was declining. He had been taken to the hospital with a stress-induced heart attack. Although we regularly made the drive to their home and helped with maintenance and checked on them, he always bluffed his way through how difficult things had actually become. Over the years, as she became increasingly difficult, we did not realize the day-to-day problems. She would greet us happily, with her hands thrown wide to hug everyone. Pop often told us how bad things were, but when we visited, she was so light and bright, we thought he was surely exaggerating. He would call, frustrated and helpless, but then when we arrived and things seemed fine, he would reverse his ideas about moving them into a better situation. Until his own body said "enough." 

Ken was saddled with his job, so I drove there with our four children to relieve Babe's sister in her care. What met us was nothing I had ever imagined. Until you have experienced a real person, in real time and in real care with this terrible disease, it is impossible to know how horrible it can be. Not everyone who has dementia will be as difficult as Babe was, but she took the proverbial cake.

I experienced the hell that was Alzheimers for just two weeks in their tiny home (Pop had been taking care of her for years, without batting an eye. That is some kind of love). Babe never slept more than 15 to 20 minutes at a time, day or night, and became terribly scared and agitated as the evening encroached. It's called "Sundowners," if you want to look it up. In order for the children to sleep, I had them lock themselves into the extra bedroom at night. I tried every scenario imaginable to get her to settle down, but nothing worked. Her sister recommended I double the sleep medication, but it seemed to make it worse. Days were filled with her confusion and extreme anger, like a giant, frustrated toddler. Even the fussiest infant will at least sleep. Babe would punch and scold me, making me laugh. My Amazonian self looked like a giant next to her as her little fists bounced off my body. But it all broke my heart. I know that she, the one who was all things hospitable and good before the disease arrived, would have been mortified to see herself in this state.

There were many things that happened in those two weeks, but suffice it to say, I was operating on tiny sleep breaks, maybe a total of 2-3 hours a day. She was so delusional, sometimes she thought my boys were Ken and Kirk (her grandsons) and she would cry at night to be taken to her Mama. I was getting so sleep-deprived, I also began to wonder if maybe I was someone else -- maybe I was really an 89-year-old woman in a nursing home and these people were taking care of me. 

I and our children desperately needed to get back home. 

Our eldest, Jon, had already figured out how to make money while we were there... he was mowing grass for neighbors and padding his bank account, working very hard. He was born smarter than the rest of us and persuasive, and therein lies the rest of the story...

Babe's sister had agreed to come back and take care of her while we went home and figured out some arrangements for our folks. We were squashed into that camper with six people, no end in sight. It would take almost two years to finish our house, but there was no waiting around for their situation to fix itself. It was a dire mess. Meanwhile, with delusion and extreme sleep deprivation, I had to try to get us home...

We had a large Ford conversion van, fitted out with carpeted walls and swiveling Captain's chairs in the front. Ken liked to call it the "Pimpmobile." It was a dream come true for us, as our very large Viking children were beginning to grow into man-sized bodies even before adolescence. We left Babe with her sister, Rachael, and headed down I-20 East for the almost-3-hour trip ahead. 

Right out the gate, I struggled to stay awake. Back then, that section of I-20 was rural and very quiet, particularly on a weekday morning. Thirty minutes down the road, I pulled off to the side. I threatened bodily harm to any kid who unlocked or opened a door, or even made a peep while I took a little nap. Twenty minutes later, I woke refreshed and ready to drive. But another thirty minutes of driving found me weaving and drooling, not especially helpful. I managed a second nap and started over. Back then, we didn't have cellphones so we were on our own. 

Very shortly, I was again overcome with exhaustion. The highway was still barren. Quiet. Downright boring. Maybe that contributed to my inability to stay awake in my already-comatose state. Maybe it was the coolness of the day. Maybe it was my brain that had been irascibly tested and exhausted for two weeks by an insane asylum (apologies to all those who have managed to do this for weeks, months, years).  I announced to my children that I was going to stop again. That's when the Eldest of my progeny, the whip-smart Persuader of All Things Impossible, began to use his backwards logic on his poor mother's psyche...  

His brilliant idea was this: "Mom, I know what... how about you put the van on cruise control? Lean your chair back a little and go ahead and take your nap. I'll reach over and drive from my side. If cars start appearing or anything happens, I'll wake you up real quick." 

The only reasons that I am able to share this ridiculous story are: 

1) It's too insane not to.

2) My good friend, author-extraordinaire Grace, told me to.

3) All my children are grown and DFACS cannot take them away from me now.

