39. SWALLOWING POETRY

Freshman year at BYU, I made a random selection of classes when I registered.  No one advised me, that I can recall, and if they did I must not have listened.  I ended up with a graduate level art history class, and some other hefty courses, all of which added up to 16 credit hours. Classes, in general, were the last thing on my mind at that point.  There was just so much newness there in the shadow of the Wasatch Mountains. So many new personalities, new places, new sights and sounds and smells.  Even the air felt new against my skin.  My hair was silky smooth in all that dryness.  I remember thinking I had probably jumped the gun by hacking it off before I moved to the desert. My former waist length hair would have flowed so nicely away that horrid humidity of my hometown in PA.

At the top of the list of freshman newness was falling in love.  Mmmm, delicious love, with its yummy kisses and stimulating conversation.  The last thing  on my mind were classes.  Not that they were completely unimportant, just not prominently there.  But I did think that my poetry class would be an exception.  I was, after all, a poet.

I had received a scholarship/talent award from the university after winning the New Era Poetry Contest.  They published about a half dozen of my little poems.  Even Dave, all the way over in Italy, and well before I ever met him, recognized my name and picture in the New Era when they announced the winners.  He was a missionary then, and I was the little sister of a guy he used to play ball with.  I defined myself as a poet. My sense of self was polished with a way with words. 

The class was taught by a professor whose name was well regarded, and whose poetry was beloved, especially by the professor himself.  I went into the class confident in my abilities and pretty excited for the easy grade.  

The easy grade did not come.  Even the hard grade did not come.  I recall the devastation of having my work critiqued flippantly before the class.  I can still feel the sting of his scribbled handwriting in the columns beside the stanzas; stabbing exclamation points to deepen the wound.

At night, in tears, I decided to spend the money I did not have to call home.  Calling home in those days required money by the minute, and our conversations were often planned and sparingly executed for the sake of the budget.  But this night I did not care, because I needed to hear my mother’s voice. That voice that first read me poetry; the one that made my own third grade poems sound so…I don’t know…mature.  Mom’s lips forming the words of anything anyone ever wrote made it seem so much better. 

“He hates my poetry!”  I sobbed, knowing she would understand and likely defend me.

 “No matter what I write, whether it’s what I feel I should write or whether I’m writing what I think he’ll like, he hates it!”

Mom listened.  I could hear her breathing on the other end of the line.  I ached to have her arms around me, her slender hands patting my back.  She listened until I was done ranting.

“You take what he has to teach you, chew it up and see if there is anything worth swallowing.  Then spit the rest out.”

I didn’t think there was anything worth swallowing from him.  I was sure he was all ego and shallow mindedness.  In the end I learned to release my ego and see if I could learn.  And I believe I did, though I cannot for the life of me recall anything I wrote during that period, except for that one piece about Roman Duomo not needing to bow to God.  In the end all that mattered to me was that the boy who gave me those yummy kisses wanted me to be his bride.

I’ve thought often of that advice mom gave me, what seems like a lifetime ago.  I whisper it to myself, and to my own children.  I let it echo in my head when I start comparing myself to others.  I can hear her say, “You go ahead and see how you compare to the other people you admire.  If there’s something good you can learn from such an exercise, then go ahead and swallow that.  But you be sure to spit the rest of it out!” And she would probably add that most of it was worth spitting out.

For all those years I sat up with my children, helping them with their writing assignments, I could almost hear the echo of my own mother’s voice as I read their work aloud to them.  Young mothers and fathers…this is a trick I will teach you right now:  read your own children’s writings back to them.  With your mature intelligent voice.  With the poet’s voice.  They will hear more clearly, and write more poetically, and love you more deeply because of it. And they will become better writers.

All of our children are fine writers, if I say so myself.  I think they learned to love the lilt of the human voice as it pronounces word upon word, crafted artistically like literary Lego's. Well chosen tasty words united by poets at heart.

My mom used to bribe all her grand kids to memorize fine poetry.  If they stood up straight, announced the title, the poet, and perfectly recited the poem (at least 8 lines long for the little ones…and they got more difficult as the kids aged)…then Gram gave them a crisp $5 bill.  Thereafter, every time they recited the poem again, they got a Quarter.

 All our children can recite to you poems for which they earned $5.  

The money is gone.  

The poetry remains.

Thanks, Mom.

38. CHUCK WAGON

Once every 15 years or so Dave allows himself to toy with the prospect of getting a new car.  My family has been trying to get him to rise above that old RAV 4 he’s been driving for 240,000 miles, but he’s a die-hard.  

