Swim for Life

Friday evening my son had to “carb load” for the big swim meet he was to swim on Saturday. He invited anyone in the family who could to come eat spaghetti with him as he prepared for the event. With the offer of free food fourteen relatives showed up to help him eat the ton of food he had prepared. Our family is good to help each other when free food is involved. We all ate like we were going to swim with him.

Saturday morning we all met at the Chester River near Chestertown on Maryland's Eastern Shore. David was one of the 215 swimmers who were participating in the Swim for Life race. Swimmers could choose to swim either one, two, three, four, or five miles. David swam five miles. Swimming in a choppy, murky river is a lot harder than swimming in a pool. These were some strong, athletic people. We all cheered him on at the start and then sat and enjoyed relaxing in the sunshine and visiting for the next two hours. We cheered those who swam the shorter races as they completed their swims and began to anxiously watch for our man to come into sight. We were excited to finally spot him as he approached the finish line and cheered wildly. He ran out of the river through the finish gate and collapsed onto the sand. I've never seen him so exhausted. After about ten minutes my tired, dehydrated boy drank two big bottles of water and began to look like he would recover. The exertion had left him quivering, sore, and nauseated. He wasn't sure he ever wanted to swim again.

He called this afternoon to report that he was fine today. He had polished off a huge dinner last night and felt great today. He is talking about swimming across the Chesapeake Bay next year.

VBS

Sunday night our church building did a quick change over as the chocolate world of Wonka turned into the land of Moses and ancient Egypt. This is Vacation Bible School week. It is a lot of hard work for a lot of adults and a world of fun and adventure for the little ones. I have been shepherding a group of three and four-year-olds from song-time, to story-time, to game-time, and to craft-time. The kids say and do things every night that make me laugh.

One lesson was about how mean Pharaoh was when he wouldn't let the people go.The kids acted out the plagues that God sent to Egypt. They stuck red dots all over Pharaoh to represent boils, and threw wadded up paper at him to represent hailstones. One little girl said she thought we should try being nice to mean ol' Pharaoh and then he might let the people go. I think it's wonderful to see the innocence of a four-year-old who thinks being nice will overcome evil.



I took a little three-year old boy to the bathroom. He assured me he needed no help, then proceeded to lock himself into the stall. After doing what he came to do he was unable to unlock the stall. I surely could not crawl under to rescue him. I had to enlist the help of a near-by child to come to his rescue.

During game time one evening the kids were getting pretty wet. They had to cross a bridge over a small pool while squirt gun were aimed in their direction. One practical little fellow did not want to get his clothes wet, so he took them all off and ran into the water in his birthday suit. He did not understand why people were laughing at him.



I'm amazed at how much the kids actually learn during all this fun and frolic. While driving some of them home I hear them telling each other what they learned. They learn the Bible stories and songs and tell each other not to be afraid because God is always with them.

It is powerful thing for a child to know that God loves them.

Willie Wonka

Part of our July 4th celebration included attending the matinée performance of Willie Wonka. Our church has a theater troupe which has just presented an excellent rendition of Roald Dahl's chocolaty story. I am amazed at the talent that I saw. Most of the performers were children, but many adults were in the cast also. It was an amazing set. The costumes were wonderful. The patience and hard wok of the directors were awesome. My talented eleven year granddaughter was the understudy for Mike TV. In the other shows she one of the Oompa Loompas. The understudy cast did the show on the Fourth. They were all just as talented as the main cast, just a bit younger.

I think I will be singing, “Oompa Loompa Oompa Dee Do” for a long time.

Well done to the entire cast and crew!

Rehoboth Beach

I have just returned from a lovely three day stay in Rehoboth Beach with my two beautiful teen-aged granddaughters. It was a lot of fun. While we were there I received the coveted title of “The Coolest Gramma Ever.” It is one of my favorite titles.

We arrived several hours before we were able to check into our hotel so we headed straight to Whiskey Beach, one of my favorite places. Don't look for it on the map. Maps refer to it as Gordon Pond State Park, kind of a boring name. Whiskey Beach was the name given to it during the days of prohibition when rum-runners used it to sneak their cargo ashore and soldiers from a near-by army base used it for parties. These days it is a clean quiet beach. There is only one concession stand where you rent umbrellas and buy snacks, so there is none of the distraction of the boardwalk. There are two tall look-out towers on the beach, relics of World War II when they were used to watch for enemy ships. The girls frolicked in the surf, we walked down to investigate the towers, and spent a great deal of time people watching. The beach is a wonderful place for people watching.

When we checked into our hotel I went to the pool and left the room to the girls for about an hour so they could shower and change for an evening on the boardwalk. When I arrived in the room they had showed and were dressing for the evening. I showered and changed so we could leave, but waited another hour. It takes teenage girls a long time to dress. They had to try on all of each others clothes and mix and match their outfits multiple times. It seems that wearing the right thing on the boardwalk is very important. After all a boy might notice them. The evening was fun. After the required dinner of Grotto's Pizza we checked out all the shops and had our picture made at the Old Time Photos shop. You can see by the result that they thought this was fun. I was getting tired and left them to ride the rides at Funland and went back to the hotel for some quiet time.