Because, yes, it is true, Virginia. I let my 12-year-old son drive my van. From his side of the vehicle. While I napped in the driver's side of said jalopy. This actually worked very well, for a time and we somehow lived to tell the tale. I have no clue about how long I blissfully floated into Sleepy Town, but what woke me up was my son's head falling, asleep, into my lap.  

You can't make these things up. Just please don't tell my in-laws, or DFACS, for that matter. They might, and rightfully so, dissolve me of my ability to ever keep our grandkids without adult supervision. Or maybe at all, forever and ever. Amen.

A Heart Like A Truck

"Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty of hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." Phil. 4:11-13 ESV version   

We have seen both hunger and plenty. After 9/11 (not sure if it has anything to do with this, but it seemed like a very volatile time and was certainly a crumbly economy in reaction)... Ken lost his job of 22 years. Up til then, we had been blessed with dependable income and amazing benefits. It's amazing how you take such things for granted when you're young. We were not rich, had no savings and lived from paycheck to paycheck. Our only debt was our modest home, our plain and simple vehicles were bought with cash and much wrangling. Four active, always-hungry kids and a mortgage.  

Ken needed a vehicle with good gas mileage and my uncle's tiny brown truck came available.  Ken was so grateful and the price was right. I sometimes wondered how his massive shoulders were able to squeeze into that thing, but they did. It had no air conditioning, manual transmission and was as humble a truck God ever let anyone make. He drove the wheels off of it and kept it spit-shined and oiled-up. I remember the day that it perished...we were living in a camper on our land and had begun framing our house (ourselves, mind you) when he came rolling down the long driveway. I heard a couple of ka-pows! as the baby truck gave up the ghost. Black smoke was pouring from the exhaust and Ken was barely able to pull it to the side of the gravel. I was dying inside because a new car or truck was the last thing we needed to have to buy, seeing as we were limping along with building our house while stuffing four large children and ourselves into a camper each night. But that scene of the smoke billowing and the sounds emanating from the expired truck made something snap in me. I began to laugh, then howl, as he stepped out. I said, "Just roll it on over to the house and we'll use it as backfill!" Somewhere in there, I knew it was going to be okay but on paper it made no sense.

We've had a succession of transportation types since that day...  ancient trucks, vans, a well-worn station wagon, and several things that were rescued from the landfill. One particular season, when the downturn of 2008 like-to-have killed us, Ken had a company truck that broke down after the company went defunct and we were left with the payment and the burgeoning insurance. We were flat-broke, but fellows at church and some kind deacons worked to get it running just long enough for us to sell it. Meanwhile, my trusty Ford Explorer (that had 220,000 miles on it and ticking nicely) was wrecked by an uninsured driver. We limped for seven months, borrowing Daddy's truck, until the insurance finally paid out. Eventually, our dear elder, Bubba, gave Ken his son's old beater car...a Ford Fiesta...not the sedan, the really, extremely tiny version. Again, my husband had the heart of a saint -- humble, excited, thankful. If I thought that original mini-truck was small, this one had him folding himself into a puzzle before he could get into it. He eventually gave that little thing to a friend, when we were able to get something else. But he has that date marked on our yearly calender -- the day that Bubba gave him that car. Makes me weep every time it comes around.

Many years have gone by now. We were able to sell our dream home and get out of debt. The economy relaxed, the kids got married and started their own stories. I sold a home and secretly bought him an older red truck for his birthday (one that he didn't have to fold himself into). We put a big bow on it and had it sitting in the driveway. That one eventually had to be sold and he was able to buy another (older) red truck. This one was bigger and uglier and had a funky smell. I didn't like it, but he was his typical self -- thankful, loyal, steady. 

Then we started camping with our old but new-to-us camper. On our first mountain trip, his truck strained on the hills and finally broke down along the way. When we finally got home, Jon (our eldest son) and I started conspiring. Ken used to despise the idea of camping but had really, finally bought into it. I'd send Jon different trucks and he'd send me trucks on FB Marketplace. We took a secret trip to Alabama, foraging for a larger truck that we could afford. Ken knew nothing of these goings-on, but I realllllly wanted to bless him, after all his years of putting on his boots and steadily being the humble, grateful heart of our home. 