“That car is gutless, Dave!”  I regularly tell him.  “Seriously, don’t you think you should have a car that will actually approach a canyon fishing stream with any gumption?”

“It works fine,” he’ll say, and he’ll go back to unloading his wet waders from the back.

Well…miracle of miracles…Dave finally allowed himself to consider a new car this weekend, since I sort of insisted on it as part of my birthday present to him.  And…miracle upon miracle…,he bought a new RAV 4 that actually zips up the mountainside. It’s not brand spankin’ new.  Someone else broke it in.  But that’s perfect for him, cuz some guys will pay a lot to break a car in and he’d rather not be that guy.

So now we have two silver vehicles nesting in our garage.  His new beauty, and my old dependable Odyssey van.  Mine only has 160,000 miles on it and I’m happy if she has miles to go before she sleeps.  She suits me just fine.

People may wonder why an old Gummy would want a van in her days of solitude.  So let me explain.

First, these are not days of solitude.  They just are not days of hauling ball teams around.  Instead, we haul around The Harem.  The Harem consists of Dave and his girls: Gram, Libby, Sherry, sometimes my sisters Ann Marie and Sue, and me.  And sometimes his daughters and granddaughters. Dave has travelled the world with his Harem and he’s perfectly fine with it.  When we went to Germany years ago we rented an Econoline van, extra long with extra seats.  Dave drove, Sherry took shotgun and chief sandwich making duties.  Gram and Sue took the middle row and Libby and I took the way back, like the old days when we traversed the continent in our big blue Pontiac Rocket.  Sometimes we play with people and tell them we are from Utah and start talking in gas station convenience stores like we are sister wives.  It’s all in good fun.  Dave is such a trooper about it, as long as he only has to go to bed with me.  And I’m fine with it, too. When we are driving around town with any portion of the harem it’s really good to have a van.  It’s easier to get mom in and out of, and the natural anxiety we all get with closed in spaces is less prominent with the large windows of the mini-van.

Secondly, we need a van to lug my equipment. Speakers, and mixers, and stands and stools, not to mention guitars…they all feel much happier in the back of my van.  I don’t think I’ve ever had to load my equipment into a trunk, and for that I feel abundantly blessed.

Thirdly, that silver van is affectionately known as the Chuck Wagon.  Since we live one house away from each other, and my sisters care for our mother 24/7, I have elected to do my part to help by cooking when I can for the crew of us. So many nights of many weeks I cook for the crowd.  I almost never cook for the two of us. And, in general, that makes me happy.

Wherever Gram lives is central in our lives, so the object is to go to Gram rather than making her come to us.  I call our house the West Wing, since we are really just a few yards down the street from them. I call the cul-de-sac The Compound.  Craig and Karen Madsen live in the house between us, and we consider them family, too.  It’s easier for me to cook in my own kitchen.  I can stir a simmering pot with one hand while the other reaches into the utensil drawer for a whisk; my knee naturally kicks the rolling drawer with the sugar and flour bins, in perfect syncopated time with my hands dumping a cup of flour into a mixing bowl.  I know my ovens, and I understand the flames on my stove top.  So, more often than not, this is what the back of the van looks like on any given evening:

Tonight we loaded a cake into the back of the chuck wagon. A yummy chocolate garbage cake with birthday candles.  The car smelled of tender pork roast, marinara sauce simmered for two days on my stove top, raspberry salad with cream cheese and pretzel crust, fresh asparagus steamed in my favorite steaming pot. Hot bread and tender pasta awaited at the East Wing. We drove the 200 yards to Gram’s driveway and called out the forces to help lug it all in.  The middle generation streamed out of the house, down the wheel chair ramp in the garage.  They scooped up the goods and trudged back in, their conversation mingling with the rising steam and fragrant aromas of our Sunday dinner.  We sat together around Libby’s massive table, set tonight with an Easter lily and palm fronds in honor of Palm Sunday.  Sarah thanked the Lord on behalf of all of us, asking him to bless Kate in her far away place, thanking Him for her good father, beckoning a blessing on our feast and our family.  Ann Marie stood at the stove as Sarah prayed, one arm tucked into her belly in a reverent fashion, the other gently stirring a lovely pan of Alfredo sauce. The night rolled out in typical fashion, conversations weaving in and out of each other, babies laughing, then crying, children squealing; knives and forks clanking against plates: someone asked for the butter, someone else poured a musical flow of ice water into glasses. Hours later, when conversation had waned and the little one’s were showing signs of waring down, we loaded up the pots and pans and serving dishes into the trusty chuck wagon and coasted back down the hill and into our driveway.

