Remembering before they’re gone

My dad was already 10 years gone from us by the time I started writing a blog two years ago. So everything I’ve written about him has been tinged with the golden glow of memory. Most of what I’ve written about Dad has been about what a wonderful man he was – with a note or two along the way about the not-so-desirable traits I inherited from him (we won’t get into that in this post). Even though he wasn’t a saint, from my daughterly perspective he hung the moon.

But his death is not the only one to have touched me deeply in the intervening months.

Three days ago I attended the funeral of the second of my mom’s brothers to die this year – my Uncle Charles.

Uncle Bill died in March in Yuma, Ariz., where he had lived for more than four decades, including much of my childhood. I never even started writing about him because I just didn’t know how I could say what was in my heart. I didn’t think I could do our relationship justice – Uncle Bill was very special to me.

Because I didn’t get to see Uncle Bill the last time I had an opportunity (something I will always regret), I made sure I saw Uncle Charles two weeks ago, when it was apparent the end was near.

I was expecting him to be so medicated on painkillers that he wouldn’t recognize me, but when I got to his bedside and Mom said, “Suzy’s here,” he smiled. Didn’t open his eyes – just smiled. I stood there a few minutes and just stroked his shoulder. Then later, when Mom and I stood to leave, I took his hand and he squeezed mine.

Such a little thing, but so profound when you know it’s probably the last time you’ll see someone you love so much.

Uncle Charles died Monday, Oct. 26, in Batesville, Ark.

He, too, was a special uncle to me. One of the two pastors who preached his funeral on Thursday talked about what a sweet spirit he had, the other about his being a good friend and wise counselor. Okay, yes, those things were true. But what overpowers my memory about Charles Taylor was that he was mischievous. His antics – like licking his finger and swiping it across your eyeglasses, or pulling your hair ribbon that your mom had tied just-so – were what we talked about after the funeral, my aunts and cousins and I.

He was a mischief-maker and all-around fun-loving guy. But the truest thing that was said about him on Thursday was that he loved his family. No doubt about that. He doted on his wife and daughters and grandchildren.

But what I thought about as we were pulling out of the church parking lot on the way to bury my Uncle Charles was not about the dead, but about the living.

About how much I love my brother.

About how I don’t need to wait until someone’s gone to express my feelings.

I’m not sure whether JT noticed that I hugged him a little longer than usual the last time I saw him – the weekend I said my unspoken goodbye to Uncle Charles in the hospital.

Maybe Bruce’s illness has hit me harder the past couple of years than I have spoken about. (Bruce might disagree that I have left anything unsaid.) We have decided to move to Batesville to be closer to Mom, JT and his girls, not to mention the aunts, uncles, cousins and church family I left behind 23 years ago in search of adventure.

That was half my life ago (I will turn 47 this month). And half a life is enough time to start appreciating the good fortune I had to grow up in a small town (two small towns, actually), where the people at the bank not only know you by name, but they’ve known you since before you knew you wanted to leave them for “bigger and better things.”

The good fortune to grow up with parents who stayed married to each other to the end, with a brother who – even amid sibling conflict of sometimes-epic proportions – still managed to love his little sister in ways that surprised her.

My brother and I are polar opposites. He makes friends easily and I have to know you awhile before I trust you. He goes on gut reaction, while I psychoanalyze everything before making a single move. He can’t sit still for more than five minutes, and I’d spend an entire day reading a good book if I had the time. Et cetera.

Despite our different approaches to life, our basic moral values are the same. After all – despite opinions and theories to the contrary – we came from the same womb.

We were raised by the same two parents, who taught us both to love God, country, apple pie and baseball. (Although the subject of baseball, in itself, casts suspicion on that conclusion – he’s a darn Yankees fan!) [Note: Since reading this post, JT has made it clear that, while he does enjoy a good Yankees slugfest, his veins bleed Cardinal red.]

My bubby is a real guy. He hunts, watches sports ad nauseam, plans Friday-night card games with his friends, mans the grill when we get together for barbecues. And, even though he has two daughters, he doesn’t quite get all that “girlie stuff.”

That’s all okay – in fact it’s the way it’s supposed to be – even though he is not exactly like me. (Would our mother be able to handle it if he were?!)

Like Uncle Charles, and Uncle Bill, and Dad, my brother JT loves his family. Even though the ways he demonstrates it may be subtle at times, it’s an undeniable fact. (He has a big heart, but he’s more likely to express his feelings in deeds than words.)

He calls my mother, his next-door neighbor (actually, their back yards adjoin), every day. When he’s on the night shift, he calls her from work before her bedtime. When he needs to know (or tell) something, he calls her. He is protective of her, as he should be. He buys her groceries for her, mows her lawn, drives her to work when the streets are icy. I’m grateful, because I’m too far away to be of much help with those everyday, practical things.

