Showing all posts in October 2020

The last day I saw my daddy and knew that he saw me we sat side-by-side in a hospital waiting room. He was scheduled for surgery to have a kidney stone removed.

It was October 26, 2007.

Thirteen years ago.

The procedure might have been routine except nothing had been routine for daddy in the six years since he was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease. He was 52 years old when we found out.

My whole life daddy had been our protector and provider. In a blink, he became our patient.

One of the ways my mom helped him was by posting calendar pages on their refrigerator door (chicken-themed because, well, you should see her kitchen.) This date, October 26, 2007, hung for many weeks after the actual day.

Maybe that’s why I remember it so clearly.

It marked the day daddy was admitted to the hospital for surgery to remove a kidney stone. It was the last morning he was home. He lived his last 3 weeks in that hospital.

I talked to my mom this morning about October 26, 2007. I said to her “The point of my blog today is… well, I don’t know what the point is. But I feel like I need to acknowledge the date.”

I don’t remember the last conversation I had with my daddy or his last words of advice to me. He was quiet in that waiting room. I wish I had known it was our last time to sit together, side-by-side.

So, I guess my point today is this:

Look for the lasts.

Not just the ones you can see coming.

But the ones that may happen on an October 26^th too.

“Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

(Psalm 90:12)

A cloud-free and cobalt blue sky reminded me this weekend of our family vacation to Disney World last January.  My husband Jeff had returned home from a 10-month deployment to Afghanistan and this was our celebration vacation. It was pretty much perfect.

One of my most fun memories didn’t actually have anything to do with Disney.

A skywriter was circling Epcot as we walked our way from Soarin’ to Mission: Space.  Our daughters Abby Kate and Lily had never seen a spectacle like this, and they were as entertained by the plane as anything Disney was offering at that moment.

We watched while the pilot painted the sky.

L… O…

As the plane spun, we tried to guess the next letters. We were encouraged (and Jeff and I somewhat relieved) when the plane finished its last loop-de-loop:

“Love God”

Very cool, we thought. Believing the show was over, we turned our eyes back to the familiar and favorite sites inside the park. Then, the plane returned and began to write again.

P… U…

“Put”

We arrived at the next attraction and hurried through the que to board, hopeful the words would hang in the sky long enough for us to see the rest. They did not. So, we took turns guessing what the message might have been.

“Love God. Put offering!” Abby Kate said with the kind of confidence she carries in all her opinions. Jeff and I joked that the finance committee at our church might recruit her.

I never decided my thoughts that day at Disney. I considered them again as I observed a similar blue sky while driving the interstate on Saturday.

I know exactly what my daddy would write:

Love God. Put Him first.

I have countless cards and letters from my college days in which daddy spelled out his priorities for me:

1. God
2. Study
3. Daddy

It wasn’t a bad list.

Study is no longer something I must do. Sadly, writing to my daddy isn’t either. He’s been gone nearly 13 years. Still, I want to keep him on my list. His words continue to influence my priorities.

One of my favorite writings from daddy is a Sunday School lesson on the Lord’s Prayer. It echoes his advice to Love God. Put Him First.

“If you are too busy to pray then you can’t have God in control of your life.”

Life competes for the top spot on our list, doesn’t it? 

Family.
Work.
Chores.
Naps.

(OK, that last one might just be me.)

I’m up past midnight writing this blog, even though I know my priority should be sleep. I can only imagine what my daddy would say about that.

As you start a new week, I encourage you to consider how you would fill in the blank.

Love God. Put _________________.

We may not be pilots painting words in the sky, but we are writing a message that others see every day. 

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”‘

(Matthew 22:37)

Sometimes I don’t know what to say. In life, yes, but also here. It seems an odd thing to admit because as a writer I feel words should be abundant.

I have struggled for at least two weeks to write what I feel is the right thing. This weekend alone I began and abandoned three blog posts.

It’s hard to type when your fingers are crossed, wishing for words to click.

Fridays are a day I write with intention.  But life outside of my computer last week kept me from engaging my thoughts in any sensible way. To salvage the day, I logged into my Hope*Writers library, a writing community filled with how-to tutorials, and scrolled through until my interest piqued. A thumbnail image titled “Developing Your Writer’s Voice” grabbed my attention, as mine feels grossly inadequate of late.

As we so often do, I expected immediate gratification and answers – a step-by-step instruction to excel at writing.

I found just the opposite. Instead of “write” I heard “wait.”

The new-to-me author named Ashlee Eiland talked about the practice she engages of stillness, silence, and presence.