Tonight Calvin was tired, and a little sad about the teeth trying to break through his 8 month old gums.  I scooped him up and took him to the recliner in the family room, part of the Great Room of Grams grand house.  I sat there, across from my octogenarian mother and my sister, next to the kid’s table laden with little plates and cheerful children.  I sat there and listened as I cuddled my boy.  I knew then, as I know now, that this is the sweet spot of my life.  All is well.  All is not perfect…but it is blessedly well.

 The interesting thing is that it seems my life has been perpetually filled with sweet spots.  I am surrounded by people who will accept my love and who love me back, in spite of my foibles.  I am filled with a faith that makes even difficult times seem sweet somehow.  And I am blessed to live one short chuck wagon drive away from the people who mean more than the world to me. 

37. FLOW BLUE FRUIT BOWL

Atop my mother’s pine hutch sits an old flow blue fruit bowl, the one Hannah McGrew handed her on an autumn day years ago.

Hannah McGrew was one of them Mormons.  She hunkered deep in a holler somewhere in the winding woods in the South Hills of Pittsburgh.  Though I was a Mormon living in that portion of paradise, I never knew her; never saw her in our little chapel in Pleasant Hills.  But she was on the record of membership and so on Sunday afternoon between Sunday School and Sacrament meeting Chuck Iams drove up to our house and called in through the front screen. 

“Hello?” he bellowed, his bass voice belying the long lanky Danny Kay body with the faded orange sherbet crop of hair on top.

My brother John’s rubber band legs scooted down the stairs and without a word the two of them were off to do their Priesthood duties.  Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching in our neck of the woods meant a good long bumpy ride into places no one knew anyone lived.  Long lists of stewardship that included people who had not set foot in a church for fifty years.  When I grew up and became a Visiting Teacher my list was 10 ladies long.  Finding them was my foray into treasure hunting.  Maybe that’s why my favorite thrift stores and bargain shopping haunts feel so right to me.

I imagine my 14 year old brother walking beside Chuck Iams, lifting his long skinny legs up the front porch steps, giving, unawares, a sacred three taps to the wooden screen door.

“Mrs. McGrew?  It’s your Home Teachers calling this afternoon.”

John says he does not remember much about those days, except for the front porch and Chuck Iams and his priesthood duty.  Nowadays my brother’s latent priesthood lies in wait. But there was a time it was alive and beating.  It was there in his raised right hand when he was 16 and I was 8 and he laid me down in the waters of baptism.  It was in his words and his bowed his head, and in the motion of his strong arms as he dipped me under in the font of the Pleasant Hills Branch. He doesn’t know it worked, and if he does he probably doesn’t know how it worked, but the Holy Spirit has lived in me ever since so it must have.

I suppose it was my brother who told my mom that old Hannah McGrew was one of them old time Mormons, one of those that saw the light before the last century turned, when saints were reading first editions of the Book of Mormon and some of them left to join the rest in Ohio, then Missouri, then Illinois and then Utah. I suppose it was my dead grandfather who told my mother to find Hannah.  Reading her father’s old tiny leather bound nission journals, Mom found reference to her father before he was her father traveling without purse of scrip through the woody hillsides of Pennsylvania preaching the restored gospel.  There are old names buried somewhere in my brain, names like Coal Valley Road, except I don’t remember them now and I remember that one.  But they sound like that.  There was an old train station with one of those names, and that was the borough where Hannah McGrew’s family lived, and that was one of the stations where young George Parrish set his bag to the side of the tracks.  He wrote of taking a meal at the old white house with the raised front porch.  He wrote of sacrament being passed and an old pump organ in the living room.  Church was home in those places, in those days. I imagine my young grandfather’s long thick legs taking the steps up to the porch like his grandson would.

Mom found Hannah McGrew before she died.  Sought her out in the capacity of Stake Relief Society, and spoke to her about the long past days when there was just the Eastern States mission and my grandfather was a missionary.  “If your kinfolk was a missionary in the late 1800’s, then he was sure to have been in this house.  And if he was in this house then my mother was sure to have fed him some fruit from this bowl, as she was inclined to have a tender spot for them boys so far from home.”

Hannah raised in her withered hands this old fruit bowl from the kitchen counter.  Its creamy white skin patterned with flowing cobalt blue, the blue seeping softly into the white like my mother’s memories mix with her imagination now. 

“Here, you take this, and remember your father.”  Hannah handed my mother the bowl, like Mary standing before Jesus with her perfumed oil.   

“No, I can’t.” 

