Happy Birthday, Baby Boy... I mean, John!

Baby Boy is three years old... and officially not the baby any longer.

I asked Little Girl a few weeks ago if she thought Baby Boy was going to be a big brother or a big sister. She hesitated, but she's a smart girl -- she didn't fall for it. :)

Baby Boy is indeed going to be a big brother... and we learned today that he's going to HAVE a little brother! We're all actually in shock as each and every member of the family has been convinced all along that the new baby is a girl, and in fact, the child had already been named with a girl's name that it is not likely to appreciate, given the circumstances. ;)

So while my brother and sister-in-law now begin the quest for a boy name, I too am on a quest for names... for Baby Boy isn't a baby anymore and two baby boys are going to get very confusing. And while I'm changing his name, I might as well change Little Girl's as unfortunately she's not going to be little forever, and is looking soooo big to me these days.

So, in honor of Baby Boy's current pirate passion, I now dub them Wendy, John, and Michael Darling. And Little Girl's little sort-of-brother will be Peter Pan.

So if you didn't get that:

My sister's children are: Little Girl, now known as Wendy. And a temporary baby boy known as Peter Pan.

My brother's children are: Baby Boy, now known as John. And the new baby boy, now known as Michael. And I will probably often call him Michael Darling while he is little, because when I was younger, I didn't realize Darling was the kids' last name, I actually thought the littlest one's name was Michael Darling. It was fitting, he was such a wee boy and so darling. :)

(Of course, we'll have to call my brother Captain Hook... what with the sawn-off finger and all!)

God's Knitting

A week ago today, I received the shocking news that my brother had cut off his finger in a power saw while building a playground for Baby Boy.

Since then, many thoughts and prayers have run through my mind. It's funny how you never realize how important a finger is until you -- or someone you know -- loses one. It immediately becomes critically important.

Psalm 139 is one of my favorite chapters of the Bible, and it's one that has crossed my mind a lot this week while praying for the healing of the finger.

Verse 13 says, "...you knit me together in my mother's womb." I love the use of the word "knit" in this verse, and it especially seems fitting in this situation as I pray for God to knit my brother's finger back together every bit as perfectly as He knit it together the first time -- in our mother's womb.

It's a strange thought really, to go back in time 31 years ago and think about God creating that tiny finger that we are praying so fervently for now. He knew then that one day that finger was going to be severed from its hand. When He made it perfect, He knew His creation would one day be destroyed. And He created it perfectly anyway. (You know there's totally a lesson in that.)

The strange part of it is the realization that MY fingers -- and everything else about me -- were knit together in that same womb just four years previously. Of course that's a fact that we know in our heads, but is that anything you've ever truly thought about? That you were inside your mother's womb? That you and your siblings spent the first nine months of being within that same womb?

Anyhow -- I know that if He so chooses, He can knit the finger back together every bit as beautifully as He did the first time. And in the meantime, He's already done lots of wonderful things through this tragedy.

My brother had planned to change his health insurance last month to one with a much higher deductible, and which had a 40% copay instead of the 20% he currently had. He forgot to do it. Boy, is he glad now.

They always have a cookout for Baby Boy's birthday. Last Saturday morning, before he went to the store with the intent to buy everything they would need for the party, they made the decision to order pizza this year instead. Had they not, they would have had a gazillion burgers and hotdogs, and all the fixings in their refrigerator -- and my brother is now not able to grill. Boy, are they glad they went with pizza.

The surgeon only operates on Tuesdays. This past Tuesday, he was solidly booked all day. Next Tuesday he is booked, as well. And following that, he's going on vacation for two weeks. It could very easily have been over a month before he could do the surgery on my brother's finger and in that amount of time, the bone would have healed and they'd have had to rebreak it, and who knows what might have happened with the tendons, nerves, arteries, etc. Monday afternoon -- just before my brother went in to have the finger looked at -- an extensive surgery that would have lasted several hours was cancelled, therefore freeing up his schedule for most of the day, enabling him to do surgery on the finger three days after the accident instead of a month afterward.

Healing is already good. The surgeon was impressed with how quickly the skin was regenerating and growing back together, and is hopeful that a skin graft may not even be needed after all. He didn't need to put a pin in the bone, as first thought, he simply wired it -- a procedure that will be much less painful and invasive to remove than if a pin had been required. The artery that was severed did not need to be operated on because the remaining artery was supplying good bloodflow to the finger and it was pink -- this is excellent because the surgery to replace the artery was very risky and only had a 50% chance of being successful, and even if it was successful, could result in problems later on down the road. Despite the appearance of the tendons being severed, my brother is able to bend the finger -- that's nothing short of a miracle as the doctor has no idea how he's able to do it. And finally, although he was initially told he would have numbness and tingling permanently due to the nerve damage, the surgeon was able to take a nerve out of his wrist -- one that he said would slow reaction time a little but there are other nerves to do the job and as it's his left hand it will be barely noticeable to him -- and put it in his finger. It's not yet known if that will be successful and restore normal sensation in the finger.

So we continue to pray that God will knit each and every part of the finger back to its original condition, and thank Him for all the answers He's already given.

The Phone Call

When something happens, do you ever go back and replay scenes in your mind and wish you could re-enter the scene and make some small change to prevent the something that happened?

I do. All the time. And yes, I've seen The Butterfly Effect. But I do it anyway.

Last night, my dad wanted me to come over as he had something to show me. When I got there, my brother was also there, borrowing my dad's saw. He's building a playground for Baby Boy's birthday present. "I was going to just go ahead and buy the pre-cut kit, but I priced them and it was $1000 for what I wanted to build and I can get the materials for it for just $300!" he exclaimed.

Wish he could go back and rethink that decision. Believe me, the kit would have been well worth the extra $700.

It really staggers the mind how life can change in a moment. Mat Kearney has a song out right now which has made me think of that each time I hear it, and think of the people for whom this has come true. "I guess we're just one phone call from our knees..." he sings.

I got one of those phone calls this afternoon. The totally unexpected kind that sends you into shock. It could have been a much worse phone call than it was -- but it was bad enough as it was.

My sister-in-law called. I had just talked to her an hour or so before, discussing potential gift ideas for Baby Boy's birthday, so I thought perhaps she had new information or ideas to share about that.

Instead, she said in the grimmest voice I have ever heard from her as she's one of the most optimistic cheerful people ever, "Can you come get Baby Boy? We're at the emergency room. Your brother cut off his finger."

!!!

I told her I'd be there as quickly as I could get there, and dashed out the door as waves of sickness washed over me. He cut off his FINGER. I know there are many many worse things that could happen to a person, but right now, cutting off a finger seems pretty bad!!

The emergency room experience was less than ideal. I hurried there as fast as I could drive amidst all the weekend traffic, parked the car, and dashed in frantically. I know panic was written all over my face, and after glancing around the waiting room and not seeing them, I ran up to the nurses' station. Four or five nurses were sitting there chatting with each other, and didn't even ask me what I needed!!

Now they didn't know who I was or why I was there. Someone runs into the emergency room with a look of panic and the nurses just ignore them? For all they knew, I was having a heart attack or something, or had someone dying out in my car that I needed help to bring in! And they just ignore me.

The security guard asked me if he could help me, and just then my sister-in-law came out with Baby Boy, handed him to me, said the side door was unlocked and she left chili cooking and could I please turn it off, and dashed off again.