The next day was rainy. We did some Outlet shopping, ate good food, laughed a lot, got henna tattoos, and rode the bumper cars together at Funland. Spending time with these two girls is such a treat.

We woke up yesterday to beautiful sunshine and blue sky, a perfect day for the beach, but, after a short stroll on the sand and a stop at two more shops, we had to pack up and head for home. As we pulled away they gave me my coveted Cool Gramma title.

A Wonderful Birthday

My long time readers all remember my sister-in-law, Jean. Last July Jean fell and suffered a terrible head injury. We didn't expect her to survive the massive trauma to her brain. She was on a ventilator and in a coma for almost three months. Then one day she just woke up again. She has slowly regained her ability to speak. She remains totally paralyzed on her left side and her health is fragile. She remains in a nursing home where my brother Bill spends most of his days with her.

Today is Jean's eightieth birthday, and it was a most wonderful day. When asked what she wanted for her birthday, she had a quick request. She wanted to go to church. This morning the nurses woke her up early for her big day. She was showered and dressed in her Sunday best. Bill hired a wheelchair accessible van and a health aide to accompany them and they went to church. They have been an active part of their little congregation for thirty years. The people there are family. My other brother and his family met them there and the church was filled with joy at her return. After the service there was birthday cake and celebration. Jean leaned over to Bill and asked him to tell everyone to please shut up. She wanted to say something. She gave a little speech about her memories and the love she felt for the people there. She told a joke about getting old.

It was just a wonderful day that we never expected to see. God is good.

Happy birthday Jean. You are one tough old lady.

Nothing Much

Sometimes it is hard to think of something interesting to fill this space. How do I make the life of a contented senior citizen sound interesting? My days recently have been pretty quiet. I read, play on the computer, work in the yard, go to the pool for water aerobics, and take lots of folks to various doctor appointments. I am trying to write some lessons for vacation Bible school at church, but I'm having trouble getting motivated. I read the paper and watch the news. Politics and scandals are ever present. I have some fairly strong political views. I am mostly a left-leaning Democrat, but there are no easy solutions to most of the problems, and people I love and admire have different ideas. I don't really want to fill this space with politics. I've been to funerals for two friends recently. One, like Farrah Fawcett, had fought a long hard battle against cancer. Her death was not a surprise. The other was a young, apparently healthy man who, like Michael Jackson, died suddenly and unexpectedly. Their deaths make me more aware of my own mortality and the limited time I have on this earth. I have wonderful children and even more wonderful grandchildren, but you probably get tired of my bragging about them. I feel a bit boring today.

Do you have any suggestions for me? What are some topics that I should write about? Give me some ideas, please. I need some help.

HowI Learned to Study the Bible

This was written by our daughter and published several years ago in a Christian magazine.Her dad cried when he read it.

"How I Learned to Study the Bible"

When I was twelve and was stumped on a math homework problem, the very last resort was to ask Dad for help. Not because he was impatient or because he couldn’t figure it out. Dad could always solve the math problems. The trouble was, he could solve it four different ways – and none of them were the way we solved it in class. He would explain every step and sometimes the history of the mathematician that proved this particular maneuver was possible. After about ten minutes, my eyes would glaze over and I would hurry my head nodding and affirmative grunts to convince him that I understood. Anything to get the paper back and figure it out for myself.

No one in the world looks forward to the annual cycle of school science fairs more than my father. I always enjoyed the biology experiments, like seeing if beans grew faster if watered with water, milk, or orange juice. But my father is a rocket scientist – literally. He wanted to detect the movement of the earth with pendulums. He wanted to calculate the pattern of random numbers with rolling dice (from his personal collection of hundreds of right and left-handed dice.)

One of the moments in my life for which I feel the most guilt is when I threw the universe in the trash. It was after the seventh grade science fair. Dad and I had stayed up late and created a hyperbolic parabaloid (don’t ask) that demonstrated the expanding rate of the universe. This model was big. It was sturdily constructed. It was heavy. The walk home was over a mile. It was hot outside. I saw no future use for this thing now that the projects had been graded. So I tossed it in the school dumpster. That night at dinner when I casually mentioned it, Dad was crestfallen, like a little boy whose shiny new toy gets run over in the street. I thought about going back to the dumpster. I’m grateful that he didn’t. Even though all his children are grown now, he still “competes” in science fairs. He helps his grandchildren. He helps children at church. He volunteers to judge at local schools.