“Ah, go on, it’ll mean more to you than to my children.”

And so my mother, at the end of her afternoon with Hannah McGrew, set this old flow blue fruit bowl on the passenger seat of the car, brought it home and placed it on the china hutch of my childhood.  Written on the bottom with a black marker, in my mother’s handwriting, is the name John.

Years later, when I had grown and married and had two little ones of my own, Mom and I made a few last visits before we moved from Pittsburgh to Utah.  We drove over to Westmoreland, to the old Milkglass Factory that was closing its doors forever.  I bought myself my own set of Westmoreland Milkglass China, and Mom overdid her overdone set even more.  And we made a trip to that unnamed holler to see if Hannah McGrew’s place was still there.  It was.  Hannah was not.  A niece or a nephew, I can’t even recall, now lived there.  The front porch was newly painted white, and the house was a grand old place that came to be before the stacked houses of the steel mill boom took over the hillsides.  They welcomed us in, and I recall the sunlight streaming through the long, long kitchen windows.  And I recall the kitchen counter, where Mom said the fruit bowl sat.  And I imagined the suncracked hands of my grandfather before he was my grandfather, white cuffed wrists turning an apple against his pantleg, laughing that George-like laugh, which vibrations must be captured somewhere in the flow of blue against white of my mother’s old fruit bowl.    

George Washington Parrish as a young
missionary in Pennsylvania

36. HOLY HANDS

I sat on the edge of our bed, my nightgown flowing over my gelatinized belly, the skin underneath my silken gown all soft and stretched and excessive after giving birth to my fourth child.  I sat with my new little girl in my arms, her tiny head tucked up under my chin, her round plum of a bottom cupped in one hand, her legs curled up in the familiar fetal position, my other hand patting her back.  I instinctively rocked back and forth, lulling her to sleep after her first Sabbath morning feeding.  Sunday in early June, all fresh and warm and luscious, the lilacs and peonies at the end of their bloom and the leaves of the scrub oaks that pepper our hillside finally burst with their own leafy emerald birth.  It was the one week of the year when the air outside was perfection, when the furnace was once and for all put to rest for the season and the windows were thrust open; that idyllic time when there is a slight breeze and the gauzy sheer curtains in the living room dance with newborn sunlight. Tomorrow we would need to close the windows and flip the thermostat over to A/C.  But today…this blessed Sabbath day…all was well.

I sat on the edge of our bed, rocking my child as I looked through our master bathroom door and into the large mirror over the long sink top.  There, like a portrait painted on my heart, stood the man of my dreams, all shower fresh and pressed, his dark hair cleanly combed and parted, his strong chin newly shaved, his crisp white shirt and deep red tie looking so beautiful against his olive skin; sun baked by early spring yard work and the building of a new deck out back. I watched the reflection of him as he lifted little Katie Did onto the counter top, her chubby 17 month old toes wiggling to find her balance.  

I watched, as I rocked, as I patted…watched him draw a brush through her hair.  Watched him pull her dress over her head, down past her white petticoat, watched him pull at the hem to make it even.  I rocked and patted and stretched my head over to catch the full scene as he placed his lips on her forehead and drew her head into him, then held it back, looking her over and declaring her a princess like her big sister, Sarah.  He turned her to see herself in the mirror.

“What a lovely little princess you are, my Katie Did.  Can you see your loveliness?”

And as she stared curiously in the mirror I watched his large man hands gently maneuvering to button the little buttons on his daughter’s Sunday dress. I watched his thick fingers fumble and twist, trying to find tiny buttonholes for tiny buttons.  I watched until the love fell in blurring pools from my eyes. 

Good strong manly hands, able and gentle and holy and kind.

He wraps them around his boy’s…hand upon hand…positioning them on the little metal bat for his first little league game. He clamps them on the covers of a book, his oldest girl’s head pressed against his chest as she turns the pages before them.  He washes and warms and lathers with baby lotion, rubbing the tiny bellies of his littlest ones after their baths.  He runs them through my hair, all wet and hot with labor, kissing my forehead and whispering trust.  He lays them on my head, over sacred oil.

Good, strong, holy, loving hands.

Tonight he stretched then out toward me as I sat on the couch at Gram’s house…reached out his still-strong hands, looking me straight in the eye. 

“You ready?” 

He positions his legs to handle the weight and pull me up out of a deep soft couch.  We clasp them in a sacred grip and he helps me rise.  We walk down the basement stairs and out the back door, not 50 yards from our own front door.  We walk, hand in hand, down the driveway, commenting on the clarity of the skies tonight; on the brilliance of the moon sliced in half; on the sweetness of the early spring trees who have finally given birth on this, the anniversary of my husband’s birth. Their scent is a sweet salute to him, I say.  And I squeeze his hand.

