Fat Mr. Raindrop

We all get our "start" somewhere.  And from such humble beginnings, something just might grow.  It might just be the growth that will set the world on fire!  That's what we expected of ourselves when we were children.  Or it might be a smaller blaze, lighting just a our corner of the world.  I'm not sure yet where my fire will lead, but I know where it started - with my Great Aunt Essie.  Let me introduce you.

Aunt Essie was my grandfather's older sister - older by 8 or 10 years, as I recall.  She told me about her memory of my Grandpa's birth once in a letter - but I'm getting ahead of myself.  This is a picture of her was taken almost half a century ago. YIKES!  How can that be true?  But that is my baby sister sitting next to her, and she is no longer a baby!  This picture actually says very little about my aunt, except that chronologically, her age exceeded mine by LOTS.  But, you see, she was always young to me.

I don't know when or how or why, but we became pen pals  - somewhere about the time I learned to hold a pen.  She would faithfully reply to the letters I sent her - or was it the other way around?  Maybe I responded to the letters she sent?  Whichever the direction, I just remember going to the mailbox hoping for a letter addressed to ME.  And on a regular basis, when it arrived, it had Aunt Essie's address in the upper left corner.  She always understood what it meant to be a little girl wanting to be a big girl.  She never talked down to me or corrected me, or if she did, it was so gently that it just felt like love.  And I loved her, and my heart still holds her memory with the tenderness and tenacity of a mama's bear cub.

I sent her a story once.  Maybe it was the first one I ever wrote.  Certainly it was the first I felt confident enough in to share with this woman who loved me - and who showed it with postage stamps (SWAK - remember that?)!  My first literary classic was called Fat Mr. Raindrop.  Now, I know I have you on the edge of your seats wondering just what made Mr. Raindrop such a captivating figure.  I hate to disappoint you, but I have absolutely no memory of the plot (if, indeed, there was one).  What I remember was Aunt Essie's accolades.  They spurred me on!  And if the book I'm now writing (Soggy Red Confetti) ever gets a cover (fingers crossed for this fall), a big part of the credit will go to my first fan, Great Aunt Essie.

Has anyone else noticed that I haven't mentioned grandloves yet?  That's about to change.

About a month ago, Aidan came running up to me telling me he wrote something for me.  He was so excited!  And my heart was skipping merrily along with him, too!  His story said, "From Aidan.  We are having a party.  I love you, Grandma."  (He misspelled my name, but I will love and forgive a 5 year old for that.)  So this Granma wrote him back - and he drew a picture for me - and I wrote him back - and - well, you probably have a good idea of the way things are progressing.

I hope that Aidan (and his brothers) learns to love the anticipation of the mailman like I did.  I hope he trudges back from the mailbox when it is more barren than he wished.  And I hope he floats back when he finds a card that bears his name.  I hope he tells me stories - words written in just such a way to bring light and love to literature.  And maybe, just maybe, someday, he will tell me his story of an overweight drop of water - or some other protagonist of grandlove renown.

And in that moment, I will thank my Great Aunt Essie. Her faith was well placed and well nurtured and so much more appreciated than I ever knew how to say - until now.  Much love, sweet lady, and much appreciation.  I love you, still.

Leaps of Faith!

I've had a few career changes over the years.  My first full time job was as a legal secretary, not glamorous and not where I expected to land, either.  But then, I also had two boys in under a year and degree from the Nike University (as in, Just Do It).  The more traditionally recognized graduation waited for another child, a mortgage and 10 years...  In time, I because a trust officer, before I switched directions entirely to design houses.  Now, after another change, I carry licenses with numbers only recognizable to others in the financial planning sphere.  A door closes and another opens.  It's not the path my high school self planned, but then, high school selves are not known for being the sharpest crayons in the tool shed...

It got me to thinking about transitions.  Some happen almost without notice.  It might feel like a natural progression, but when you stop to glance back, you see that the route taken was neither planned nor linear.  Other changes are more like jumping over chasms formed by earthquakes.  You are going merrily along your way and when the earth rumbles, and opens, and threatens to engulf you.  You must leap into uncertainly with all your might or succumb to an unthinkable fate.  So, you take flight, hoping for the best.  "Best" can be a qualitative term.