I later learned that she had dropped my brother off at the entrance so he could run in and get help while she parked and got Baby Boy out of the car, and the same thing happened to him. He had to yell, "I CUT MY FINGER OFF!" to even get the nurses to look at him, and then, do you know what they said?

"You'll need to sign in."

Yeah. They really said that.

The security guard gave a disgusted look and said, "Give me the pen, I'LL sign him in!" He must be used to them...

Then they made him stand there, holding his hand wrapped in paper towels from home, mind you... and answer all sorts of ridiculous questions such as, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how much pain are you experiencing right now?"

When they took him back, they told him to lie down on the hospital bed, and they handed him some gauze. That was it. He lay there for two hours -- and had to put on the gauze himself!

When the orthopedic surgeon arrived, after examining and doing X-rays, he said he was going to stitch it up for now -- because apparently they don't do surgery on the weekends... -- and then he'd need to call Monday morning to see when they could fit him in. He then said, "Now I'm going to clean up the wound, just like they did earlier, and then stitch it together..." and my brother said, "They didn't clean it..."

The doctor was appalled. "They didn't clean it!?" he asked.

No. He sat there for hours with a piece of gauze, with all the dirt and germs and who knows what else right there in the wound.

So he cleaned it and sewed it back together and we'll see what happens. They don't know yet whether or not the finger can be saved. He'll have to have at least two surgeries, and maybe more -- a pin put in to hold the bone together until it grows back, the tendons repaired, skin grafting... There was some dead tissue (I can't help but wonder if that was due to lack of immediate treatment!) and he said it would depend on whether the rest of the tissue around it died as well, in which case he would lose the finger, or whether it was okay, in which case he felt they could save it and he could regain use of it except for some numbness and tingling which would be permanent. So we'll see what the next few days holds.

I am still in shock, I think. I surely do hope they can save it. I'd hate for him to have to tell his son, "Well, at least your playground didn't cost me an arm and a leg -- just a finger."

Family Reunion, Names, and just General Ramblings

Warning: This post has no continuity whatsoever. I had to add "general ramblings" to the title because really that's all this is. One long ramble.


Well, I'm home from the annual family reunion. And I'm officially afflicted with baby fever.

This is actually a good thing. Here I've wanted all my life to have a baby, and lately I've noticed I'm not terribly interested in babies. I think it's because I'm surrounded by babies and toddlers day in and day out for work. They're not MY babies, and I've become desensitized to the "ooh, a baby" thought that used to occur when seeing babies was a rarer thing.

We have a new little family member that I've not mentioned here yet because I wasn't exactly sure what to say about him. Or what to call him. I've been thinking about the kids' names for awhile and have come to the conclusion that they're going to have to change -- or at least, Baby Boy's is going to have to change. I haven't yet figured out what to change it to, but he's turning three years old, and is no longer a baby.

And now we have another baby boy in the family. And Baby #4, gender unknown but I'm very much hoping for a girl, is due in a few months. :)

So... names, names. Little Girl has assured me that she is going to stay little forever, so her name is fine. But the rest of them... any suggestions? :)

Anyhow, when Little Girl and I returned from South Dakota, she was a big sister. Long story and not one that needs to be told anyway, but at least for the time being, I have a new nephew and have absolutely fallen in love with him in no time. He'll tide us over until Baby Boy's new little sibling arrives this winter, and then maybe -- MAYBE -- by then things will finally be moving on the adoption front for me. I've never seen such a slow process...

A couple weeks ago, we all went out to eat after church, but my sister was involved in a meeting there and didn't come, so I took her kids -- Little Girl and the new baby. As we were leaving the restaurant, I was carrying him in his bulky carseat (note to self: when I have a baby of my own, take the Ma Ingalls route: SIMPLIFY. It's not hard to take the BABY somewhere, it's carting around all the junk that comes along with him that about kills you! It's crazy!) -- anyhow, I was lugging him in the carseat and asked Little Girl to open the door for me. She did so, and someone standing there commented that she was Mom's little helper.

Mom. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be called that and it not be a mistake...

Anyhow. Back to the reunion. We had a great time, but it was interesting to see Baby Boy's reaction to the new baby, considering he's got his own little sibling on the way. He's always been a mommy's boy -- and if mommy's not around, daddy will do -- very unlike Little Girl who has always been equally loving and affectionate with all of us. Baby Boy doesn't have a whole lot to do with any of us as long as Mommy or Daddy is around, and it drives me nuts.

So this weekend, I was holding the baby and Baby Boy just kept waaaatching... the minute someone took the baby from me, Baby Boy scrambled up on my lap... and sat there forEVER. He's never done this. He's not a lap-sitter (except for Mommy and Daddy). So I figured it's baby-jealousy. Which is going to make it very interesting when his own mommy and daddy, of whom he is so attached and possessive, have another one.

I commented on what had happened to my brother, and he snapped his finger at Baby Boy -- "Come on, get up."

"WHAT!?" I said, still holding him -- "Why does he have to get up!??"

"He needs to get over it," my brother commented.

"Noooo!" declared I. "I've been waiting almost THREE YEARS for him to be cuddly, and now that he's finally done it, you're telling him to get over it!?"

He's actually been a lot more interested in me ever since I went with him to Disney World. Whatever the reason, I'm quite happy about it. I like this new Baby Boy that actually acts like he likes us. :)

While on the reunion, we did a few fun activities. One was an old steam engine train ride that went to a historic settlement. This was the entire reason I wanted to take the train ride -- to visit the village! Little Girl and I were quite looking forward to this, and finally we arrived. Imagine my shock to hear other people (NOT in our family) on the train muttering, "We have to spend a HALF HOUR here???" and "I'm just going to stay on the train and wait."

!!!!

What on earth!? Why don't these people appreciate history? Meanwhile I was complaining about the half hour as not being NEARLY long enough! We rushed through and didn't even get to half of it.

We stayed on a big farm. Little Girl's Ingalls Homestead experience was apparently evident, as she was right at home in the barn. The owner adored her, said she's his little farmer girl and make sure we bring her back next year so he can put her to work.

On the way home, she told me she wants to live on a farm.

I do too. I know just the farm I want. Unfortunately, it's owned. :)

Maybe someday.

Done rambling now. Sorry about that. :)

Digging Up My Roots: Genealogical Gardening

My thumb is anything but green.

I like flowers. They're pretty to look at. I gaze admiringly upon the lawns of other people who clearly have a gift for gardening. But then I return to my own yard of nothing but grass, without a single splash of color to pretty it up. You see, I have no interest in gardening. No interest in digging around in dirt. No interest in investing effort into planting and watering and pruning and all the other things you have to do to plants. Not that I know much about that. With no interest... I've never bothered to learn.

It wasn't always this way. When I was a little girl, I loved to help my grandmother with her flowers. My grandparents had a vegetable garden too, and each of us grandkids had a stalk or a vine or something of each kind of vegetable they grew for our very own.

But somewhere between childhood and adulthood, gardening went out the window.

Now I'm thinking perhaps it was situational. First I had a little house where I could have gardened, and actually did put in some flowers one summer. But I left that little house each summer to vacation for 4-6 weeks at a time, and that made gardening impossible. So I stopped.