JT and Mom are so much alike, just as Dad and I were alike. They “get” each other in ways I’ll never understand. I’m glad. I’m glad to know she has him to take care of her in ways big and small.

And when Bruce and I move to Batesville (Lord willing), my brother will take care of us. And we’ll take care of him.

Isn’t that the way it should be?

Happy Father’s Day

As I was microwaving my cup of coffee this morning (a pot will last me several days), I was thinking about the phrase, “can’t live without,” as in “I can’t live without caffeine.” (I was imagining how much better my heart health would be without it, and remembering how hard it has been to give up caffeine in the past. But I’ve done it, and survived.)

I’m sure that in my past I’ve uttered sentences that included such a phrase. “I can’t live without chocolate,” for instance. But really I can’t think of a thing that I absolutely cannot live without.

I lost my dad – my hero – 11 years ago. When he was in bad health and we knew we wouldn’t have him for many more years, I thought about his future death a lot. I wasn’t sure I would be able to go on without him. He and I were very close.

But I did. I survived. And I’ve made a new life – even a good life – without him.

As painful as it is, you go on.

While I can’t say now that I consciously think about him every single day, he is definitely with me every day. In my decisions, in my character, in my work ethic, in my aptitudes, in some of my physical attributes – even, unfortunately, in some of my less-than-admirable traits. I inherited a lot from dad, the good, the bad and the ugly (including his toes, his nose and his inability to tolerate stupidity, one of the traits I’ve worked hardest to overcome!).

We have the same sense of humor, something I hadn’t thought much about until recently. Yeah, we could always make each other laugh (as well as make each other smile). But as I was making up a new word the other day (Bruce and I do that a lot), it occurred to me: Dad used to do that. He’d create a phrase (“That’s too big enough”) or mispronounce a word to make you giggle (“burple” for purple). He did it naturally. I never thought of my dad as a “goofy” guy, but he certainly could be goofy.

Kids loved him, and he loved kids. He had phrases for them, too: “curtain-climbing rug rats” or “tricycle motors,” for instance. You knew when he called your kid a rug rat that he meant it in the most endearing way. At church, he often had someone else’s child sitting in his lap during the service. Or at family gatherings, he’d pick up a kid and talk to him like he was an adult. No baby talk like the women do. Not that he tried to talk politics with them or anything – he was definitely silly with them.

My dad grew up poor, so his teeth were bad and he had to get dentures when he was in his 30s. Once, when my cousin Gary was 2 or 3, he was sitting in Dad’s lap, facing him, and Dad pulled out his top plate. Gary was fascinated with that, so Dad told Gary to take out his own teeth. Gary kept trying, but it just didn’t work! That was one of Dad’s favorite memories of Gary.

My cousins Teri and Tanya lived next door to us for a few years. They called Uncle Benny their “fix-it man.” Any time something broke, no matter what it was, they’d bring it to Uncle Benny because they knew he could fix anything.

He could even fix a broken heart.

Many times when I suffered a severe trial of life, the only salve was having my dad’s big, strong arms around me. He may not always be able to change the circumstances – and sometimes he knew he shouldn’t even try – but having his arms around me always comforted me. With Dad, I knew I was loved unconditionally. It’s how I can at least try to fathom the love God the Father has for me: I first experienced it with my earthly father.

And, just as my heavenly Father is always with me and in me, Dad is in me. (Of course, not in the same way, but an earthly father’s love was created in the Heavenly Father’s love.)

Dad is so much a part of who I am.

When I’m out pulling weeds or mowing the lawn, planting flowers or just standing in the yard admiring the greenness of the grass and trees and the chirping of the birds – Dad is with me.

In fact, I think of him most when I’m outside doing something like that. He loved the outdoors, and I feel so close to him when I’m out there reveling in God’s creation. I even use his big leather work gloves and some of his tools. When I bought my first little house, he bought me my very own toolbox – and a coffee pot (although I’ll admit the coffee pot was mostly for him; I had not acquired the coffee habit yet. And he would cringe to know that I keep my brewed coffee in the fridge and microwave a cup each morning. But I can’t tell you the times I’ve sipped a morning cup of coffee and wished we were out on the deck together watching the sun rise and the squirrels frolic).

He showed me how to do little things around the house and how to take care of my car, although he was always there when the job was too big for me. When I lived in California after college, he couldn’t be there in person, but he could tell me how not to get cheated by the professionals. After I moved here, he would get in his pickup and drive to me to fix whatever he could. And I think he enjoyed letting me be a part of it, even when I was more hindrance than help. Mostly I got to hand him the tools or hold the flashlight. But I loved doing that for him, and with him.