I had the good fortune of waiting until adulthood before being required to launch myself toward the other side of a chasm of unfathomable depth and width.  In fact, I remember that first leap when my eldest son was life flighted to an ICU unit.  My first vivid thought was, "I'm not old enough to do this.  I want my Mommy!"  Much to my surprise, I landed safely on the other side, though most assuredly, it was not due to my superior leaping ability.  I had help.  Thank you, Jesus!

Some of my grand-loves, though, have had to face chasms of their own at ages far too tender.  Death, divorce and ill-health have burst upon them unwittingly and unwanted.  It's not that they were left to fend for themselves at such a time.  Many who love them have gathered around, shaken themselves by the devastation, but focused on the little loves before themselves.  Still, there is no way to insulate them from their ground that has rumbled and split.  Love, it seems, cannot always provide a soft landing, or at least not soft enough.

That's a lot of rambling for a Tuesday - or any other day, I guess.  No, there are no new events in the offing, but it just won't stop tumbling around in my head - my own private earthquake between the ears.  Granmas are supposed to be cookies and sweetness and kissing boo-boos - little boo-boos.  In my third generation of lives, I still don't know how to make hurts disappear when kisses and tickles don't work.

I am left with one possible remedy, the one that worked the first time around.  So as I run as fast as I can and leap as far as I can, with arms outstretched to catch and hold the objects of my utmost affection, my heart cries out for assistance.  

Dear Jesus, who loves the little children, all the children of the world.  Please help me to shower extra love on my grand-ones.  And from my heart and from Yours above, please let love be enough.  Amen. 

Can You Hear Me Now?

I, like many of you, grew up with tethered phones.  Short of a tornado that took your whole house, you never lost your phone.  You also didn't leave messages for people, because unless you were calling a doctor who paid a service to answer their phones after hours, there was no voice mail.  When we dialed the phone, we actually dialed the phone.  How many millennials use that term without the slightest idea that originally it was a literal description?  And, oh, if you wanted to know who was on the other end of a ringing phone, you had to pick up the receiver and ask.  BTW, if someone was actually away from the house, say living life or something, the phone went unanswered.  How did we get by in those dark ages?

I'm not really pining after those bygone days, but there was something kind of nice about not being instantly available to anyone and everyone.  Of course, if you ask my kids, they will tell you that I am really bad at keeping my phone on my person.  The rebellion of mid-century, middle child...

I am blessed to live within 20 minutes of all of my grandboys and girlies, meaning I don't have to spend a lot of time talking to them on the phone.  This is probably a really good thing, for reasons that aren't necessarily 21st century.

Under the best of circumstances, toddler speak can be difficult to interpret.  Frequently, the conversation is easiest to follow while chasing after the wee one to see what he sees.  At least it gives you context and a fighting chance to follow his unique stream of consciousness and foreign sounding phrases.  Even when you are two feet from him, he's too much a busy body to actually sit still, face you and speak.  This multi-directional speak is exacerbated with a phone that never moves in sync with the miniature among us.

Additionally, as it was a lifetime ago, it is still difficult to hear when a child shakes his head.  Of course, there is Facetime, which my lovely grandgirlie, Bella, employed first thing in the morning on my recent birthday.  What a sweet, sweet start to my day.  She might not agree, as she got to see me still in my jammies, hair and makeup still on my "to do" list.  And that little picture in the upper corner that shows me how I look to the other person mocks me!  Why can I never hold the phone so my nose doesn't fill the screen?  Most of the time I rather like my nose - except when Apple gets a hold of it...

The other day, Josiah and Elijah were fighting over the "phone."  Granma to the rescue - I found an additional phone not currently in use.  Yep, they were both calculators.  At least I didn't have to worry about them buying an unauthorized app...

The best part about the phones of today is that grandones are the best teachers.  All too often I hear myself saying, "Hey, how did you do that?"  With a shrug that says 'she's old - I'll have pity,' they let me in on Apple's best kept secrets.

Just reaching out to touch someone.  Now THAT dates me!

Remembering for Those Who Can't

Last weekend felt so normal and so not.  The weather was beautiful but the mood was kind of bittersweet.  The fifteenth anniversary of 9/11 held sway over the news and nipped at my memory throughout the day.  How could it have possibly been 15 years ago?