My father taught me the most about God and studying the Bible at the crack of dawn and in the middle of the night. We would agree on a time, 5:30 am, 2:00 am. I would awake to him sitting quietly on the edge of my bed, gently tracing my face with his fingers. “It’s time,” he’d whisper so as not to waken my sister or mother or brothers. We’d tiptoe out of the house. Sometimes we’d get in the car and drive off to a remote area. If we were camping, we’d go on a long hike.
He had all the tools we needed: pens, books, paper for notes, binoculars. We’d creep along the edge of a forest in silence. Every now and then he’d cock his head and whisper, “woodthrush” or “chickadee.” “Do you hear it?” He’d try to imitate the call for me. And then we’d stalk the bird with the binoculars. I’d see a flash of bright yellow or deep red. And then there it was – a spectacular tananger, an exquisite oriole, or a curious woodpecker.

One cold middle of the night I stood in a field with him to look for Halley’s comet. In truth, the comet didn’t look like much. It looked like a star that somebody smudged. But I saw it. I won’t have that chance again for many years. I could have easily missed it. My dad found it for me. It was the kind of moment that wise men cross continents for.

How did I learn to study the Bible? I learned at the kitchen table that there is more than one approach to solve problems. I learned that the teacher doesn’t know the only way. And I learned that if I tried hard enough, I could figure it out for myself.

I learned that when you can figure something out, you share it. And once you’ve put hours into a project, don’t toss it carelessly into the trash. But once you’ve tossed something into the trash, don’t go digging it out again.
I often find that I am study the Bible to win arguments. But if I’m quiet and still, I might see a flash of spectacular beauty.

I learned that sometimes finding the unexpected beauty in scripture happens at unusual times, in the cold and the dark, but most often with a friend at your side, pointing heavenward. If you don’t see it now, it might be fourteen years before you see it.

On my 21st birthday, my parents gave me a terrific study Bible that I am diligently wearing out. Along with the inscriptions, my Dad included three verses that have shaped my approach to the Scriptures: 2 Timothy 2:15, 1 Thessalonians 5:21, and Ephesians 5:10. Read together they combine to make a great charge to anyone seeking God’s truth. “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” “Test everything. Hold on to the good.” “and find out what pleases the Lord.”

I sometimes get in trouble with the “Test everything” part. Sometimes we don’t want to hear questions that challenge our traditional beliefs and interpretations. But I know that God is bigger than our questions. He is bigger than our traditions. He wants us to search His word. He wants us to find out what pleases him.

The other day I was driving with my father. Without warning he swerved to the side of the road by a small wood and reached over to roll down my window. “Sometimes,” he said, “you can hear the woodthrush from the car if you stop and listen. Do you hear it?”

Dad

I've been thinking about my dad today. I guess that is normal on Father's Day.

My dad grew up on a rice farm in east Texas. He was the youngest of nine children. I don't know too much about his childhood except that his dad died before he was born. This worried me when I was a little girl. I could not imagine life without a father. I once asked him how he learned to be a father. He told me that my brothers and I had taught him.

My dad worked in the oilfields as a young man. During the Depression he moved his little family to California where he became the foreman of an oil refinery and later supervised a chemical plant. He worked long, hard hours.

As a little girl I was not very aware of his fatigue and stress. All I knew was that I was his princess and he loved me, he loved my mother, he loved my brothers. Dad was a gentleman who read poetry to his wife and told us children wonderful stories. I remember my older brother coming home from school one day very upset. He thought my dad was the original author of Beowulf and was quite upset to learn that this story was an old English epic poem, not Dad's own imagination at work.

Dad was never able to go college, but he was the best educated man I knew. He read about everything. He dreamed of sending his own children to college. His pride when each of us graduated was enormous.

When we were grown and the grandchildren came along my dad saw each of them as perfect. His grandchildren could do no wrong, and he would never tolerate any criticism of them. The eyes of a proud grandfather saw no wrong.

My dad left us a legacy of love, faith and goodness. He was a good man. I miss my daddy.

Anniversary

Today is our forty-eighth wedding anniversary. We were young and in love. We didn't know what lay ahead. We just knew we wanted to be married, so we began life's journey together. I often wonder how two kids from California ended up in Maryland with eight grandchildren. It has been a wonderful journey. There have good times and bad times and lots of in between times. God has blessed us.

To celebrate this milestone we went to see Man of La Mancha at our local community theater last week-end. The story is a powerful telling of how one man's love and his quest to right all wrongs can change a woman from an unwanted cast-off into a beloved and beautiful lady. The music always makes us both cry.

Dennis, thank you for letting me be your Dulcinea. Thank you for leading us to find unreachable stars. You have made so many impossible dreams come true. I love you.

Divorce

On this date twenty-two years ago we celebrated another beautiful wedding. There was a lovely bride, happy families and funny stories. The memories are all a little tarnished and sometimes painful today. After seventeen years my second son-in-law decided he longer wanted to be married. He moved out and moved on to other relationships.