When Dad was fixing my car or something in the house, I’d never know how much physical pain he was in. Oh, I knew he was in pain, but I never knew how bad it was until later, when he was back home and Mom would tell me how much it took out of him.

Dads just do that for their kids.

Often – very often – I wish I could ask his advice. When my brother, JT, wonders how to solve a problem, he often asks himself, “What would Dad do?” I wonder the same thing in so many situations.

My dad was really smart. He didn’t have a college degree, but he didn’t need one. He probably got the equivalent of a master’s just by being a voracious reader. And his doctorate was from the School of Hard Knocks. He was good at figuring things out, and he’d figure out a lot of things just by reading a good instruction manual.

But Dad wasn’t just smart, he was wise, and what we most benefited from was his daily use of the original Owner’s Manual – the Bible.

His favorite book was James, and one of the passages that describes him best is from James 2, verses 14-16:

What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well” — but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?

Dad would give you his shirt if you needed it, but what I remember most is the endless hours he gave up for people who needed his time and expertise, especially farmers. He was a mechanic by trade, having a reputation as one of the best around in many categories. He would drive miles and miles to help someone whose tractor wouldn’t start in the snowy weather or whose hay baler had malfunctioned in the middle of harvest (I once rode with him to Jackson, Tenn., to deliver a piece of equipment). He knew these things were a part of a family’s livelihood, and he took them seriously.

Yeah, we waited dinners for him a lot of the time – or gave up and ate without him. He was out of the house by 7 most mornings and often not home until 7 or 8 in the evening. And, yes, we sometimes complained that he was giving to others the time he should have been giving to us.

But in the giving to others, he did give to us.

He gave us – me – a legacy that will last my whole life. And I would never want to live without that.

Other posts that include my dad:

Happy birthday, Dad (July 11, 2008)

The power of a flower (June 14, 2008)

Daddy’s girl (Dec. 23, 2008)

Our fathers (March 28, 2008)

Voice from the grave

This editorial by Lasantha Wickrematunge, the editor of the Sri Lankan Sunday Leader, was published three days after he was murdered, as he knew he would be. Not so much prescience but pragmatism, I think.

His words certainly make a person think hard about how we take our freedoms here in the U.S. for granted.

The good Earth

The Certified Arkansas Farmers Market (Sixth & Main streets in North Little Rock’s Argenta neighboorhood) opened yesterday for the 2009 season. I really hated to miss it, but Bruce and I went to Batesville for the annual Scottish festival at Lyon College (more on that later). But I’m so excited that it’s finally open! Saturday, April 25, is Basket-A-Month pickup day, so I can’t wait for the fresh eggs, milk, cheese, pasta, STRAWBERRIES and other goodies that will be in the basket. Maybe I’ll make strawberry cake or muffins next weekend!

Come on down Saturday for fresh, Arkansas-grown produce, dairy, beefalo, honey, homemade pasta and much more. Support your local farmer. Maybe you’ll see us there. Bruce and I will be volunteering during the basket pickup.

After that, walk down to Riverfront Park for the Arkansas Earth Day Festival. The festival is on the North Little Rock side of the river between the Main Street and Broadway bridges. Maybe you’ll see me there. I’ll be volunteering at the Basket-A-Month booth.

The festival is on the 25th, although Earth Day is Wednesday, April 22. Poke around the official Earth Day site and find out little ways you can make a difference. Support your local planet.

Portrait of Christ

Most artists dance to the beat of a different drummer, and painter David Garibaldi is definitely no exception. On this Easter Sunday, as we celebrate the great sacrifice of our Savior, check out this 5-minute video, Portrait of Christ. (Turn on your speakers, and click the play button in the middle of the video screen.)

Then be sure to check out his Web site.

Cactus Cuties sing the National Anthem

My brother’s friend e-mailed this to him a few weeks ago. It’s of five little girls – ages 6, 7 and 8 – singing the National Anthem at a Texas Tech basketball game in 2008.

If it doesn’t choke you up just a little, you’re not paying attention.

Simon sings

Sometimes when I’m too busy to write everything I want to write about, I cheat. I simply link to other blogs. You must listen to Alison’s 2-year-old singing his favorite songs he learned at Bible Study Fellowship:

Here’s Simon!

Worship Fully. Spend Less. Give More. Love All.

I’ve been behind on reading my favorite blogs these past few months. I wish I had run across this video that Alison posted a couple of weeks before Christmas, but its message is relevant any time of year.

After you watch it, visit Advent Conspiracy and get inspired.

Happy New Year (and happy anniversary to my sweetie and me – 11 years today!).

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, world!