Last summer I was traveling with Bryce.  As we waited to board our return flight he lamented that he would really like to see the cockpit.  "You used to be able to do that," I said, "until 9/11."

The look he gave me let me know a question was coming, but it wasn't the one I expected.  "Is that the month and the day or the month and the year?"  Bryce is 10.  How do you explain the horrors of that day without frightening a grandboy?  And how do you honor the fallen without an explanation?

What followed was a very abbreviated explanation of what is my life's current event and his dust-covered history.  Hijacked planes lead to the security line we had just wound through that keeps us safe.  Locked cabin doors are an added precaution.  That September day was, in part, what caused his father to join the Marines less than a year later.  It occurs to me now, that indirectly, that uniform lead to his parents meeting.  Absolutely unaware, unanticipated and unlikely, 9/11 and the chain of events to follow, lead to the birth of my eldest grandboy.

I have long thought that 9/11 is the Pearl Harbor of my generation.  It offers me a glimpse into my grandparents' cautious nature.  The indelible mark left by great, sudden and senseless evil gave my Granmas and Grampas a wariness for the world my siblings and I just called life-as-usual.  They feared for our future, for the possibility of history repeating itself.  One Granma lived long enough to see that fear come true.  Did she spend 9/11 remembering Hawaii and the subsequent entry into the Great War - a war that left her to care for three small children while her husband sent letters home from Europe?

I don't know where this meandering leads me, really.  Though I feel two generations older now, as I watch my grandboys and girlies running in the yard, pausing occasionally to point out an airplane passing far overhead.  I remember the weeks when the shiny birds held the ground instead - and the day when they sounded above again and a shiver went down our spines as we looked up and watched them glide by.

I don't want to forget.  And I want this twice descended generation to know this piece of their dusty history, too.  In truth, though, I want it always to remain history to them.  But like those who came before me, how can I believe that?  I can't.  I can only hope that a blanket of love will protect their hearts.  I'll just have to do my part to keep them covered.

Just How Old do You have to Be?

We all know how quickly Saturday and Sunday disappear - in a single blink!  Conversely, Monday thru Friday can last an eternity.  I have my own personal galloping hours - the ones between "oh good the blog is done for another week" and "why do I wait until Monday night to write the next one."  Generally I at least have something simmering in the back of my brain for Monday night to chew on and spit out.  Alas, this week I find myself following the Yellow Pages slogan - for those of you who are old enough to remember the Yellow Pages that came in book form - I'm letting my fingers do the walking.  Of course, I'm not perusing those colorful pages, but rather, wandering across my keyboard.

Meandering #1:  I love seeing the shock on people's faces when I tell them I have eight grandbabies.  Invariably you can see the mental math cogs turning.  Thanks to good genetics and a great hairstylist, I don't necessarily look old enough enjoy the love of so many a couple of generations descended.  It also helps that I got married at 19 and had my babies at 20, 21 and 24.  I am now reaping the benefits of having been young and foolish - and lived to tell.

Meandering #2:  Having eight grandbabies is, in fact, keeping me young!  They teach me how to use my iPhone, including how to play Crossy Roads.  They take me on roller coasters, or perhaps we just egg each other onto them.  They get me to sit on the floor and help them turn somersaults, or lay on my back and hoist them up on my legs to fly.  They want me to teach them how to whistle (Does anyone have advice on that?  It's a very hard concept to explain.)  They also keep me foolish, thinking I can actually join them in their fort or fit through a tunnel or climb on the playground equipment.  I'm a fool in love and happily so!

Meandering #3:  As seen on Facebook, "Children need at least one person in their life who thinks the sun rises and sets on them, someone who delights in their existence and loves them unconditionally." -(credit Pam Leo).  How true is that!  And I am that person, eight times over!

So to sum up the meanderings:  I can, with barely any provocation, be a fool.  I'm actually quite good at it.  And people tell me all the time that I can't possibly be a Granma, but I am.  The secret is that I am a child, too, and I have not one but eight persons who delight in me almost as much as I delight in them, assuming that is even possible.  And I know they love me unconditionally, because even when I haven't secured enough advanced critters in Crossy Roads, they still let me play.

I love being a "young" old.  I love being Granma!