Divorce is painful. My daughter struggled with anger and uncertainty. What do you do with a broken dream? Their three beautiful children were confused and hurt. My husband and I were stunned, angry and felt totally helpless. How could this man we loved do this? How could he cause his family so much hurt? For a long time my strongest emotion was anger. I planned all sorts of revenge. I wanted to inflict on him the pain that he had inflicted on all of us. My daughter, the children and I all saw a therapist for quite a while to help us sort through those emotions. There were false starts, wrong turns and several moments of collapse as we struggled towards a new life. I did not ever spit on him. I did not put rotten fish under his mattress. I did not demand an apology. None of that seemed helpful. We all just kept putting one foot in front of the other and moved slowly on to a better place.

Today my grandchildren are doing well. They are honor roll students with many friends. They love both their mother and their father. He is involved in their lives. I love my grandchildren. They need to have a relationship with their dad. I am always polite and friendly in his presence. He told me recently that I was the best ex mother-in-law in the world. I guess that is a compliment. Somehow I don't feel very complimented.

My daughter has a full and busy life. She is happy. She is surrounded by many friends and a sweetheart who makes her know she is loved.

There is no such thing as a good divorce. There is just too much pain involved. Divorce is the end of the happily ever after dream, but it is not the end of life. There are new dreams and new joys on the other side of the pain. The scars remain. Sometimes the hurt and anger still bubbles up and burst all around us. Life just keeps moving on. We count our many blessings and look forward to good things that God has in store for us.

25 Years

It is lovely summer day today. The temperature is in the mid eighties with a gentle breeze blowing. It would be a lovely day for a wedding. Twenty five years ago today the temperature was 104 degrees. There was no breeze. It was humid and hazy. It was my daughter's wedding day. In spite of the weather the wedding was beautiful. In the twenty-five years since that day they have built a strong, happy marriage and raised two beautiful children. Perhaps the weather on their wedding day was a sign of life to come. The world may throw some bad stuff your way, but you can still make something beautiful.


I was thinking today about my husband, the father of the bride. He did so much behind the scenes to make that day special.

One day, about a month before the wedding, he dropped the bride off for the final fitting of her dress. (The dress had been my wedding dress and needed some alterations for my tiny daughter.) He then went on to do a long list of errands. When he returned later to pick her up he was unprepared for the emotion that made him sit down and cry. There before him stood his baby girl, a beautiful bride wearing the dress that his bride had worn. He was overcome.

The day before the wedding, guests began to arrive from many places. The grandparents all flew in from California. Our house was full of happy people. The friends and relatives began coming. Someone had to pick Robert up at the bus station in Washington. A car full of wedding guests broke down near Baltimore. My husband calmly put his tools together and headed up the road to rescue them and fix the car. Just as he was leaving another call came in. This time wedding guests had broken down coming from Virginia. He assured them he would be there in about an hour. Somehow he managed to get all the cars running and everyone arrived on time. That evening the bride's car broke down, the car they needed for their honeymoon trip. They were just going to rent a car, but the bride and groom were only twenty years old. You need to be twenty-one to rent a car. Finally we found a used car lot whose owners knew us. They agreed to rent a car to the young couple for their honeymoon. While they were gone my husband got their car fixed and running again.



It was a beautiful wedding. The memories of that day and all the events around it always make me smile.
Happy anniversary to a wonderful couple.

In The Blink Of An Eye

How is it possible that in the blink of an eye this sweet little baby girl has turned into a bright and beautiful high school graduate?

Why do I always cry when Pomp and Circumstance is played?

Reiki

I got reikied yesterday. I feel better today.

For my birthday last month my daughter gave me a gift certificate for a reiki session with my friend Yolinna. I decided to cash it in yesterday. I had been feeling down in the dumps, a bad case of the blahs, and my arthritis had really been aggravating me. My shoulders felt like they were carrying a heavy burden. Seemed like a good time for a bit of healing.

I can't explain how reiki works. If you want an explanation go here. It's not like anything else I know, but I'll try to share my experience. Yolinna is a dear friend. She loves me and I enjoy being with her so it was comfortable to go to her home. After some chit chat I climbed onto the massage table in what she calls her spirit room. It is peaceful, airy place and I began to relax and closed my eyes. When I looked again Yolinna was just standing by me, praying. It felt nice to know someone was praying for me. Then she put her hands on my head, that's all, just lay her hands there. I began to feel warmth radiating from her hands into me. She moved her hands to different areas of my body. Sometimes I felt warmth, sometime the heat from her hands was intense. We made a few comments, but mostly it was just quiet and peaceful. An hour later she was done. The blahs were gone, the shoulders less tense, and the arthritis pain less bothersome. Somehow my chakras got aligned and my energy got itself in balance. I don't know what chakras are either, but I do feel better and that is nice.

Thanks Yolinna.

Swimmer

My older son was a competitive swimmer growing up. He was quite good. He got up at 4AM every day and swam for two hours before school. He went to practice every day after school and swam two more hours. He had ribbons and trophies everywhere from his many meets. This past week-end we attended a picnic at the pool where he swam during his childhood summers. There is a board on the wall there that still has his name holding record times at local swim meets. He dropped out of swimming when he went to college. Other things became more important. He grew up, married and raised a family. Last year he decided to start swimming again. He has once again begun to swim competitively. He now practices every morning before work. He is a pretty good swimmer again, but not a record maker. Now he is a good man with a job, a wife and a family who enjoys swimming.