Good, strong, gentle, loving, manly hands, wrapped firmly in mine.

Blessed, sacred, holy hands.

Happy Birthday, my love.

35. THE POWER OF THANK YOU

Summer was a dilemma back there, back in the narrow passageways of southwestern Pennsylvania. I could never decide if I wanted a breeze or not. With all the growing green, humidity was the common denominator of every day, except for the blessed day or two when a thunderstorm swept through, followed by a good strong wind and a cloudless sky.  On those days the music from Jefferson Swim Club carried all the way up to Gill Hall Road.  But most often it was the kind of humid air that stuck to your skin and held everything still.  If there were a breeze to refresh the skin, then it brought the stench of US Steel's Clairton Works over to Pleasant Hills, the smell traveling low like a twin engine crop duster, dropping the stench of molten coal into the valleys and hollows of our hometown.

The summer after I turned 19 I came back home with a diamond on my left hand.  My first time back after my first time gone.  The throbbing of my heart made that space and time a blur in my memory now, but I do remember clearing off one of the twin beds in the Garden Apartments, a place I had never called home because Mom and Libby moved just after I left for BYU. But wherever Mom is becomes home, and I felt happy to be there, excited for the future with my husband-to-be, and sweetly torn between the girl I had been and the woman I was becoming. 

Dave clerked in a law firm, Thorpe Reed, I believe, that whole summer, except for the week or so we spent honeymooning on Mackinac Island, MI.  In late April I drove down to Clairton Steel Works and applied for a job in their college summer work program.  They called me back for an interview, and so I drove through the giant chain link gate, around the perpetual pile of coal and the guard station to the human resources office.  Dressed in my good grey pantsuit and heels, hair freshly washed and mascara applied.  Wearing those heels made my hips sway from side to side and I felt strangely feminine striding through this masculine place, though the femininity, as I recall it, was weirdly situated in the stench of steel making, like I was that niece of Hermann Munster who was the oddball because she was normal.

The stark environment of the office made me feel like I was waiting for the principal…off-white linoleum floors with glitter interspersed and waxy yellowed edges all around the perimeter. Blank off-white walls with brown paneling coming halfway up, a small metal strip edging the top, a photo of the batteries and smokestacks framed in fake-wood K-Mart fashion, hanging off center.  I sat in the chrome legged row of chairs until they called my name.  Back behind the long steel topped counter I was shown into a cubby hole of an office; one desk, two chairs, a balding man in a short-sleeved off-white shirt and a tie. There was no "white" in Clairton.

He hired me right off.  Few were chosen.  Many were called, but few were chosen and I felt decidedly fulfilled and mature as I shook his hand and he handed me papers to fill out.  I told him my brother had worked one summer at the mill.  He looked at my application and mumbled…”Hansen…Hansen…Hmmm…Did your brother work here not too long ago?”  I answered “Yes, maybe four years before.”  He stroked his chin as he stared at the paper. Looking up he caught my eye, and with a look of semi-recognition he announced, “You’re rich.”

 “I’m what?” I answered, in that dumb teenager back of the throat voice that belied my classy high heeled dress. “You’re rich,” he repeated, “With a mother like yours, you’re rich.” 

“You know my mother?”  My mind raced like one of those flowering fireworks that spins on the asphalt, bouncing haphazardly.  How in the world would my mother know this guy?

“I do not know your mother, but I know that you are lucky to have her.”  He went on to explain that in the 25 years that he had been hiring young people to work at the mill for the summer, only once had anyone ever called to thank him for a job.  “If your brother’s name is George Hansen, then that person was your mother.  She called to thank me for hiring her son, because he was earning money for a mission for your church.”  He looked me straight in the eye, lifted his hand and took mine to shake it, then placed his other hand over both in a fatherly sort of way and again repeated, “You’re rich.”

I worked on the batteries that summer.  2,500 degree ovens that turned coal into coke and turned fat into muscle so that my wedding dress looked rather smart.  My legs became strong, my determination tempered, my morals solidified.  I earned $8 an hour, far more than any other job I could have had that summer, plus time and a half on holidays and graveyard shifts that rolled around every third week.  More money than I had ever made in that chunk of time. 

