What's Next?

Where is the beach? I can imagine it, I can feel it, I remember the warm, soft breezes and the gorgeous sunsets there. Not sure if we are going this year, but I could sure use some right about now. We used to go a couple of times a year, when Laguna Beach Christian Cottages were dirt cheap and half the people we knew in the world also went. We had to bring our own linens and half the kitchen with us, as well as bring extra blankets and towels to cover the windows at night. Otherwise, you seemed like you were sleeping in the daylight. But it was worth it.  Our kids would run all over the place -- swimming, playing volleyball and basketball, running down the very-familiar path to the beach, hunting through the local "Beall's Outlet" for great deals. We'd save up all year for our night out at "Angelo's Steak Pit" and take pictures of the family with the big bull out front. 

Thinking of the water makes me think of my Daddy, the best Daddy that God ever made. He loved the beach and hanging out with his 21 grandkids. My Mama didn't care for all the heat and the sand, but she indulged him those trips. I'd saunter over to their cottage and drink coffee with him in the mornings. We'd find him in his big Panama Jack hat and Bermuda shorts, with socks and flip-flops to protect his feet. How I miss the very essence of him, this Father's Day. 

I remember that little girl, so loved by him. He thought I was the bomb.com and delighted in whatever I was up to, including our (later) four children and then grandchildren. He was always completely involved in their activities, be it sports or speeches or church choir performances. He retired early, not with great riches, but with better plans than clocking in every day. He fixed up campers and he and my Mama camped all the time, usually bringing a grandchild or two with them. They made the rounds to see all the family. He'd say, "I'm hungry to see some of them grandkids." And he was loved for it.

I know that getting old was hard for him. He was always a kid at heart, and when there were restrictions beginning to hinder his activities, he was not happy about it. The Lord was merciful to take him while he still had his boots on.  I'm glad he didn't die by inches, which is often the case. He mowed his grass, took a shower, ate a bite of popcorn and that was it. His last words to my Mama were "Thank you." His last words to me and my sister were two days before: "I'm so proud of you two." These were the usual things that came out of his mouth. 

The world has not been the same, for the eight years since he left it. But we dishonor our loved ones, if we let that keep us from living, from flying. They would be terribly grieved, if they saw us mired in our own grief. They want us to thrive, to prove out what they taught us, to carry the candle of their light to the next generations. Therefore, I cry today, missing him terribly, but then I dry my tears and look to those God has placed around me, to love them well, to tell them what they mean to me, to encourage them to fly and to soar. 

This is the circle of life.

Deep in the Valley

 Sometimes God makes the train stop, all at once. The world keeps going by, but you have no choice but to sit out the tornado. Be it a death, illness, natural disaster or your house burning down, much that seemed to matter before suddenly takes a back seat. Life gets boiled down to a crystallized, laser-focused bullseye on the Big Things. Could be simply surviving. Could be making amends. Could be the thought: "If I get through this, what will I do on the other side that will make a difference -- to me or others?" Then, if I do survive,  and things calm down and I get back to the "usual" -- did I remember what I said to myself? 

Life is short. Don't wait for a better time or circumstance to do the right thing.  

And one of the right things, for me, is to pause. I gotta learn this. I don't think I appear hyper, but my brain is, and I take on way more things than I have the real bandwidth to make happen sometimes, well, often. The major stuff will magically arrive, but if you look at the wake behind me, you can see a crashed house, neglected people, exhausted interior brains and emotions. 

My sister and I are now of a certain age. That age where I'm not going to say I'm old, because I'm not! Besides, I'm only 39, that's what Jack Benny (and my Daddy) said, right? Ken owns that "old" label but nope, he can have it. Melanie and I both recently had emergency hospital visits, after large and exhausting projects in our lives. Sitting there now, feeling quite sorry for myself, I told her we need to keep doing, keep moving, keep living -- but maybe we need to learn to pause, particularly after these seasons of expenditure that we inevitably take on (on purpose, mind you). To take a breath and ruminate a bit on what just conspired before we jump headlong into the next adventure. Otherwise, like the sound of the tree falling in the forest -- did it really happen?

I recently had an amazing week at a writer's conference where my dear friend Grace and I absorbed lectures, workshops and consults like sponges. That was three weeks ago and my brain is still feeling the fullness, yet I have not had the space or juice to sit down, read through my notes and books, chew on a plan that I feel the Lord gave me. And if I don't, if I just let that sit out in the ether, in a year it will still be there rusting in my brain, but losing traction. There's space. There's time. Then there's that juice. Apparently that comes in limited quantities.

Yesterday, when I had a weird infection crawling up my arm and didn't know if it was jungle fever or MRSA or a flesh-eating bacteria, I went all the way to the worst possible scenario. I mean, it was spreading fast and even with all manner of powerful intravenous antibiotics, nothing was changing. I was watching this happen in real time and it really was a perfect time to panic. The histrionics have probably given my people PTSD. If you think you're going to die, then you go all the way to the other side of the moon, grieving and thinking last thoughts. If somehow you make it around to the other side and then there's a possibility that you might indeed live to see another day, you wake up extremely grateful. Everything is wonderful after that, even the dry, mealy chicken and beans I got to eat for supper. A friend brought me organic blueberries, however, and I had to have insulin this morning for my debauchery (and I don't even take insulin). Lord have mercy. 