Happy birthday David. I love you. You will always be a winner in my eyes.

FISH

One of the things I do to make myself useful is to volunteer for FISH. I don't think that is an acronym for anything, just a made up name for the group. FISH is a group of people who volunteer their time to give rides to people who are unable to drive. Most of the passengers are older folks whose health no longer allows them to drive. It is an easy thing to do. I have a car and time and enjoy being a helper.

Spending time in the waiting rooms of different doctors can be a very interesting experience. Most often I bring a book and the room is a quiet place to read, but other times it gives me an opportunity for prime people watching.

One of my passengers had an appointment with a psychiatrist with a packed waiting room. The patients were happily sharing their diagnoses and how different anti-psychotic drugs affected them. On the way home my passenger pointed out all the Washington DC license plates we saw on the road. We live in suburban DC so this is a common sight. She told me that she kept track of them and has frequently called Homeland Security because there is a plot for DC to take over Maryland. I imagine Homeland Security is thankful for her vigilance.

One day I took a passenger to a dialysis appointment. The patients in this office have spent a lot of time together and know each other well. Their conversation was a debate about whether or not to have a kidney transplant. Dialysis takes about four hours a day three times weekly. I would think they would all be anxious to get a new kidney so they would no longer need dialysis. One gentleman said his son wanted to donate a kidney, but he refused. Donating a kidney is a major surgical procedure. What if something happened to his son? The fear of that possibility overwhelmed him and he could not allow it. The fear of accepting a cadaver kidney seemed to be scary to several patients. The known routine of dialysis seemed preferable to the unknown risks of a transplant. It was an interesting conversation.

Some waiting rooms are bright and cheerful, some are dark and depressing. Some are crowded with long waits, some are near empty with no waiting time. Some drives are short, some are further away. My passengers are always grateful.

The Bee

I watched the National Spelling Bee last night. It was great fun to watch the kids and to cheer them on.

This morning I attended the spelling bee for my granddaughter's elementary school. She had won the bee for her fifth grade class and was in the whole
school competition. About thirty-five students were seated on the stage as the competition began. The school cafeteria was filled with her school-mates and parents. The competitors came one-by-one to the microphone. The audience seemed to hold their breath as each student spelled their word. We exhaled with each correctly spelled word and sighed when a word was misspelled. The excitement grew. Lexie came to microphone. Your word is “tetanus,” said the announcer. “Would you please repeat the word,” responded Lexie. She took a breath and spelled “t-e-t-a-n-u-s.” She advanced to the next round. Several competitors were eliminated. Her next word was violently, which she spelled correctly. She advanced two more rounds. There were now only five students left on stage. Her word was “eliminated.” She spelled “e-l-e-m-i-n-a-t-e-d.”

We were all very proud of her. She will never again be eliminated by the word eliminated.

Laughter

I love to laugh. Laughter is one of those things that just makes you feel good all over. When I laugh I laugh loud and long. It used to embarrass my children. Now that they are grown they say they like to hear me laugh. I don't laugh loud and long as often as I would like to. It has been a while since I enjoyed a good belly laugh. Last weekend my eleven-year-old granddaughter picked out a movie for us to watch. I loved it because it made me laugh out loud. My sides hurt from laughing. It was just a silly slapstick movie, but it was wonderful. If you need a good laugh watch "Mr Bean's Holiday."

Memorial Day Parade

Yesterday my town celebrated Memorial Day with our annual parade. It was one of those wonderful events that made me glad to part of this community. The boy scouts, the girl scouts, the high school band and pom squad all marched proudly down the street. There were dancers and baton twirlers, red-hat ladies and local politicians. Vintage cars decorated with red, white and blue joined fire trucks and police cars. I knew many of the marchers. We waved and cheered and had a lovely day. It was a time of patriotism and community that made me feel proud to be an American.

Music

Music is one of God's better gifts. It seems to touch all my moods and makes life better in many ways.

Our congregation celebrated it's annual Music Sunday this week. Music was the focus of our worship to God. We had music that combined the voices of the congregation, the choirs, the handbells, the orchestra and the organ. We filled the sanctuary with with loud, boisterous, joyous music of praise. We had quiet instrumentals that felt like a haunting whisper from the Holy Spirit. The music was beautiful, uplifting and holy. The Psalmist was wise when he said in his last chapter:

Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
Praise him with the harp and lyre,
Praise him with tambourine and dancing,
Praise him with the strings and flute,
Praise him with the clash of cymbals,
Praise him with resounding cymbals.
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.