The steel mill in Clairton is closed now.  Not even a whisper of a belch comes from her silent belly.  The money I earned is long spent and forgotten.  But my mother sleeps in her bed just up the road from me now, curled on her side, her white hair laying against her deep red pillowcase.  I can almost hear her breathing; slow, steady inhale and a small puff of an exhale. 

I am rich. 

34. JUNK MAIL

I am pleased to know, through the wonder of cyber info that came to me in my junk mail today, that I can find a real deal on a foreclosure home, and that there is a new organic coating for my cookware that will save the environment as well as take away unwanted calories in my food.  All I’ll have to do is contact Mr. Ibrahim Somebody and claim my $1.5 billion inheritance.  And if that money is slow in coming I can go ahead and contact the UN Undersecretary General for Internal Oversight and get my money, cuz it appears everyone else is out to get me.  I know I’m lucky.  She told me so…

Sinncerely, you are such a lucky person because as I just arrived in this country, I went through your fund ownership file to discovered that some top Nigerians and British Government Officials are interested in your fund and they are working in collaboration with officers from USA to frustrate you and thereafter diverting your fund into their personal bank account.

Whew, glad she caught that for me!

Even if the money doesn’t come through right away, I can be a very happy woman because some things in my life can apparently get bigger and more satisfying!  And some things can get smaller but more meaningful. And to make the pot even sweeter I can get all sorts of pharmaceuticals online for cheap or even FREE!  And I can go ahead and purchase those things with my new pre-approved VISA card, which is at this moment ready for delivery. 

I am most enthused about the possibility of finding a beautiful Russian wife. I had previously never even considered I might want a Russian wife!  But if she is willing to do certain things around here I might just click on the message and see what’s involved. I wonder if the wives they have lined up on their cyber shelf might be interested in this AARP membership once they have married themselves an American woman? Maybe she can interpret some of this other junk mail, one written in Russian-looking letters, and the other in Asian.  Maybe there are Asian Russian pretty women.  I have no doubt.

There are two fare wars, and two deals on Rolex watches that I would have to decide between.  It’s a tough call.  Hard to know.  So instead I lead the little arrow on my computer up to the top of this list of messages, one day’s worth, and double click on “empty”.  The messages instantly disappear, and a cute little sign pops up that reads:

 “You don’t have junk here (hooray!) - we’re working to keep it out of your inbox, too.”

Yay for filters!  Now I just need a filter at the garage door.  One that examines everything I bring in, sorting it before it ever plants itself in my perpetually growing “in - box”. I need to have something say, “Not so fast, lady!  That stuff is JUNK!  Do not let it past that door!”

And while we’re at it, I could use one in my head, too.

33. NO WORDS

32. THURSDAY

Thursday.

The word makes me weary.  Thursday is Gummy Day at our house.  And it’s also the day I teach guitar to anywhere between 20 and 30 students.  I’m tired every Thursday night.  I come home from guitar around 8:30 pm, usually going straight to Gram and Libby’s place.  I get a bite to eat and we settle down to watch something on TV and I inevitably doze off, regardless of how compelling a show may be.  Lately, on Thursday nights, I must rouse myself and drag my bones to the computer and think of something to write about, since I made this Lent commitment. If you look at the time stamps on these pieces of random writing, you’ll see that I usually get finished between midnight and 2 am.  I guess Thursday is not the only day I end up tired. 

I’m not as chipper as I used to be.

Calvin comes to spend the day with me around 8:30 in the morning.  Right about when he is ready for a nap it’s time to go pick up Parker from Kindergarten and Ruby from pre-school.  When we get home we make some lunch and figure out how we will spend the next 4 hours together.  It’s not usually a problem, unless I want to get anything else done.  Then I’m in trouble.  So I need to really plan my guitar lessons on Wednesdays.  I really should…but I don’t always have Wednesdays free to do that.

Anyway, last Thursday, for some reason…(maybe it was that I had tended nearly every other day that week as well) I was super tired around 2 pm.  Sleepy tired.  The kind of tired that makes you want to turn on a Disney show and give the kids some popcorn; to warm a bottle of milk for Calvin and pray he got sleepy, then tell the kids you’re going to just lie down in your room for a minute.

So that’s what I thought I’d do, before I keeled over in the family room in front of them.

I turned on a show, then went to my room, which is right next to the family room.  I fluffed a few pillows on my bed and almost got my poor numb legs settled onto a soft spot when the kids burst into the room.

Ruby was crying, hurt in the deepest part of her little girl heart by something Parker had taken from her..  It was probably something that belonged to Parker.  Ruby has big crocodile tears when she cries.  They are so sad.