Then my next home, now that I think about it, really didn't have much of anywhere to put flowers. I had to weed the groundcover and that was a hot and miserable task that required so many precautions to keep from getting poison ivy, which I somehow kept managing to get even though we killed every poison ivy plant we found, that no wonder gardening was the last thing in the world I wanted to do.

But now I have a nice yard with all these empty, yet prepared, flower beds here, there, and everywhere. I groaned just thinking about all the work it would be to put flowers in so many beds, and I did nothing. No flowers for me. We'll just have mulch beds surrounding the deck. Maybe someday, when I have kids, I'll plant flowers and let the kids help but right now -- I just don't want to.

That all changed Saturday. If you clicked the link in my last post, then you saw the picture of the cemetery with all the daylilies covering it. My great-great-grandmother planted those lilies, and my cousin announced that she was going to get some and plant them in her yard.

Now that appealed to me. Flowers in and of themselves are pretty to look at, but just not significant enough or important enough to me to bother with. But flowers planted by my great-great-grandmother? Those are significant. I wanted some too.

So while we were at the cemetery, we dug up some of those tiger lilies and I brought them home and planted them. I especially liked the fact that my cousin kept telling me as I asked questions, "You can't kill them! They are virtually unkillable!" I like a virtually unkillable plant. :)

So as we drove the long way home, I asked my cousin about her interest in gardening, and how and when that all came about. And as she chattered eagerly about plants she had gotten from older relatives -- plants I knew nothing about until this day -- I sensed a new addiction growing.

I want those plants too. I want Great Aunt Mandy's snapdragons from North Carolina. And if Mammaw's favorite flowers have always been zinnias, ever since she was a little girl, I want to plant some of those too, even if they aren't what I would pick out myself. I want Aunt Mary's mother's peonies. Maybe I'll even get adventurous enough to get a cutting of my mother's Christmas cactus, which was cut from Mama Walton's Christmas cactus... the real Mama Walton, you know, Mama Hamner. I've always wanted to, but I was afraid I'd kill it.

You see, in transplanting my lilies, I discovered that planting and watering really isn't so bad after all. In fact, I kind of like it. And when the flowers are more than just pretty blooms, but have family significance -- well, I'm all over that.

So something tells me I have a new hobby in the works. We'll see how it goes. :)

A Graveyard Surprise

Remember this? The trip last summer to the family cemetery which has been utterly neglected for who knows how long?

That cemetery and its condition has weighed heavily on my mind since then. So in recent weeks, I took it upon myself to do something about it. I recruited some volunteers, and yesterday we headed back out to the cemetery for a full day's work.

This is what we had to work with.

Yes, inside that fence, there really is a cemetery... somewhere.

Several hours later, with a lot of equipment and hard work, my dad, brother, cousin and I turned THAT into THIS:

(The first picture was taken from the top of the cemetery looking down, and this picture was taken from the bottom of the cemetery looking up, if you're wondering about the vast change in background.)

It was discouraging to find that several of the stones have been broken and knocked down. By cows, we're guessing, as cow patties were found scattered throughout the cemetery. Their pasture is all around the cemetery and we can only assume that someone has left the cemetery gate open for them...

Fortunately, one cousin married an undertaker, who formerly worked in a cemetery, and she's hopeful that he will know how to repair the stones, and also get us some new markers at cost for the graves that lie unmarked in this cemetery.

My great grandmother drew us a cemetery map before she died, and it's a good thing she did, for there are several unmarked graves and after she died, there would have been nobody left who remembered who they were or where they were buried. Now we have the record and I feel burdened to provide those individuals with some sort of marker as a remembrance.

So, we've got some work ahead of us yet, but it is such a relief to have the cemetery cleaned off, to be able to actually see the graves and walk through the cemetery, and we're working on a plan to make sure it stays cleaned off this time. I am really looking forward to taking my grandmother back to the cemetery later this summer to see it, and hopefully erase from her memory the desecration she saw last summer... She has no idea we went out and did this, so it will be a really fun surprise. :)

A Memorable Memorial Day

Way out in the middle of nowhere, on the top of a steep mountain up which no vehicle can drive, lies a cemetery.

And in that cemetery is the grave of my grandmother.

I was 15 years old the first time I ever visited this cemetery. My great-grandfather died and he too was buried here. They used a crane to hoist the coffin up the mountain-side, and we all hiked up. The place had the charm of a bygone era... with its smattering of old graves, many of which were marked with nothing but a rock with no way to know now who was laid to rest in that place.

We've been out there two or three times since then, and each time we had an incredibly difficult time finding the spot. I got smart the last time we went, and drew a map, marking clearly each turn with its landmarks.

So out we went, my brother and sister and I, along with Little Girl and Baby Boy. I drove the lead car and my brother followed, and confidently we took turn after turn using the map I drew several years ago on our last visit. Everything was going well when we reached a fork in the road. We were waiting for a particular "street sign" which was put up when 911 was put into the county and everyone had to be assigned a "street address." The sign itself cracked us up as the road name was "Left Fork Johnson's Fork Little Ann Creek Road." Yes, this was all on one of those green street signs.

But here was a fork, and we hadn't yet reached that sign. We hesitated. "Left," my sister said. "I'm sure we go left." I turned left skeptically but we both breathed a sigh of relief as the first house came into sight around the bend. "That house looks familiar!" we both exclaimed in relief.

But I still wanted to see the map and make sure we were on the right track and try to figure out how this turn had come about that we weren't expecting. So I pulled into the driveway and my brother pulled in next to me. We rolled down our windows.

"We're almost there," I told him. "I know we're close, we just aren't positive which way to go because that fork isn't marked on my map."

"I know we're going the right way," my sister kept saying. "I KNOW we are. She won't trust me."

Meanwhile my brother is exclaiming, "We're in somebody's DRIVEWAY! We're at somebody's HOUSE!" I wasn't terribly concerned about that...

So we kept driving. Long story short, we drove way out that road, then came back and tried the other fork, and then came back to try the first fork again, figuring we must not have gone far enough.

Just as we approached that same driveway that had initially upset my brother so much, my sister says, "WAIT! Isn't that the barn that says HOWDY on it!?"

Sure enough, the final landmark, the HOWDY barn, was right there, with the letters nearly worn away which is why we'd not noticed it before. No wonder that house looked so familiar to us both, and nothing farther on did. THAT was the place!! The street sign we were looking for must have been pulled down.

I quickly pulled right back into that same driveway and we were laughing so hard, wondering what on earth my brother must be thinking to see us turn right back into that same spot.

We got out, laughing -- in the pouring rain, mind you, not the best weather for a cemetery visit on top of a mountain, but we couldn't help that -- and explained to him that this was indeed the place. And then we began the climb.

After crawling under the tree that blocked the path, I turned around and took this shot. I think you can make out our cars parked at the bottom of the hill, which gives you some idea of how ridiculously steep this climb was. And we weren't quite halfway there yet. :)

At last we reached the cemetery. The kids had a wonderful time exploring. They planted flowers at our grandmother's grave and picked daisies from the surrounding woods to lay on other graves.

Their friends were having picnics and pool parties and parades. But in our family, Memorial Day has always been a day to visit the cemeteries and decorate all of the family graves.

Family traditions handed down from previous generations are what memories are made of. I think our kids had a better day than their friends. What do you think?

The Family Reunion

I was asked by a friend who was looking at pictures and video of my family reunion if our family was always "close and smiley and laughing"?