Last night we celebrated with another evening of music. This time it was the Senior Chorale singing rock and roll. The one-hundred member chorale forgot their creaky joints and aching backs and we rocked the house. The six hundred folks in the audience were clapping and singing along with us to music of the fifties. It was our music. Dressed in poodle skirts and ponytails or blue jeans and letter sweaters, we all felt like we teenagers again. Music that makes a bunch of senior citizens feel young is a wonderful thing!

Master of Education

Graduations are always emotional events. I can't count the number of graduations I've attended, but this morning's event was one of the proudest moments of my life. My son Paul received his Master of Education degree.

Paul is my youngest child. School has always been hard for him. In kindergarten they told us he was immature and he needed to repeat the year. In second grade he was having a great deal of trouble academically and they gave him a series of tests. They told us he had a low IQ and he would never learn to read. In high school they said he would never go to college. In college they said he would never graduate. School was hard for Paul. He worked hard. It took him longer than others, but they were wrong. He did indeed graduate.

He now teaches special education and he never tells kids they won't learn to read.

Older Americans Month

May is National Older Americans month. In Maryland this month was celebrated yesterday by an awards ceremony in Annapolis. I was there with the Bowie Senior Chorale. Our singing group won the performing arts award. Several awards were given. My favorite went to a Ms Angela Witt for her participation in the Maryland Senior Olympics. She has won 80 medals, 54 of them gold. She is 99 years young and is still an avid walker and a very funny charming lady. I want to be like her when I get old.

Who is an older person who has enriched your life and made this a better world? This month is the time to tell that person thank you.

Mother's Day 2009

We enjoyed a near perfect Mother's Day yesterday. The weather was beautiful. My family gathered at my daughter's home, where the moms all enjoyed mimosas and conversation on the front porch.

In the kitchen the guys all worked to set a delicious feast for us. We had steak, scallops and everything else to make a wonderful dinner.


Family, food, friends. Life's greatest blessings.

Mothers Day

I recently found this picture of my mother and me. I love her expression. I see the protecting, comforting fierce love that made me know everything was safe and good.

My earliest memories are sitting in her warm, cozy lap. She would rock me and sing, “Jesus Loves Me” to me. Her lap was the most wonderful place in the world. There are many times I long for that wonderful, warm, safe place.

One of the last times I saw my mom she was sitting in a big recliner chair in the nursing home. For over a year she had been lost in a world of dementia and blindness. She no longer spoke. This day I sat close to her and put my arms around her and began singing to her. “Jesus loves me this I know.” Suddenly her weak voice joined mine. “Yes Jesus loves me, Yes Jesus loves me.” She sang the entire song with me. Afterward she turned to me and smiled. She whispered, “That's right, honey, he still does.” Those were the last words I ever heard her speak.

I look forward to heaven. It will be wonderful to be able to sing together again.

Exhale

I talked with my brother Bill this evening. He got the biopsy report today. NO CANCER! When I heard the report I felt like I could finally exhale. It felt like I had been holding my breath ever since we learned he had a mass in his lung. What a wonderful relief.

The doctor does not know for sure what the mass is, but it is not cancer. It may be an infection that has somehow encapsulated or a cyst of some sort. More tests will have to be done, but the mass is not cancer. That is good enough news for us all today.

Worry

One of my favorite biblical phrases is found several places in Psalms. It is “fret not thyself.” It means the same thing as as Jesus' command, “Do not worry,” which he repeats several times in the Sermon on the Mount. I'm getting better about following this command, but sometimes it is hard to just rest in the Lord and not worry about life and all it's concerns.

Today one of the big things I am trying not to worry about is my big brother Bill. He went to the hospital last week coughing up blood. A mass was discovered in his lung. He is having a biopsy today. He has a history of colon cancer. Is this a primary or a secondary lesion? His wife remains in fragile health in a nursing home since her head injury last summer. Life just seems very hard for them now.

Of course I am trying not to worry about the various other health, financial, social and spiritual concerns that are present in the lives of my friends and family. God has helped us to survive this far and I am trying to trust Him now with all my worries.

Resting in God and trusting is not always an easy command to follow.

A Puzzelment

Amid all the talk in politics about whether or not torture of suspected terrorists is ever permissible, I find this survey from Pew Research Forum a puzzlement. According to the survey the more often a person attends church services, the more likely that person is to approve of torture. The people who attend church the least often are most likely to disapprove of torture. It seems to me that church folks who are taught about grace, mercy, forgiveness and love should be against torture more often than those who not. I find this strange.

Can someone explain to me why the survey found this result?

14

Fourteen years ago today was one of the scariest days of my life. My daughter was in labor with her second child. I had been with her two years earlier when she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. That had been one of the most awesome moments of my life. There are no words to describe watching your child give birth. I felt honored to again be part of this wonder of birth. When I arrived she had already been in labor for several hours and things appeared to be going as well as such things can go. Since I was there her husband said he was going to go out to the waiting room for a few minutes to visit with his parents who had just arrived from out of state. The moment he left things became scary. The fetal heart rate began to drop rapidly. Something was very wrong. Suddenly the doctor was there shouting orders. “We've got to get that baby out now!” Nurses began running. The doctor grabbed the bed where my little girl lay and started pushing her down the hall. I could only watch and pray as she disappeared into the operating room. Just then her husband strolled back through the doors to find me crying and pointing in the direction of the operating room. He ran. I called home to tell everyone to pray and went to sit with the other grandparents and to wait and to pray. It seemed a very long wait, but in fact was not long at all, when I saw my smiling son-in-law walk into the room. “Everyone is fine. We have a healthy baby boy.” Tears of relief are very sweet.