I’m sitting at my mom’s back window, looking out at the beautiful, crisp, clear morning. The sky is blue, the trees are green and there’s still frost on the ground. It’s a beautiful winter morning.

Last night I got sleepy at 8:15, and Mom said I couldn’t go to bed yet (she’s mean). She said if I stayed up with her, she’d get up early with me. I told her there was no need for that because I love having the quiet morning to myself before everyone (except Salsa) gets up. I take the girls outside for their morning potty break, lift Pepper back onto the bed (where she crawls under the covers with Bruce), and then come back in and savor my cup of coffee, all before the sun comes up. (Mom finally let me go to bed last night at 9:45, when she saw me lying on the floor half-asleep). This morning, Salsa and I did a quieter-than-usual version of our morning wrestling match. We played tug of war with a toy — no running around like fools before everyone gets up.

Routines are different here at Mom’s. She doesn’t have a fence, so we can’t let the girls go outside and potty by themselves. We have to leash them and walk them until they decide to do their business. It’s usually pretty quick with Salsa — when she needs to go, she goes. With Pepper, we have to let her walk around a little, then turn her circles and find the exact right spot — all the while saying, “Go potty … go potty … go potty.” It’s not as fun when it’s cold outside.

So, while I wait for my family to get up (my brother’s house is within hollerin’ distance, and I can see from Mom’s window that they’re still not stirring), Salsa and I will go sit and watch the Star Trek: The Next Generation marathon. (Oh, and someone may have already cut into the chocolate pie for breakfast, but I’m not saying.)

Yes, this Christmas is much more relaxed and wonderful than last, even if last year, in my somewhat-depressed state, I still tried to remember the reason we have Christmas in the first place.

Please, as you go about your day, remember the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who was born simply to die for us and give us a better way to live.

I love you, Jesus.

Christmas cheer-up

What a difference a year makes.

Last year at this time I was in full self-pity mode. I had a job I hated (after less than a month there), Bruce was sick (he spent seven days in the hospital a week before Christmas), we were broke and a friend died on Christmas Day. I had started gaining weight from the stress, mostly from the job. (In the 11 months I worked at that place, I gained 25 pounds. Just from emotional eating.)

I hadn’t put up our big Christmas tree in a couple of years – didn’t put one up at all last year, even the little one. Bruce and I didn’t buy any Christmas gifts last year, either. Yes, this chick had one very blue, blue blue blue Christmas.

Even the truths I knew about God were truths in my head but not necessarily in my heart. He promised never to leave or forsake me, but I sure felt forsaken.

That was last year. I can’t say the pity party is completely over (we still have a lot of the same problems we had a year ago – some even worse), but God has led me through the darkest part (at least I hope so!).

I have dragged out the Christmas decorations (yes, it does seem worth it) and have even put up the big tree. I went to Hobby Lobby this evening to buy a couple of extra strands of blinking lights (with some of my birthday money), and as I left the store a cool wind blew across me. But instead of thinking, “Brrr, it’s cold!” I said to myself, “What an invigorating breeze!”

I used to loathe cold weather, but I have grown to appreciate it. Tonight, after what could have been a frustrating day (because a utility crew accidentally cut a cable, my office lost its Internet connection, rendering me nearly helpless to do most of the account processing I usually take care of each day), I was actually thankful for my job. That, in turn, helped me enjoy the chilly wind and the crystal-clear evening.

Nearly every day I tell God how grateful I am for the job (sometimes I forget – I take it for granted, just like I always will). I could enumerate all the reasons, but that’s for another post. Let me just say again, as I have said a couple of times here, that it is an AWESOME company to work for.

It’s amazing how one little change can be such a big deal. Working at the hell hole I came from, I thought I would always have a job I hated, whether it’s because I deserved to, because I’m just a whiner who’s never satisfied or (and this is what I really thought) that most people have jobs they hate. No one can really love his job. You hear people talking about loving their jobs, but you think they’re crazy (or lying), right?

But now I get it, because … I LOVE MY JOB!

And it makes all the difference in the world. Yes, we’re broker than broke, Bruce is still sick (oh, yeah, and I was diagnosed with a heart problem a few weeks ago), and we still have to sell our house. But my life is pretty good. Bruce asked me today how I was doing, and I replied, “Fantastic!” before I could think. He was surprised. He hasn’t heard me say anything that positive in a long time.

I’ve even lost 13 pounds (and counting) since leaving the other job.

What else is good? I’ve had so much extra time, I’ve started baking again. Can it get any better than that?

And tonight, with the beautiful early evening sky, the tiny sliver of moon and the celestial conjunction of Venus and Jupiter, paired with the invigorating breeze, I felt lighter than air.

What a difference a year makes.