My answer was yes. I've come to realize in working with so many different families that our family really is somewhat unique in this regard. Being together with the entire family is not hard in any way. It is easy. It is fun. We laugh and joke and have a great time. When there is "arguing" over sports or politics, it's all in fun, and everyone knows it, so even then, it's still fun.

Our family has always been close. My grandparents had four children; three of their children (including my mother) remained in the same town. We all went to the same church, we kids all went to the same school. After school, we were all at my grandparents', and on Sundays after church, the whole family was there. So we spent a lot of time together during our growing-up years, and I think that my grandfather's focus on always treating each of us fairly and equally (he wouldn't even take one child's family out to eat without giving money to each of the other families so their family could go out to eat too!) and my grandmother's peacemaking nature that was intolerant of any arguing or dissension is what created this wonderful family.

So... we all spent the weekend in the mountains, and it was an extra special occasion because for the first time, my grandmother, and every single one of her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, were present. (One spouse was unable to attend, other than that the entire family would have been complete.) We get together, almost the whole family, at least two or three times a year, but there are always a couple of people that aren't able to be there for various reasons -- but this time, we all made it!

We stayed at the same ranch that we stayed at last year, but this year we just happened to pick the same weekend that the ranch later chose for a whole host of special activities. Which they let us do for free. (There was a $25 concert and a $10 activity fee per person, and they didn't charge us a cent! And there were 28 of us... so that's a LOT of money!)

I was one of the last to arrive, as I didn't take the day off as many did, and I was surprised to see a hot air balloon out in the field in front of the cabins as I drove in. I went into the main cabin where we always gathered, and learned that everyone (except the scaredy cats) had already gone up in said balloon, including Little Girl, who wasn't at all afraid, which surprised me. So a cousin and my sister-in-law volunteered to come with me to go for my own ride.

I've never ridden in a hot air balloon before, and I honestly thought it would be a little frightening. I'm not terribly afraid of heights, but I thought that the basket would wobble and tip and feel unsteady and that, at such a height, would be a little frightening, but I was wrong. It was solid and stable as could be, and I have to admit it was actually a little disappointing as a result. After all, there's some fun in being safely scared...

I couldn't decide whether I wanted to pretend to be the Wizard of Oz, or Carrie Ingalls in the Little House on the Prairie episode where she's in the runaway hot air balloon. :)

After that, we built a big bonfire and sat around singing songs, my cousin accompanying us on the guitar. He had us do one song where we sang, "Hello, my name is ____ and I want to be a..." and we had to fill in an animal that began with the same letter as our name, and then act it out. The kids loved it, especially seeing the adults all being silly enough to act like various animals. :)

We had several cabins rented, and my immediate family had one. Unfortunately, when we rented these cabins, we got a three bedroom because we thought my brother and family would be living in Florida and unable to attend. When we got the good news that they were staying, it was too late, there were no four bedroom cabins left. So there were a whole bunch of us, and only 3 full sized beds. And a couch. And I brought an air mattress. As it turned out, Little Girl and I ended up sleeping on the air mattress on the living room floor, and let me tell you, it was COLD. Neither of us hardly slept all night for shivering, despite warm pjs and blankets.

Everyone sleeping upstairs came down the next morning complaining about how hot they were all night. Sigh. So my brother and sister-in-law decided to trade and take the air mattress the next night. Little Girl and I were definitely not afraid of being too hot at that point.

That night of coldness set off an entire day of never feeling warm enough. It was a sudden weather change as it was, we had had nice warm fall weather all along, and suddenly the temperature had dropped about 30 degrees, and not being used to it, we felt the cold more. Also, nobody brought coats as we were totally unprepared for such chilliness.

So, the next morning, we all headed to the big house for breakfast, then various groups made their decisions about how to spend the day. A bunch of the guys went golfing. Another large group decided to go to a local festival. I bowed out of that one, crowds and cold combined were not at all appealing to me. So four of the great grandkids, all little girls ranging from 6 to 11, and about 4 adults and I stayed behind. I took the two littlest girls, one being Little Girl, to the playground and zoo housed on our ranch.

It was definitely the right choice. We had a wonderful morning. The man who took care of the animals was there feeding them, and when he brought out the camel, he let the girls feed and pet it. Then he told them he had two baby camels in the barn and he would bring them out for them to see. They were SO CUTE. And watching those two little girls chasing those two baby camels down the road was also so cute. :) They spent a good deal of time petting and feeding them, and they were very social little camels and loved the attention.

After a couple hours, we decided we were tired of being cold and we went back to the cabin, where the kids played and the adults relaxed, as we waited for the rest of the crew to come back.

One of my cousins and his wife had gone hiking, way out in the wilderness far away from any houses, and a cat had found them and followed them the entire way back to the car. It was very friendly and loving, but all matted and dirty. They decided it must have been a pet but was either extremely lost or abandoned, and they couldn't just leave it out there on its own when it didn't appear equipped to live in the wild, so they brought it back with them, and another cousin was thrilled to adopt it. Once they cleaned it up and cut out the mats in the fur, it looked like a very nice cat, and it was extremely friendly with everyone. So we welcomed Kirby the Cat as the newest member of the family. :)

When the folks came back from the event, they only had one funny story to tell us. It seems they lost my uncle. They had split into two groups, and one group called the other to ask if he was with them, because they couldn't find him anywhere. My mother was the one who answered the phone. Apparently she told her group that my uncle was lost, and she supposed they'd better help look for him... but let's go eat first. LOL.

What had happened was, my uncle who is getting up there in years and has a bad hip due to an accident years ago anyway, was worn out from the day's events, and he told my cousins to go on back to the car and come pick him up, as they had come quite some distance. They did as instructed, but apparently drove right by him, while he stood there by the side of the road waving his arms at them.

They did eventually find him, and all made it safely back to the ranch, where they found my cousin and I out with the four little girls, participating in all the fun activities on the ranch. There were pumpkins -- the "big kids" (including two adult cousins) carved them, and the little kids painted them. The girls also painted Halloween masks. There were some inflatables there, including a giant wall to climb. All the girls tried, but none of them made it up very far. :) They bobbed for apples. And there was popcorn and cotton candy.

After all this fall fun, we walked back to the main cabin, where we had a cookout while the little girls splashed in the hot tub that they apparently thought was a swimming pool, while my cousin wrote a song and taught it to them -- yes, he wrote a song right there on the porch with four little girls splashing in the hot tub around him, the lad is talented -- and then we all gathered around for memory time. We had all been instructed to write memories of my grandmother, and my aunt read each one and we had to guess who had written it. Many were obvious from the way they were written, of course, but a few were harder to guess. There were many sweet memories shared, but many funny ones too, and we spent a good couple of hours doing this, and it was so much fun.