That baby boy celebrates his fourteenth birthday today. He a a tall, handsome, lacrosse-plying young man with a sweet smile and a gentle spirit who brings us great joy.

Happy birthday grandson. We love you

Happiness is

A new washer and dryer.


It is good to have a husband who can become an electrician and plumber when needed

Christianity

I am reading a good book called “Abide with Me” by Elizabeth Strout. It is the story of a New England minister as he struggles with life after his wife's death.

I like this man's definition of Christianity. He says that being a Christian is not a hobby. Being a Christian is serious stuff. Being a Christian means asking yourself every step of the way, “How can love best be served?”

Do you think that this is a good definition?

Washer & Dryer

While folding the laundry after our trip to Sedona I was amazed at the strength of that red dirt. It seemed like none of it had washed out in the laundry. Nothing seemed to be any cleaner than before I had done the laundry. When I tried to rewash it I discovered that it wasn't that the dirt was so powerful. The problem was that my washing machine was broken. The clothes got wet, but the agitator had quit working and so my clothes weren't getting clean. It is my new washing machine too. I remember buying it right after my daughter's wedding twenty-five years ago. They just don't make things that last any more. After a bit of discussion and research we decided to buy a new washer and dryer. We wanted a new front-loading, high efficiency machine that uses less energy and less water and gets the clothes cleaner than the top loading variety. So for our Friday night night we went appliance shopping. Did you know that it costs a lot more money to get colored appliances? I like white best at that cost difference. We found just what we wanted and I was excited. I love getting new things. The price included delivery, haul away and installation of our new machines. When the delivery truck pulled up yesterday I was ready. I had purchased new, special detergent for front-loading washers. I had cleared out the laundry room. I had a big pile of dirty clothes. The young deliveryman looked at my old dryer and said he couldn't take it out. There is not an electrical outlet to unplug. Instead the dryer is hard-wired into the wall. I would have to get an electrician to come and disconnect it and put in an outlet. Then he looked at my washer and said he couldn't install the new one. I would have to hire a plumber because I had the wrong kind of drain pipe. I couldn't believe it. We have replaced them in the past without needing an electrician or plumber. The young man was very sorry but said he just couldn't do the installation. I sent my wonderful new front-loading, high efficiency washer and dryer back to the store. I am disappointed. We are in the process of figuring out what we need to do now.

Today I had to go to my daughter's house and do a pile of laundry.

Old Age

A good friend just sent me this email. Do you think she is trying to tell me something?

Just before the funeral services, the undertaker came up to the very elderly widow and asked,
'How old was your husband?' '98,' she replied.
'Two years older than me'
'So you're 96,' the undertaker commented.
She responded, 'Hardly worth going home, is it?
__________________
Reporters interviewing a 104-year-old woman:
'And what do you think is the best thing
About being 104?' the reporter asked.
She simply replied, 'No peer pressure.'
_____________________

The nice thing about being senile is
You can hide your own Easter eggs.
_______________________

I've sure gotten old!
I've had two bypass surgeries, a hip replacement,
New knees, fought prostate cancer and diabetes
I'm half blind,
Can't hear anything quieter than a jet engine,
Take 40 different medications that
Make me dizzy, winded, and subject to blackouts.
Have bouts with dementia
Have poor circulation;
Hardly feel my hands and feet anymore.
Can't remember if I'm 85 or 92.
Have lost all my friends. But, thank God,
I still have my driver's license.
__________________________________

I feel like my body has gotten totally out of shape,
So I got my doctor's permission to
Join a fitness club and start exercising.
I decided to take an aerobics class for seniors.
I bent, twisted, gyrated, jumped up and down, and perspired for an hour. But,
By the time I got my leotard on,
The class was over.
_________________________
 
My memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
__________________________

Know how to prevent sagging?
Just eat till the wrinkles fill out..
_______________________________
It's scary when you start making the same noises
As your coffee maker.
__________________________

These days about half the stuff
In my shopping cart says,
'For fast relief..'
___________________

THE SENILITY PRAYER :
Grant me the senility to forget the people
I never liked anyway,
The good fortune to run into the ones I do, and
The eyesight to tell the difference..

Colorful Sedona

I just have to do one more Sedona post. It is such a colorful, beautiful and peaceful place. I must share a few more pictures.