I saw a used, pretty, white Ford F250 on FB while we were headed home from Alabama. I didn't look closely, just forwarded it on to Jon. By morning, he had made his way to the dealership and called me: "Mom!!! This is it! It's a cream-puff, beautiful and so well-taken-care of." Jon knows cars (trucks too) and I trusted him implicitly and wired the funds. Jon invited Ken to their house; we drove there together as Jon pulled in behind us with the thing. I thought we were buying a truck. This was some sort of Man-Beast, with all the bells and whistles. Ken didn't know what hit him. He was confused about what that massive thing was doing behind us.

As the realization hit and the little boy part of him saw an old dream coming true, he was speechless with tears and hands on his face. Everywhere we go now, he has to say (as he is smiling like a Cheshire cat): "I didn't buy this truck! I wouldn't have bought a truck this fancy. My son and wife did this behind my back!" It hauls that old camper like a champ, and he keeps it spit-shined and oiled-up, just like all the others he has taken care of all these years, even if they were ready for the landfill. I really like that about him...

Golden Girls

There is nothing like being young. Your thyroid usually still works and all those ligaments and muscles are smooth and flexible. You are young and the world is before you. Enter the old ladies... 

I waited for a couple of years on a list, to take oil painting lessons from a lady. I had seen the results of her teaching on a friend's art and was astonished. Plus, my young niece blossomed under her tutelage. I knew how to paint, to draw, heck, I had my own decorative painting business for twenty years and had taught hundreds of children in art classes when the call came for a spot in HER class. I had never dabbled in oils, and my painterly side was suffering because I had become too busy with a couple zillion other things. I know myself... I do best with accountability. 

I decided to be my humblest self (pride, thou art the devil of me). I went into class, acting as if I knew nothing. I was determined to truly learn from this amazing woman. She stood about a foot shorter than me, a good bit older, eyes sparkling like diamonds. She is Nikki, the epitome of everything joyous and beautiful in the world. Smarter than the rest of us, talented, full of energy and opinions. She's tough, with the heart of an angel. The perfect kind of teacher. 

The studio was filled with women, most of them also older than me and sassier, to boot. They looked me up and down and said "well maybe you've inherited some of your niece's talent." I buttoned up and got to work. Nikki took me through the basics of drawing and then we quickly got to work with the oils. It was then that the truth of my pride rose up, ugly and mean, in my heart. These paints were nothing like the acrylics that I had applied on walls in houses and businesses over the metro Atlanta area. They didn't behave. They didn't dry! Nikki kept telling me to blend, when all I wanted to do was tack on another layer. The colors mixed differently, were difficult to wash off, and they got everywhere. I almost gave up. I have plenty of other things to do that I'm good at and this is an expensive hobby...

I decided that I must continue to plod on. It does a body good to do the things that don't come easy to us. We atrophy, because we do less and less of the things that challenge our minds, our bodies. The comfy chair is the enemy of the aged. Not that I'm old. I refuse it. 

Time marched on. Months and months went by as I wrestled with the canvas, the paint, the humility. The ladies around me began to be kind, to care, to help. I found in them the most interesting of people -- intelligent, funny, flawed, richly deep. We have our Wednesday mornings together for about four hours. Sometimes we laugh, gripe, but always oooooh and aaaah over one another's paintings. There have been deaths of loved ones, surgeries, illnesses, children's foibles and the love of grandchildren shared as we ply our pigments. I'm always left with the lovely impression that age is actually beautiful,  not to be feared. Their laugh lines, crinkly hands and wry wit, learned from layers of real life, are simply golden. I've found patience, humility and the underneath parts of art from their precious selves. How lucky is that?   

The Broken Heart

We talk, muse, sing about the beautiful, the lovely pieces of the past, the transcendent. Sitting in church this morning, we heard sweet music, good and sound words, hopeful and true. But even as we ponder the higher, nobler things, we all know heartbreak.

The first love that breaks our soul into pieces, making the world the most unlovely place...the feeling that we will never, ever love again or that life is not worth living anymore. That feeling, right there in our youth, repeats itself all along the way... 

The death of a marriage.

The death of a child.

The disease that destroys a loved one.

The betrayal of a dear friend.

A job that disintegrates into thin air.

Money that takes wings into the night.

The child who jumps ship.

The daughter who lies and won't stop.

The body who loses its strength and cannot get it back.

The ravaging of time that refuses to slow down.

One in the pew experiences unbelievable loss, yet seems resilient. Another has had someone barely slight them, yet it reams out their soul. Some are sensitive, some are stalwart, and then there are those who seem strong but are dying inside with unbearable pain that we cannot see. We all come with our varying temperaments, unique in design and rife with both fatal flaws and promise.