I remember being a young mom.  I remember the thinking I trained my brain to undertake in times like this.  I never tried to nap as a young mom because inevitably the kids woke me, and then I was super grumpy towards them and…well, it was not pretty.

I had a choice: I could try to settle the argument and get to resting or I could force myself to get up and shake off the need for a nap.

The spirit told me to not allow myself to get into that kind of conversation with myself.  No one was going to win that argument.

So I quickly flung my left leg up into the air and then hurled it to the floor, causing my bulk of body to rise in response.

“You know what this means?”  I grumbled.

Ruby backed away from me, that look of fear in her big wet eyes.  Parker joined her.

“This means….This means…It’s time for a Big Bed Pillow Toss!”

Timothy and Anna are familiar with the Big Bed Toss.  I’ve done it to them since they were little.  They spend nights here with us fairly often, and the Big Bed Toss is a wonderful morning activity, when mommy and daddy are still asleep or gone to work, and Gumpa is off working as well.  That’s when the light from the rising sun streams through the east facing windows.  Parker and Ruby never spend the night here, since they live five minutes away.

Park, the elder of the two and a little more brave, asked what the Big Bed Pillow Toss was.

Ruby just hid behind the bed.

“Well,” I said, reaching over the down comforter to the pile of down pillows at the head of our king sized bed…”The Big Bed Pillow Toss is a very fun game. First, you have to fluff all the soft pillows and put them in a pile in the middle of the bed, like this.”

Park helped me arrange the pillows in a glorious pile.

“Then,” I said as I slipped my hands under Parker’s arms, “You pick up a little person, and as soon as they give you a kiss you TOSS them onto the pile of pillows…like THIS!”

I threw my boy up in the air and down onto the airy mound of fluff.

He giggled heartily, catching his breath as he lifted himself out of the cloud.

“THAT wath FUN!”

Ruby peeked out from behind the bed skirt. 

I lifted Park again.  He automatically kissed my puckered lips and up he went, squealing with delight, then down into the pillows he landed, laughter bubbling out of him like the jet tub filled with bubble bath.

Ruby tossed her grump across the room and wiggled her little body between me and the side of the bed. 

“My turn!”

Parker fluffed the pillows while I lifted her up.  She kissed my lips, threw her arms out, and I tossed her, a little more gently than her brother.  She jumped straight up and screamed, “AGAIN!”

We fluffed and kissed and tossed until old Gummy’s arms got so tired.  That’s when I suggested we revert to the old standard.  Actually, I didn’t so much suggest it with words as I did with a blast on Parker’s head. A puffy soft blast of a fluffy down pillow.  He grabbed one and hit me back.  Rubes found one of her own and we went at it, laughing so hard our bellies hurt. We went at it until finally, exhausted, the three of us flopped over on the bed, their little chests rising and falling from the exertion.  

This, I told myself, is what every weary old woman needs when she wants a pick-me-up.  Not coffee.  Not a Diet Coke.  Not a bowl of ice cream, though that has been proven an effective afternoon energizer.  No, a tired and semi-grumpy old Gummy just needs a good king sized bed with a nice down comforter and a good pile of pillows. 

Oh, and a couple munchkins willing to kiss her.

I realize today is only Monday...well, actually Tuesday at this point.  Don't ask me why I'm writing about Thursday.I  guess some of the things that wear us out the most will be the most memorable for us one day.

31. BEING THERE

Annie stood at the kitchen sink, cleaning out baby Calvin’s bottle.

“Are you going to Summer’s grandma’s funeral?” I asked.  Summer was a sister-friend to Annie growing up.  They were room mates in college and Annie was a bridesmaid at Summer’s wedding. 

Annie turned toward me, setting the bottle on the counter top. She slumped her shoulders, her eyes welled up, and she struggled to find the words:

“Mom, do you know how much I hate funerals?  I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but they hurt so much. I get physically sick. And then it takes me a week to get over it. I just can’t stop thinking about it, and I cry all the time, and it’s just so hard for me.”

I know Annie pretty well.  I’ve known her longer than any human being has known her. I know her tender heart and her sensitivities.  She is as kind and loving as any person I have ever met, and she has a sixth sense that makes her pause and ask me if I’m OK when other people think I’m just fine.  Sometime’s peoples’ actions appear to be insensitive, when in reality they are the result of ultra-sensitivity. She feels sorrow as deeply as she feels joy.

“I know, Nanners,” I said, shifting over to the counter to give her a hug. “I know it’s so much harder for you than the average person.  So much harder than for me.  But I also know that there are times when we just plain need to be there.”