Cathedral rock


The Arizona sky was an amazing clear blue


Allyson and I taking a break along a red rock rail


This red cactus flower was one of the many flowers in bloom in the desert


We spent a lot of time here, a bird friendly garden along Oak Creek by the resort


Looking at submarine rock from uptown


Samantha in her blue Snoopy shirt posing in front of the Snoopy rock


It rained one day. This is Bell Rock from my favorite spot, the Church of the Holy Cross, built right into a cliff red rocks

Painted Desert

The Painted Desert is a national park about 100 miles from Sedona. What an interesting, beautiful place it is! The sand is red and blue and green and violet. It looks like an artist washed the sand with color. Indians once lived here. You can see the writings they have left behind on the rocks. As I looked at these ancient writings I wondered what they said and if one day in the distant future someone would see my writings and wonder what I had written. Part of this area is a petrified forest. An ancient forest of great trees lies on the sand where it has fossilized into great rocks that look just like the trees they once were. These tree-rocks are beautiful. We stopped at an old car placed on the roadbed of Route 66. I traveled that road many times with my parents. It is now long gone, replaced by a modern interstate. Only a few of the old curio stores and Indian gift shops remain from that old road. Many memories of long ago travels returned as we rode along I-40.

This big country of ours has many beautiful and interesting places to enjoy. I love being able to see some of them.



Aren't we cute


Petroglyphs


Petrified Wood




Gramma and Samantha at Route 66

Slide Rock

Oak Creek runs from the high mountains down into Sedona. It carves a beautiful green canyon as it flows downward. One day we went to play in Oak Creek at Slide Rock State Park, just north of town. What a delightful time we had! The water was painfully cold. I waded in and then quickly returned to a nice sunny rock to watch as others played in the water. David said that after a few minutes you became numb and then you could enjoy the water. The rocks are smooth here and provide natural slides in the water. Swimming and sliding all afternoon left everyone very tired, but very happy.

View from above the creek at Slide Rock


I'm not going back in that cold water


David enjoying the frigid water


Samantha going down the slide

Sedona Sunrise

Arizona is three timezones to the west. That meant we woke up early every day to begin our adventures. Our first morning we were all up before daylight and were off to watch the sunrise from airport mesa. I am told this area is one of Sedona's strongest energy vortexes, a place were the energy of the earth leaks out to the surface and re- energizes people. It was a beautiful place in the early morning, but this out-of-shape old lady felt more tired than energized after climbing to the top of the rocks. It was beautiful watching the sun come up. Sedona is one of those places where people go just to watch the sunrise and later to watch it set.


Coffeepot Rock at sunrise


David gazing toward the sunrise


My son and I nearing the top of the rocks

Here I am feeling the energy of the vortex before climbing the rocks.

Home

We're home.

Our trip was wonderful. Sedona is truly a beautiful place. I will soon have pictures to post of some God's beautiful creation.

Visiting with family was wonderful. We enjoyed long, easy conversations, soaked in the scenery together, went shopping, played games and just had a lovely time being together.

I am a blessed woman.

Sedona

Early tomorrow morning we are flying to Sedona, Arizona. We will be spending a week there with our son's family. To say we are excited about this trip would be a great understatement. We will have a week to enjoy one of the prettiest places in the world. We will enjoy it all with people we love. We will do some hiking, find some of those vortexes of energy, watch the sunrise, and then watch it set again.

I'll be back in a week with pictures and stories to share.

Hot, Flat and Crowded

I have just finished reading an interesting, informative and disturbing book, “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” by Thomas Friedman. He says that global warming, the stunning rise of the middle class all over the world, and rapid population growth have converged in such a way that is making our planet dangerously unstable. We need to do something now if we want to save planet Earth for our children and grandchildren.

The problem is far greater than I had ever imagined. My noble efforts at recycling, while the right thing to do, just won't make any difference. There needs to be a global effort by the governments around the world to cause the kind of change the earth needs to become a clean, safe place to live.

We have polluted our planet with the wastes of fossil fuels, spewing CO2 into the atmosphere at alarming rates. We need to stop now. Alternate sources of energy must be found, developed and used now. There are no easy answers. It will take hard work, sacrifice and a lot of money to make it happen. Friedman does have a vision of a brighter future and many suggestions on how to make this happen. His suggestion are controversial and will be hard to accomplish. It is difficult to make people see past the immediate concern and plan for the future. I don't know if our nation has the political will to make it happen.

One of his proposals is to phase in a gasoline tax of $5 to $10 per gallon. Some of that money would be used to help consumers to trade in their gas guzzlers for smaller, fuel efficient models. He says the best monument to 9/11 we could erect would be mountain of crushed gas guzzlers. Raising taxes is always unpopular , controversial and hard. Friedman claims this is the best solution to helping us accomplish what is need. The tax would help to reduce consumption, shift people to more fuel-efficient models, shrink the amount of money we send to petrodictators, improve the air quality, strengthen the dollar and balance payments, help mitigate global warming, and give citizens a feeling they are contributing something to the war on terrorism.

Would you be willing to pay a large tax on gasoline to help save our home?