But today, I viscerally felt the heartbreak of so many, the depths of pain that we all encounter somewhere along our way. We all suffer, somewhere, sometime, none spared but not all the same. Today, in my Sunday quiet musing, the hearts breaking and the twin sound of freedom were ringing in my mind. We are bowed down by our imperfections, our mistakes and sins, our resistance to what we ought to do, and the truth of limitations (whatever they might be). 

I am currently reading a book about the wrestling match that is unique to a creative person. This author is laying out the problem of resistance that even the non-creative soul encounters. We all fight gravity, in all its forms. The siren call of the temptation to laze, to wait, to put off, is in everyone. But this writer also talks a lot about freedom, of how to find it by overcoming resistance. His answers to that are nothing that I have found to be true. He believes that to be free, we must outstrip any connection to any form of God. He says that God or obeisance to a Creator makes us slaves and hinders our creativeness. He only sees darkly... for the truth is that the Creative One, who masterminded this exquisite universe, is the One who frees the imperfect ones with perfect love. 

Maybe you can't know that unless you've walked in it, been truly freed by it. The vacuum in the broken heart with an unfillable hole in it, is finally filled.

Look Around. It's Happening Right Now.

Last day of an extended, much-needed beach stay... I languished in the bed, dreading the end of it. Four-year-old grandson Knox wailed at breakfast "I don't want to leave!" I wailed inside. There are always those feelings, at least for me, when the "last" of anything happens. 

I remember the eve of my thirteenth birthday, being terribly distressed about growing up. I know, I know...most kids can't wait to grow up. I thought childhood was the most delightful of fairy gardens and I feared losing the wonder of it. Little did I know of the coming gift of my own children, who would bring the magic of discovery around every corner. Then came the grandchildren, like twinkles in the eye of God.

On the tail of adolescence came my senior year of high school. I could have graduated after fall quarter, but there was no way I'd miss basketball. Or track. Or all the lasts along the way. The last of  football, basketball, homecoming, prom, what-have-you. Senioritis is a bad problem for young people. It's a listless, strange season of life where you really don't know where you've been or where you are going. You're standing on the cusp of something. You're probably going to have some sort of fall but you should pray for God to help. And remember what your Mama tole ya... Some make it over, some don't. 

Thankfully that isn't generally your swan song, though tenth year class reunions might make you feel like it. 

So today, with all the lasts of this particular vacation, I tried to remember that tomorrow we will leave this pause, this brief siesta (though siesta never truly describes anything involving children).

 Life is literally like sand running through your hands. I looked at the face of my thirteen-year-old granddaughter and suddenly had the thought of her someday-wedding-day. I remember the first time I held her, like, yesterday. So those nuptials could be next week, the way things are trending. 

Tonight, the four oldest hugged and kissed us goodnight while their Mama tucked the baby into bed. These are precious days, days not to be taken for granted. There will come a time when they are impossibly busy, preoccupied with the hurry that overtakes us all. I see lots of young folks talking about intentionality, slowing down, being in the moment. Maybe that will become the new trend, and we will all figure out we better be present while we can. 

It's never good to wait until the "last" to savor what is in front of us. I have to work at not living in the past, because the past is easier, it's fuzzier, and it's often not exactly true. 

 Once again, to quote an old phrase... Carpe diem. Seize the day. 

Dolphins and Not A Few Sparrows

The sea, it calls me. Isn't that a line from a recent Disney movie? What a universal thought. It is easy to take for granted the majesty and wonder of all the magnificent glory that surrounds us. 

I remember the first time I saw the ocean. Our family drove our little VW bug down to Daytona, sometime in the mid-to-late 1960s.  We stayed in a campground, in a swampy tent. Air conditioning was rare and optional back then. When you grow up without it, you don't know that it matters. (Is this why we are fat? Is the air conditioning killing our metabolisms?) Us kids were too busy running around having grand adventures to worry about the heat. The adventures were generally just nature combined with imagination, no trinkets necessary (unless they were found objects along the paths). 

Trudging to the beach is always the hardest part of such a trip. Everyone is loaded down with gear - the scene opens before us, the salty, thick air full of possibilities. The slog of the sand has always been difficult, whether I was young or old. The blissful touch of the water seems so far away, until you're up in it. 

I recall stepping into the surf for the first time. I didn't anticipate not being able to stand up, as the sand sifted quickly out from under my feet. I fell face-forward, inhaling a mouth full of sand and briny sea. I attempted to stand, then was hit with another wave. This was misery. No one had told me the struggle. All I had heard was that the beach was glorious. 