Then we had another bonfire, and more singing. This time my cousin changed up the name song. We had to sing, "Hello, my name is ____, and I'm sitting next to ____. And he/she is very..." and then fill in a compliment about that person. It was a great game, and it turned out to have its funny moments too. :) For example, when the lost uncle just happened to be sitting next to the cousin who was responsible for losing him, and his compliment was, "Well, he was nice enough to drive me to the event today... even though he did drive right past me and leave me standing by the side of the road, and he drives like a turrible knucklehead!" ;)

And then there was the moment that my aunt received the compliment of being brilliant from the person next to her, and then on her turn, my cousin sang, "Hello my name is..." and everyone waited as she just sat there. And he prompted again, "My name is???" and another aunt chimed in, "She's so brilliant she doesn't even know her own name!" :)

And the moment when my aunt, complimenting the cousin doing all the singing, said, "He's really good for a good time!" and instantly, my cousin jerks his head up and says, "Who've YOU been talkin' to!?!?" ;)

After more songs and more stories around the campfire, we finally called it a night and turned in. My sister insisted that Little Girl and I would be sorry for trading beds, that we would be way too hot, that we'd be kicking all the covers off. We were perfectly comfortable, although Little Girl certainly tosses and turns a lot and at one point in the night I was awakened by a little leg flopping across my stomach. The next morning, I observed that we were both still under blankets, and I asked her if she had been too hot. "I was hot under my covers," she said. "But one leg was cold because it was sticking out of the covers."

"Would that be the leg I discovered lying across my stomach in the middle of the night?" I queried. :)

We all had breakfast together again and then it was time to part and head in various directions for our homes.

It was a great weekend, and I just have to say that I'm glad God put me in the family that He did. Because we've got the best one ever. :)

The Day I Nearly Lost My Innocence...

So, a blog post by a friend about taking back words that used to have perfectly harmless meanings but have been twisted into having negative connotations in more recent years to the extent that nobody ever uses the words to mean what they originally did caused me to remember a funny little story from my childhood.

Once upon a time, I had a great-aunt who was very dear to me, more like a grandmother really, for she raised my father after his mother died when he was very young.

She was your stereotypical sweet little Christian old lady. She lived in a terrible neighborhood, where drugs and murders were rampant, but she wasn't at all afraid. No, she was a soul-winner and never missed an opportunity to ask these people that the rest of the world had given up for lost the age-old question, "If you die tonight, do you know where you'll go?" and then proceed to share the gospel story with them.

That background is necessary to appreciate the full humor of this story -- to help you picture the Bible-quoting Sunday School teacher that she was.

So I must have been about 9 or 10 years old, and mind you, I lived a very innocent and protected life, and on this particular day I was visiting with my great-aunt. Just me, it was a special treat that I was permitted to do from time to time and I loved nothing better.

So on this day so long ago, we were playing a game of Bible Trivia. We loved to play games together, but they were always Christian games -- Glory, Pilgrim's Progress, etc. This lady's entire life revolved around Jesus, I'm telling you.

I selected a card and read her the question: "Which part of the body was named after a character in the Bible?"

She thought for a moment, then answered, "Peter."

"Huh??" I said cluelessly. "It says what part of the body..."

She nods. "Yes, I know."

"But what part of the body is called Peter?" I asked in bewilderment.

She suddenly becomes quite nervous, and says she doesn't know what she was thinking, and what was the answer?

"Adam's apple..." I read off the back of the card. "But why did you say Peter?"

She dismissed the entire conversation and moved quickly along to the next question. I likely would have forgotten all about it, except that she called me that night.

"I wanted to apologize for what I said this afternoon," she says to me. "I never should have said that. I don't know what I was thinking."

"What did you say?" I questioned, straining to remember what on earth she might have said to me that she would feel the need to apologize for.

"When I answered that question and said Peter," she reminded me. "I'm really sorry, I never should have said that."

I was completely lost as to the reason for her apology, of course, and curiosity over just what this was really all about caused me to remember it years later, when I finally discovered what she meant, and just why she was so upset about this.

And looking back, I find it hysterically funny that she of all people was the first person to expose me to language bordering on vulgar.

It's always those sweet innocent old lady types that have everybody fooled, you know...

Neglected Graves

"Neglected graves are a shameful thing," according to Martha Corinne Walton. I must agree.

When I was a little girl, Memorial Day was far more than just a day off from school. It was an exciting and very special day indeed, greatly anticipated in the days preceding it. For on Memorial Day, my grandparents would help me cut flowers off the big bush in their front yard, and the whole family would head to the local cemeteries to place the flowers on the various family graves.

"Don't waste your money on flowers for me," my grandfather would say. "Just pick me some flowers out of the yard, that's all I want."

This tradition has endured for generations in our family. My grandmother told me that when she was a little girl, she too celebrated Memorial Day, or Decoration Day, by going with her grandmother up to the family cemetery on the hillside behind their farmhouse to decorate the graves. It's a tradition we continue to pass on to the next generation, as well. Little Girl is now the one cutting the flowers off that very same bush that I once did, and true to my grandfather's wishes, she decorates his grave with them each Memorial Day.

My grandmother left the family farm when she was married and moved to the city several hours' drive away. In the next few years, the rest of her family moved out and the farm was sold. But those family members continued to return to the old farm to care for the family cemetery on the hill. I went several times with my grandparents when I was little to mow and trim the cemetery. Several members of my grandmother's family took turns so that each of them only had to go out a couple times a year to mow, but through the decades, the cemetery was always well-maintained.

My grandmother is the only surviving member of her family now, and at 85 years of age, hasn't been able to make the trip to the family cemetery in years. This weekend, we decided to take her, and most of the family went along to see the old farm that most of us hadn't seen in many years.

When we arrived, we were in for quite a shock. The owners of the property hadn't kept the cemetery cleaned off at all. Weeds grew 4-5 feet in height, filling the entire cemetery. I understand that the present owners don't know anyone in the cemetery; it isn't their family. But I would be ashamed to have a cemetery on my property and allow it to look like that. It's disrespectful, and it wouldn't be that much effort just to use a weedeater 2 or 3 times a summer to keep it from getting out of hand.

My grandmother didn't say anything. I can't even imagine what must have been going through her mind to see the cemetery she spent so many decades returning to care for in the shape it was currently in. To be brought up within a family who emphasized the importance in caring for the family graves, to teach her own children and grandchildren and now great-grandchildren to keep flowers on the graves, and then to come back to her family cemetery after all these years and see the graves of her beloved grandparents, her brother, a niece and two nephews in such condition. It was heartbreaking to even think about it.

Orange lilies sprinkled amongst the weeds at least added a bit of color and beauty to the mess. My grandmother said that her grandmother always kept flowers growing around the cemetery -- and those were the very kind of flowers she planted. How interesting to think that the flowers she planted close to a hundred years ago bloom on her own grave today. Despite the lack of care given to the cemetery, she ensured that flowers would grow on the family graves for many years to come.

Mothers Day Visit

My favorite lines of the weekend:

My grandmother, after looking through an album of pictures from the Disney trip my sister and I took Little Girl on this winter:

"Why, you two look enough alike to be sisters!"

That's good, Mammaw. We ARE sisters...

***

And Little Girl, upon walking past the gravestone my mother put out in the garden for our cat who died a couple years ago:

"Why did Socks die?" Someone answered her that she got very old, and dying is just something that happens when you get old. "Do people die when they get old too?" she queried, and was told that yes, they do.

Little Girl then pointed to Mammaw, who is 84 years old, and said, "All except HER -- she's doing a good job!"

***

My mother to Little Girl, concerning Baby Boy: "Oh, don't hurt his little legs!"

They were play-wrestling on the floor, and Baby Boy had Little Girl in a headlock with his legs and was kicking her face to death. Don't hurt his little legs, indeed.