I still don't know what will happen to me. I might pull through, but there will be a day, sooner than I can imagine, that I won't make it past whatever stops this heart. Things seem better today, but I'm still in pain, seeing a hot, purpley-red arm, though it seems to have quit spreading. Either way, when I sat in the middle of yesterday, not sure of much, I was still sure of one thing. That in that valley, I was smack-dab in the middle of God's hand. I have not suffered much in my life, but I do know that He has been faithful to me all of my days. There's a song about that and I play it often, to remind myself. There are valleys, but He's in them with me. 

God, Protecting Fools and Children

Who can know the harms that we may have avoided along our daily paths? I often think of this, when I am late leaving for a trip and see a bad crash on the road where I might have been, if I had left on time. I have had countless narrow-misses in traffic, which could have been fatal or worse (there are worse things than dying, in my opinion). There are awful things that still happen, but I just have to wonder at how many angels have caused me to avoid even worse. These are things I ponder, but none as much as a day back in the mid-90s...

Our big, rambling house in Marietta was for sale. It was on a very busy road and we had three mangy boy creatures, all ages 10 and under, and a 5-year-old ballerina. They liked nothing more than exploring and getting into hazardous situations. Our boys had been retrieved and snatched from oncoming traffic more times than I want to remember. Liz usually stood on the side and watched the parade. We were aiming to buy land and move into a camper and build our own house, far off the road and full of other kinds of adventures for our children. Snakes, creeks, stray bullets...those kinds of things.  

We didn't ever list our homes with Realtors, no. Who needed a Realtor, when we could do it ourselves? The market was terribly slow, so when a man called that morning to see the house, I was willing to interrupt our school day (we were homeschooling) to accommodate him. He asked if he needed to bring a Realtor and I said no. Because he asked that question, I didn't feel anxious about showing to a stranger, though I thought it was an odd request. His appointment was slated for 1:00. 

We ate lunch and I sent the kids out to play while I finished cleaning up the kitchen. At about 12:45, I glimpsed a man, silent, brooding, angry, walking up behind me as I leaned over the dishwasher. He had come into the house, going through several rooms to get to the kitchen, without knocking or hailing me or making his presence known. He had walked probably 6-8 feet into the area without speaking before I noticed him. He was about four feet from me when my spidey-sense kicked in and I immediately wheeled around to face the man. His demeanor and spirit were pure evil. I broke out in goosebumps. My first inclination was to say something like, "I'm sorry, but something has come up and we have to leave." As I considered strategy, I feared that if I did that, he would attack me. Instead, I acted very bright and cheerful, said instant prayers to the Lord and tried to think about how to extricate myself and the children from this situation. I kept myself as far away as I could from him as we walked down the hall to see the living room. He kept furtively trying to get behind me, but I arranged myself so that I was facing him at all times. As we passed the laundry room, our gentle, quiet, "harmless" Golden Retriever, Gracie, suddenly growled, a deep and vicious snarl. She had never behaved like that, even when strangers came to the door. She jumped up and came to my side. I quickly tried to show him the house, all the while keeping myself facing him and trying not to trip over the dog, who was making circles around me as we made our way through. After a few minutes, a couple of the children also came into the house. My heart was pounding, as this man never looked at anything but me. He was not interested in the house at all -- his furious eyes never deviated from staring at me. It did not seem to be a lust-type-of-thing, but more of an extreme and fierce anger emanating from his person. I had never met or seen this man before. I knew that we were in danger and my only defense was to pray and be alert. 

And God sent Gracie. To this day, some thirty years later, I believe the dog might have caused this man to be restrained. That, and especially, the mercies of God. After I walked him out, still alert and keeping him from circling behind me, I rushed the other children into the house. His car was an old white vehicle, covered with mold and moss. The license tag on the front of the car was from another state, very far away, and was 25 years old. As he backed the car out, I observed that the rear tag was also 25 years old. I pondered where he'd been for that many years, with his car mouldering under a tree somewhere. One of the boys said to me, after he had left, "Mama, I thought he was going to kill us." 

We locked up the house tightly, called Daddy at work and told him what had happened. He told me to head to Grandpa and Grandma's house with the kids until he got home (if I remember correctly, after this, we spent several days heading to their house after breakfast). He searched the house thoroughly and called us to come back when he knew all was clear. We called a Realtor that day to list the house and never saw hide nor hair of the devil man again. The house was eventually sold and we headed for the country life. 

Now, our children are long grown, with many children of their own.  I got busy with real estate after I was through raising them. But you can bet your boots, if I'm real-estating, I'm packing heat. Jus' sayin'....