On a morning when her father was scheduled for surgery, she stepped onto her deck and looked up at the sky.

“I saw a canopy of trees above me,” she said. “I saw there was not a cloud in the sky and I was given this overwhelming peace to say that ‘Ashlee it might seem like everything is swirling around you but it’s clear up here.’”

“It’s clear up here.”

I’ll take that on a t-shirt.

What is swirling around you today?

We are trying to buy a new car.

Swirling.

Fall break, while welcome, is interrupting our routine.

Swirling.

Even when I’m standing still my life right now feels like one of those corn mazes that are so popular in pumpkin patches this season. I may as well be surrounded by 7-foot stalks because I can’t see where I’m going or which turn I should take.

So, instead of looking forward I’m learning to look up.

I carry close a letter from my daddy. It’s tucked inside the front cover of my Bible so I can retrieve it when I need him. His words are appropriate for my looking and waiting.

“When in doubt, PRAY,” he wrote. “And then wait on God to lead you.”

Because God says, “It’s clear up here.”

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; think about Him in all your ways, and He will guide you on the right paths.”

(Proverbs 3: 5-6)

The feel of fall has nudged me towards nostalgia, stirring sentiment for the Saturday traditions of my childhood.

Football, yes. Food. A wood-burning fireplace.

And Saturday morning cartoons.

The Smurfs (La-la-la-la-la-la), He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, (By the Power of Greyskull!)  and Transformers (More than Meets the Eye!) were among the lineup. My brothers and I watched from our living room floor, wearing our pajamas, and eating sugary cereal on tin lap trays that folded over our legs and featured our favorite characters. My tray pictured Strawberry Shortcake.

The sound of the vacuum cleaner running through the hallway was a given on Saturdays, and sometimes the smell of Comet from the bathroom tub. Mom wore sweat clothes and no makeup as she dusted, scrubbed, and mopped.

Daddy worked a lot of Saturdays. On his rare days off he would golf, then come home to watch Alabama Crimson Tide football.  He would raise the living room windows, sit on the floor in front of his recliner and, while the TV was on, listen to the radio so he could hear Eli Gold’s play-by-play. The neighbors could hear through our open windows how well (or not) the Tide was playing by my daddy’s commentary.

Mom cooked, despite cleaning all day, though Saturday dinner was usually a one-pot meal: bacon goulash in the electric skillet or hobo dinners (hamburger, potatoes, carrots and onions wrapped in foil) on a sheet pan in the oven. While we ate, we watched Hee Haw or WWF wrestling. 

My hair was long, past my waist. Mom washed it on Saturday nights so that it was clean for church on Sunday. I would beg her to let it dry naturally while I sat in front of our wood-burning fireplace in the living room. I was cozy there. I still remember my favorite fleece nightgown, white with thin, pastel stripes and matching slipper socks that stretched up to my knees. (My hair never did dry enough in front of the fire and inevitably mom would sit me on the bathroom counter and use the hair dryer.)

I didn’t expect as a child in the 1980s that these routines would resonate in my adult life. My parents didn’t realize it, but they were creating a legacy. So are you.

A fellow Hope*Writer shared this idea on her blog in August. Rebecca Meeks writes,

“With intention, we are building a heritage that will make a difference for future generations.”

I invite you to read her entire “The Legacy Maker’s Manifesto” and consider the ways the rhythm of your life is impacting your home. What routines, rhythms and traditions remain with you?

Saturday life evolved as we got older and, of course, when we moved to college. One of my favorite parts of the letters my daddy mailed to me when I was in college are the details of his and mom’s daily life. I found a few with postmarks dated September and October 1996 and 1997:

“I am going golfing tomorrow… I done some work on our house and (Uncle) Donald also… Your mother wants a closet organizer in our closet. I have bought one but she doesn’t know about it yet. When I get time I will put it up.”

“I hope to have this old dead tree cut down before ya’ll get back home. I have got to go to bed so I can go to work.”

“… Sunday we found an entertainment center at Mazer Furniture… I went today and pick it up and it looks really good…”

I bet it looked good while he sat on the floor watching Alabama football and listening to Eli Gold.

I felt a little like my mom this weekend as I dusted and scrubbed on Saturday. Abby Kate bounced between TV and Toys. Lily enjoyed a friend’s birthday party. When I picked her up she said “I had fun but I’m ready to go home.”

Like my childhood Saturdays, ours now are simple. Television. Easy meals. And now, the feel of fall.

Life was good when I was a little girl.

It’s good now, too.

“Every good and perfect gift is from above..”

(James 1:17)