***

My other favorite lines were:
"Grandpa!"
"Grandma!"
"Little Girl!" (her real name, of course)
"Cracker!"
"WIGGLES!!!!"

Baby Boy is finally adding WORDS to his vast vocabulary of signs for his most favorite things. Hooray!

A Hillbilly Wedding

My sister is married. Little Girl has a new stepfather.

I still recall the day my sister called me to update me on the status of her wedding. "Did you hear we've changed the date?" she asked.

"Again?" was my response.

Before I tell you the rest of this conversation, I must provide some history. My sister was planning to get married LAST October, in Gatlinburg. Why Gatlinburg? Fiance's sister was working there and couldn't get a single day off work, so they said. And his sister HAD to be there. So our ENTIRE family, as well as the rest of HIS entire family, all had to go to Gatlinburg for this wedding to accommodate ONE person.

Nobody was terribly happy about it, but no amount of complaining would change their minds. If they wanted to get married in Gatlinburg simply because THEY wanted to get married in Gatlinburg, then that would be one thing. But the only reason they were doing this was for his sister. Personally, I think she could have gotten ONE day off if it was that important that she attend. But that's beside the point.

So in the spring, my sister stressed the importance of everyone finding accommodations. "You need to hurry up and reserve something," she kept saying. "October is prime season in the Smoky Mountains... everything's going to be booked."

So we all made reservations. My aunts and uncles were all renting a big cabin and staying together. I booked a room in a bed and breakfast next door to the wedding chapel for us. Did I mention that these reservations had to be paid for immediately and were non-refundable unless they could be rebooked, and then a 15% rebooking fee was applied?

So not two weeks after everyone has made their nonrefundable reservations, my sister announces that they've changed their minds, and they're going to wait a year to get married. Now don't get me wrong -- I'm glad they decided to wait. Fiance wasn't sure he was ready to be a dad to Little Girl yet and wanted more time to adjust to the idea, and to give her time to adjust to the idea. I'm all for that. But couldn't they have decided this a couple of weeks sooner?

Despite the fact that fall is prime season in the Smokies and we had difficulty making reservations, strangely enough, nobody wanted to rebook our rooms/cabins. Hundreds of dollars going down the drain here; we were not pleased. So many members of my family decided, "We were looking forward to this big family outing down in the Smokies, and we've got these rooms anyway, so let's just go!" I gave my B&B room to my parents and did not attend this family reunion, but many aunts, uncles, and cousins did attend.

They rented a big van and some of them drove down together. Now for some character introduction here -- my grandparents had four children: Phillip (who married Mary), Pattie (mother of my "twin cousin" Amy), my mom, and Jo. On a shopping excursion in the big van were: Jo driving and my mom in the passenger seat; in the middle row were Pattie and Mary; and Amy sat in the back. Reread that and make sure you know who all these people are, because the relationships are important... Jo, Mom, and Pattie are sisters; Mary is married to their brother. All fine Christian people; salt of the earth. Important to know.

Now Jo is the talker of the family, and she had talked SO much during this family reunion weekend that she had lost her voice. She was pulling the van out of a parking garage, and the traffic on the street was very busy. She wanted to go left, and waited and waited and waited for a break in traffic. At last, she decided to put the van in park while she waited. As vehicles will sometimes do when shifting gears, the van jolted forward just slightly.

At this very same moment, a woman pushing a stroller happened to be walking in front of the van. When the van made its little jolt, she looked up angrily and began shouting. "Are you trying to HIT me?" she yelled, and then let forth a stream of profanities. This van full of good Christian women were a bit appalled, but the woman continued on and was soon forgotten.

At last, Jo decided they were never going to be able to turn left, so she decided to turn right. As they drove down the street, they saw the lady pushing her stroller along the sidewalk. Before anyone else in the van even realized what was happening, Jo swerved the van right up by the sidewalk, rolled down my mother's window, leaned across her and starting shaking her finger at the woman and shouting in her hoarse gravelly voice, "I wasn't trying to hit you!" Due to the vocal loss she was experiencing however, not a word she said could have been understood by the woman at the street; all she saw was this crazy woman shaking her finger at her and growling out something unintelligible.

Once more, the woman let loose a string of profanities. Instantly, Pattie leaned forward from behind Jo, also across my mother, and shot that woman the finger. Every woman in the van, herself included, was in absolute shock.

Amy gasped from the back seat and said, "MOM, put that back in its holster!" Pattie said in shock over and over, "I can't believe I just did that. I have never done that before in my life. I swear I have NEVER done anything like that before! I don't know what came over me!"

But the funniest part of the whole story was Mary, who sat stunned, shaking her head back and forth and saying, "Oh my... oh my... they're all JUST LIKE PHILLIP!"

Well, everyone had such a good time at that reunion, and such great laughs over the van incident, that Jo decided we need to do a family trip like that every year. And she planned everything out for us this year, a nice little country ranch a couple hours' drive away, for the weekend AFTER my sister's wedding. A wedding which was now going to be a nice normal wedding, at home, in our church, by our pastor.

Let us now resume the phone conversation with my sister.

"AGAIN?" asked I. "Yes," answered my sister. "We're going to have it at the family reunion."

Lengthy pause while I LAUGH my head off. I seriously did. I laughed, and I laughed, and I laughed. But she was serious. They were indeed getting married at the family reunion.

And so they did. A true hillbilly wedding if you ever saw one.

It was an interesting ranch. They had animals there. Exotic animals. I was awakened at 6 am by something growling outside the cabin. I thought it was a bear. No. Nothing so normal as a bear. It was an ostrich.

My uncle went out fishing at the pond. But the fish were all scared away by the lion that kept roaring at him. Now that's a great fish story if I ever heard one.

Goats and sheep roamed all over the place. The little girls had a wonderful time playing with them and naming them all. Nearly the whole family attended. We filled up three large cabins in all.

And this is where my sister got married. Outside the largest cabin. She wore a white "church" dress. Her fiance wore a suit. So did the pastor who drove in from her fiance's church. Little Girl wore a beautiful flower girl dress. And everyone else wore jeans and t-shirts. Because we like to dress up for a wedding, y'know.

His family drove in just for the wedding itself. I had wondered if they were going to attend our family reunion. That would have been just too weird. Some of the men of the family decided to go golfing instead of waiting around for the wedding. Because golfing is more important.

The ceremony lasted all of five minutes. My cousin was supposed to provide the music but he had a panic attack the night before and backed out. So the four little girls in the family did a beautiful job humming "Here Comes the Bride" while the bride walked down the... uh... hill. Nobody thought to bring any rice, so the little girls picked up gravels out of the road and tossed them. Hey, we have to do things up right, after all! We quickly sent the bride and groom away. "Do you all want to come and have lunch with us? We're going to this nice little cafe in town. It will be like a reception."

"Um, no..." we all made excuses. "You see, there's this motorboat ride down the river and if we hurry, we can get there before the last boat leaves..." And off we all rushed to our cars, leaving the bride and groom to dine with HIS family while we went on a boat ride. :)

We're going to have our family reunion there every fall. To celebrate their anniversary. Won't they love that? :) That's what they get for choosing to be married at the family reunion!

A Wartime Romance

Every cloud has a silver lining. My grandfather used to tell us that if it weren't for Hitler, none of us kids would be alive. He grew up in the tobacco fields of North Carolina; my grandmother on a farm in extremely rural Kentucky. Here is the story of how they met and married.