Eventually, after many tries, I began to feel the rhythm of the water, anticipating the ebbs and swells. Instead of fighting, I began to receive it, to flow with it. Decades later, while snow or water skiing, I should have applied the same principles. Alas, I didn't. It was either that or the Slate clumsiness. 

In the water, however, I learned that I could be a ballerina or a dolphin. The possibilities were endless, though it definitely didn't start out that way.  I've had my face scrubbed onto the bottom of the ocean, been tumbled by endless waves that almost drowned me, and dragged out helplessly by evil undertows (one time accompanied by five little boys on a raft). I eventually loved the water so much, I  became a lifeguard and taught scads of children to swim. 

In a typical extended summer, we will make at least a couple of trips to the beach. Our children never had any vacation wishes except to go with our extended family to a old beat-up camp by the sea. The cottages were cheap. You had to bring your own linens and pots and pans, but it was like heaven to all of us. We'd swing on our front porch,  chatting and drinking coffee with every person who walked by. Sometimes we'd have 15 to 20 families there at the same time, renting the little places and making a party of it with family, church folk and other friends. We'd go for two weeks in May and often two weeks in September, for pennies on the dollar. The boys would stack up chairs by the pool and have contests of diving over them. How my children are alive is pretty much a mystery to anyone who knew them. 

This year, there's been no beaching. Everyone was so busy, we did not do our usual family trip. There's grandchildren, jobs, obligations, that have made it much more difficult. I also had a wrist surgery gone very wrong that made it impossible for me to get into any body of water. 

But here we are today and for the next eight days! One of my daughters-in-love along with their five children, overlooking the wondrous water. My wrist is healed; everyone is getting dressed as I write and I'm anticipating the crisp, salty surf and playing with them in the pool. 

Sometimes, life gets rough, and you've cried out to the Lord, and you've surrendered to what He has ordered. Count yourself lucky if you get to drive to the edge of the earth and dive in.  It reminds me that He is so much bigger than us, and yet, His eye is still on the sparrow and I know He watches me.

The Steady

Who doesn't love a good romance movie or book? Intrigue, tension, resolution and then there's the happily-ever-after. 

I am a voracious reader. I like to have 4-5 books going at the same time. Usually they're at my "stations," right by my various sets of reading glasses. Stations include: the recliner where I sit next to Ken, the big double-chair where I read my Bible in the morning, a spot beside my bed, a big armchair in our bedroom, and then, of course, the bathroom (that quiet cave that all Mamas learn early to appreciate). When they invented the Kindle apparatus, however, it changed the world forever. I can have hundreds of books all in one place at my fingertips. Why is it that "they" always seem to find ways to tell us that something, especially if it's newfangled, is bad for us? I saw a study recently that found that Kindles and phones and tablets actually inhibit learning -- that we absorb the information way better if we put our hands on the pages, and that it is better for our brains. I need all the help I can get in that department. That doesn't mean I'm giving up my Kindle, even if I might try harder to aim for physical books. What a treat it is to furtively read by the soft glow of a device while my husband is snoring right next to me. There's definitely something delightful about a good beach read, where the pages get rumply and sand finds its way into the spine. I think of many summers where I have lolled about with a good book on a blanket and gotten a tan while also being transported to far-flung places and adventures. Once our children were old enough to fend for themselves, the reading quadrupled. I hope they forgive me. 

Back to the romance category. Even though many people love them, I lean away. I've got more than I can handle at the house, and I don't need some fairy tale notion of love that has little to do with the sinner I live with (and the debauched one he lives with) -- but to each his own. The idea of romantic love is heady at times, like a roller coaster often, but the test of real love includes the steady, faithful walking over time. Through fire, water, trials, euphoria, delight and even boredom. I've been around the sun enough times to know that if you hang in there, you will get the experience of many different parts of your spouse and yourself, over the span of years and decades. Usually one of you is the nerd and one is the free spirit, but not always. The sandpaper of each others' personalities and foibles are the things that can make your teeth grind and the application of patience seem impossible. 

In these days, buzz words are everywhere: toxic, boundaries, narcissism, "my truth," and "I am enough." We're imperfect, struggling people, at least on the planet I'm living on. We need each other and have been helped all of our lives in myriad ways, even if we've existed in very difficult circumstances. What is romantic is when we find a way to love and forgive each other in the middle of being a mess, which we all actually are (if you could see inside our complicated, irregular selves).

I know only one way to do that, and I am the receiver of so much grace. There is a Fountain...