Pappaw was stationed in Fort Knox, where he met and became friends with Mammaw's brother Edwin. It was the summer of 1941, and the boys were given the weekend off. It was too far for Pappaw to go home, he wouldn't have time to go there and back, so Edwin invited Pappaw to come home with him. Pappaw couldn't help but notice Edwin's pretty young sister peeking out at him from behind a tree when they arrived at the farm.

It was Friday evening, and Pappaw, Edwin, several of Edwin's siblings including Mammaw, and some friends in the area all went out driving around. Mammaw spent the entire evening by Pappaw's side, and he kept his arm around her.

Unbeknownst to her, Edwin had a talk with Pappaw that night. "Keep away from her," he warned. "She has to finish high school." She still had a year to go before she graduated.

The next evening, the group went out again, and decided to see a movie. Mammaw fully expected that she would be paired up with Pappaw again, but was surprised when he paired up with her older sister Clara instead, leaving her to sit with a girlfriend at the movie. She thought to herself, "Well how did THAT happen?" He spent the remainder of the evening with Clara.

The next morning, the family left to walk to church. Pappaw was asleep on the couch when they left. Mammaw forgot her sweater and went back in for it, and Pappaw opened his eyes and beckoned, "Come over here."

"What for?" she asked.

"Because I want to kiss you!" he said.

"You can't kiss me!" she declared in shock. "You're going with Clara!"

"No, I'm not!" he responded, but she refused to let him kiss her.

The boys went back to Fort Knox that afternoon, but Mammaw knew that Clara and Pappaw wrote letters back and forth. In September, however, Clara married another boy! After her wedding, she gave Mammaw Pappaw's address, saying, "You're the one he likes anyway."

Although it was only September, Mammaw sent him a Christmas card. :) He wrote back, and they continued to correspond throughout the winter. For Easter, he got some time off and came to visit. Mammaw knew he was coming and waited up, but as the night grew later and later and he didn't come, she finally decided he wasn't coming after all, and went to bed.

Meanwhile, he had ridden a bus to the nearest town, several miles away, asked around for a ride to the farm and gotten a couple of boys to drive him out, but the creek was up and the boys knew they couldn't drive their car over the bridge when the creek was that high. Pappaw begged them to do it anyway, but they knew it was far too dangerous and refused. They pointed him to a footbridge that he could cross and told him how to get to the farm from there.

The footbridge was nothing but a board about a foot wide. The locals were used to it and could cross it easily without a second thought, but Pappaw was terrified. He got the boys to carry his bags across, for he felt he would never make it carrying them. He slowly made his way across despite his fear -- what one won't do for love... :) and made his way down the road. Fearing he was lost after walking for some time, he stopped at a farm and asked again for directions. He was glad to learn that this was the nearest neighbor and it wasn't much farther to go, for it was very late at night. The farmer gave him directions, and Pappaw started off down the road in the direction he had been told. But when he heard the creek rushing by, he became frightened that he would fall into it in the dark, so he turned away and began wandering into the fields. The neighbor had been watching to make sure he went the right direction, so when he saw him crossing the fields, he ran out and stopped him. Upon Pappaw's confession that he feared the creek, the neighbor ended up walking him all the way there. And after all that, he arrived only to discover that Mammaw had already gone to bed.

The next morning, when he saw her, he asked her, "Do you love me?"

"Yes," she answered.

"Do you love me enough to marry me?" he asked. No beating around the bush for him!

"Well... when?" she asked.

"Now!" he exclaimed.

"I can't marry you now," she answered. "I have to finish high school!" She only had about a month to go until graduation. Pappaw had hoped to get off so he could come for her graduation, but he wasn't able to. Mammaw received his engagement ring in the mail the day of her graduation. She wore it to the ceremony that night so she could show it off to everyone. One gentleman expressed great disappointment, as he had picked her out for his son, a boy she had grown up with. "Why, no, I can't marry George!" she gasped when he told her this. "George is a good friend, but I don't have feelings for him!"

Two weeks later, Pappaw finally got a weekend off. He and Mammaw took the bus to Louisa, Kentucky, where they got a motel room, then walked over to the hospital across the street to get the required blood test. They were not pleased to learn that the hospital was unable to read the results -- they had to send the blood tests by bus to Ashland and wait for them to come back. Had they known that, they said, they would have just gone to Ashland to be married!

They waited, and they waited, and they waited. Finally, around 8 pm, the results came back. But there was another hitch. Mammaw was asked her age. She was 18, old enough to be married without permission, she thought. "Oh no," answered the girl at the desk. "You have to have someone sign for you if you're under 21."

"We don't have anyone around here," they answered. Pappaw begged the girl to give them their marriage license anyway. "Isn't there anyone you could call?" the girl asked.

"My sister and her husband have a phone," Mammaw answered. "But I don't know the number." She gave the girl their names, and she called information to get the number. Unfortunately, another man with a very similar name lived in the same area as her sister, and that number was given to them instead of the correct one, so when this man was phoned, he responded that he had never heard of those people. Oops. Pappaw continued to beg the girl to let them have their license, and at last she gave in, on their word that they would return with a signature.

So at 8:30 that night, they walked over to a preacher's house and were married.

When they returned home, Mammaw's father refused to sign the certificate. He had signed for one of Mammaw's sisters to be married years before, and she was abused horribly, and he swore he would never sign for another of his girls to be married again. So her older sister signed the certificate.

And so they were wed. Amazing that seeing each other a couple of times, writing a few letters, and rushing off to be married far from friends and family resulted in a happy marriage that lasted 63 years until my grandfather's death last year, when so many couples today date forever, have long engagements, live with each other for about five years and then finally tie the knot, only to get divorced three years later.

Their early years of marriage must have been difficult, for their first child was born just under a year later, and then Pappaw was sent to Germany. Edwin was killed in January 1945, when he sacrificed himself to save the other men in his platoon from a machine gun nest. I can't imagine what it must have been like to learn that your brother was killed in a war that your husband and other family members and friends were still out there fighting, knowing that the same could happen to any of them.

Pappaw, of course, survived the war, though he was wounded in action, receiving a bullet "in the same place as Forrest Gump", as he put it, and they all lived happily ever after.

Okay, so maybe life wasn't always entirely happy, but it makes a good ending anyway. :)

A Visit Home

So I went home for the weekend, and anyone who knows me knows I always come back with stories about the little ones -- my four year old niece and six month old nephew.

My grandmother's older sister passed away in January and her only son lives quite a distance away, so he asked if someone would be willing to live in the house to take care of it for awhile until he decides what he wants to do with it. So last month, my sister and her little girl moved in. Living in an old house that has belonged to a woman in her 90s for decades has had its interesting moments. One such moment occurred this weekend.

My sister had found a box in the closet that had been mailed to our great-aunt but never opened. On it was a post-it note saying "Do not open. Return to sender." Since she's now been gone for a couple of months, my sister questioned what to do with the box. We had no idea what might be in it nor why she wanted it returned. Finally my sister decided to just open the box. "I might want whatever it is!" she declared. And so she opened it, only to discover a very useful item -- a package of adult diapers. :)

My niece immediately took the letter off the box and walked off with it. When she returned, we discovered she had written all over it. On one side of the envelope, she had written her name in the upper left corner, and MELEMEN in the middle. The other side read: "THK YU FR G US OER MEL. LOVE, (her name)"

Translation for those not accustomed to reading children's spelling: Thank you for giving us our mail. Melemen is mailman, of course. We were so impressed. Keep in mind this child is only four years old, and has NOT been formally taught to read or spell at all. She's always asking questions, "How do you spell..." "What sound does this letter make?" "What letter makes this sound?" etc. and of course we answer and play little games with her off and on for fun, like, "What letter does cat start with?" or "Can you think of words that start with M?" but we've never sat down with her and actually worked on teaching her to read or write. So there is Little Girl Story #1.

Little Girl Story #2. This is very sweet. Several members of the extended family were at my grandmother's house, and Baby Boy started crying. His mother took him into the next room to try and settle him down. Little Girl wandered in there too, but as we were all conversing, we didn't even notice, until she returned and announced, "Okay, everybody, I got him settled down." How we laughed. :) When asked how she settled him down, she said matter-of-factly, "I sang him a lullaby."

"Sing it to us," my aunt said, and Little Girl sang the following to the tune of Brahm's Lullaby so sweetly. I used initials (Baby Boy and Little Girl) where she sang names.

"Lullaby, and good night,
Go to sleep little BB,
LG loves you, yes she does,
You were sent from heaven above.
Go to sleep, go to sleep,
LG loves you so much."

Now does it get much sweeter than that?

So Little Girl is as sweet and clever as always, and Baby Boy is now sitting up and attempting to crawl by laying on his tummy, then lifting his belly up with only his hands and toes on the ground, almost like he's doing pushups. :) He actually is able to scoot himself forward a few inches doing this. No small feat, considering this is now a TWENTY pound baby!!!!!!! Amazingly enough, he refuses to eat food. They've tried most babies' favorites -- butternut squash, carrots, bananas, but he just spits it out -- yuck! Only milk for this baby!

Remembering Pappaw

Our family is missing its patriarch. A year ago today we said our final goodbyes.

His was a beautiful death, if anything about death can possibly be beautiful.

But let's back up a bit first. Ours was a close-knit family. My grandparents had four children -- their son lived several hours away, but their three daughters all lived nearby. We all went to the same church, and every Sunday afternoon was spent at my grandparents' house, the entire family together. Sunday afternoons are still spent there by all family members who are in town, in fact.

We lived next door to my grandparents. One set of cousins came home from school with us each day until their parents got off work, and the other set only lived about a mile away and were over all the time. Pappaw loved his grandchildren, although he often accused us of raising his blood pressure. :o) And so we all grew up spending probably as much time with Mammaw and Pappaw as we did with our own parents.

Fast forward to the present. Pappaw developed Alzheimer's in the last years of his life. It crept up on him over the years as he struggled more and more to remember, and last December he entered the final stage of the disease. On Christmas Eve just over a year ago, I sat with him for several hours as he picked up the pictures of his children and grandchildren and asked me over and over and over again who they were. At one point, after asking repeatedly about his children and what they were doing, their families, their jobs, etc., he said in amazement, "Three teachers and a nurse? You mean, every one of my kids turned out good?" I said, "Yes," and he replied, "Well that sure is something, because I was one son of a gun!" :o) He then called in to my grandmother and proudly announced, "Guess what! I just got acquainted with... -- what kin did you say you were to me again? -- I just got acquainted with my granddaughter!"

By mid-February, he had deteriorated so much that we knew his time was very short, a matter of days. I came in for the weekend to say goodbye. My grandmother went with me to his bedside when I arrived and said to him, "Look who came to see you! Do you know who this is?" She was always questioning him, trying to help him preserve his memory. I was surprised she was still doing it at this point, as it had been three or four months since he'd remembered any of us other than my grandmother and my little niece that he just adored. But then he responded with a nod, and said my name! "And you remember who she's married to?" my grandmother prompted, and he responded with my husband's name. My grandmother looked at me and smiled, "He got his mind back! He knows all of us. God has given him back to us one last time before He takes him home for good. Now we can tell him goodbye, and he knows us and can tell us goodbye too."

He was very weak. He could only lay in bed, he could barely lift his arm to shake his finger when he talked, something that had always been part of his way of communicating. His speech was a great effort, and came out as barely more than a whisper, and he could only say a couple of words at a time. But his mind was back, and although his hospice workers had given us morphine to administer as needed, he kept assuring us he was in no pain at all, and didn't need it.

Because his last days were so obviously his last days, it gave everyone in the family an opportunity to come see him, and to say goodbye. I'm glad of that; the closure is good. You have your chance to say whatever you feel you need to say, without the regrets that one might have when someone close dies suddenly and you realize all the things you wish you could tell them, but now can't. We had our opportunity to say all those things, knowing the end was very close.

My grandfather and I had several things that were special to our relationship. One was that we saluted each other to say goodbye instead of waving or hugging as others did. I don't know when or how it got started, but I've done it since I was fairly young. Another, and again I have no idea why he started this, was that every time I left, he had to tell me to make sure I watched out for planes, trains, and automobiles. After he'd said it hundreds of times, he stopped saying it and just asked, "What are you supposed to watch for?" and I had to answer before I could leave. When his memory started slipping, my grandmother made sure to keep that a constant -- she always reminded him what he was supposed to say to me before I left. And he called me "The Kid". I had a special rhythm I always used to knock on their door if I went up to visit and found it locked, and without fail, every time I knocked, I immediately heard Pappaw calling to my grandmother, "The Kid's here!"

So of course, when I said my last goodbye to him, he forced out the words, "What... watch for...?" After I answered, I saluted him, as always, and he tried to lift his hand but just couldn't get it up very high. I said, "I know you're saluting me too," and he nodded.

The next day was amazing. I wasn't there, I had to go back home, but my aunts, mother, and grandmother witnessed it all. He was awake all day long (he had been awake only for a few minutes then would sleep for an hour, all day and night for the past week or so), and he saw heaven and had enough energy to tell about it. His eyes were darting all over the place, looking at things that the rest of them couldn't see. Sometimes he would tell them what he was seeing. "Beautiful water!" he would exclaim, eyes shining in delight, and this a man who had been afraid of water his entire life. "A beautiful orchard -- with apple trees!" "Beautiful sky!" Everything was beautiful. And then he began to see the people. His brother. His father-in-law. Other friends and relatives who have gone on before him. "I see God's people," he said then, "They want me to come." He remained in his right mind and still knew who everyone was, where he was, what was happening to him. This was not hallucination. Others may be skeptical, but I know my grandfather, and I know this was real. He'd been holding on because he didn't want to leave us; a glimpse of the place he was going was the impetus he needed to finally let go.

He slipped into a coma not long after this and never awoke again on this earth. His wife and three daughters were at his side when he went home.

This is why I say his death was beautiful. It was definitely a blessing from God in that he got his mind back, he wasn't in any pain, he didn't linger in that terrible state for long, but he did linger long enough that his family members were able to come in to tell him goodbye, and that he was able to glimpse heaven and share those little bits of it with us before going there for good. The most beautiful part of his death was our assurance that he is indeed in a better place and someday we'll be joining him. I just know when I get to heaven, Pappaw will be part of my welcoming committee, and I wouldn't be surprised if the first words out of his mouth were to exclaim, "The Kid's here!"

Until then -- I miss you, Pappaw. See you in heaven.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Psalm 116:15