The spirit assigned to directing mothers whispered that this was enough, and I did not belabor it. I am no longer the boss of her.  She gets to make her own decisions.

I’ve lived a long time now.  And in that long time I have discovered that I am a believer  in being there.  Not that I always am, and not that I always can be.  But in general, there are some times and circumstances that have divine light around them and we miss so much when we don’t attend.  We miss the chance to receive, and we miss the chance to give.

Being there for a birthday lunch…that’s nice, and thoughtfully kind. That kind of being there is important, mostly because it sends a message, a little reminder that we are important to each other.

But there are other times when being there is a washing of feet; a 40 day fast; a pair of hands over the head of a lifeless child.  We minister with our presence.  In those moments when the rest of the world is stripped away, when the only thing holding us together is the grace of God; the mere presence of those we love is a type of consecrated oil on a wounded head. Whether it is the physical exchange of energy, or if it is angels speaking to angels, or if it’s only an easing of the mind to know we are not alone, I don’t know.  But there is definitely something about someone simply being with us in our deepest grief and our greatest joy that makes it more bearable and more complete.

I’ll not forget being up in Midway, Utah, a distant city and large canyon drive away from our home in Farmington.  We were weary with sorrow at the passing of our young nephew, Clayton, after a tragic motorcycle accident. I’ll not forget seeing our Farmington neighbors, Doug Asay, Connie and Dave Bailey, Cindy Gardner and Sue Denham walk in.  While they did not personally know Clayton or his parents, they knew we loved him, and they knew the depth of grief in his passing.  Even now it makes me weep.  My heart feels seared to theirs because of their presence.  It is no comment on others who could not be there, I’ve been in situations when I could not be there for people I love, and I pass no judgment.  I just know what it is like to feel like you’ve been ministered to, simply by someone showing up.

Yesterday morning I picked Dave up at the airport after a rather unusual trip he had taken. 

A couple months ago Dave received a letter from Yale University Track and Field Association, inviting him to attend their annual senior awards banquet at the Yale Club in NYC.  Dave participated in football and track at Yale, even lettering in track, but he hasn’t really done that much with the association since graduation, especially since we live thousands of miles away from New Haven, CT.  But this event was particularly enticing because Dave’s old friend and fellow Yalie, Peter Diamond, was being honored. 

I had first met Peter the night before Dave and I were married.  We had travelled to Washington DC to be married in the Mormon Temple there.  The night before we were wed, Dave’s parents provided a delightful evening at the Blair Mansion, where nearly 100 people shared a fabulous meal and warm conversation.  At some point in the evening a group of young men rose and came to the front, taking me by the arms and whisking me to a small room apart from the party. They blindfolded me and put me in the center of the darkened room, where David was also situated, then they gathered in a circle around us.  They began to hum, rather eerily I might add, then broke into song. The title and lyric to the song I cannot disclose.  It is old...very old...and particular to their fellowship in an old traditional society of brothers well known at Yale, which name I am also forbidden to disclose. Dave had been tapped with 14 other Juniors when he was at Yale, and his senior year there was spent with a diverse and talented group of “brothers” who shared much that is confidential to them.  These brothers, after singing to me, one by one rubbed their knuckles over the top of my head, much like my obnoxious brother did when he was teasing me, so that my pre-wedding night hair was all ratted by the time they were done.  I was actually somewhat frightened by all of it, until they removed my blindfold and I saw the genuine smiles and true kindness on their faces as they welcomed me to their circle. One by one they kissed me on the cheek and congratulated David.  Dave was the first of that group to be married.  They gave us a beautiful clock, an heirloom, which to this day chimes in David’s study in our home. 

Peter Diamond was in that circle.  We don’t see him, or any of the others from that group very often.  After college they all scattered to various positions or graduate studies, or Peace Corps service in far flung places.  David left for Italy the week after he graduated, serving for two years there as a missionary.  Peter took a position with ABC Sports as a researcher for the Innsbruck Olympics. Peter has been with ABC and now NBC as a producer for every Olympic game since then.  He has received 13 Emmy awards and is now the Senior Vice President of Programs at NBC Olympics.  He is responsible for programming NBC's coverage of the Olympic Games, and has overseen more Olympic programs than any broadcast network executive in television history. The Yale Track association is wise to have chosen to honor him.

“I think I’d really like to try to go to this,” Dave said, after reading the letter of invitation.  The problem was that he had a trial scheduled for Thursday, the banquet was on a Friday, and Saturday our granddaughter Sophie was being baptized. 

“Do you think I’m crazy to want to go?”  He waited for my response. 

Well, sort of…is what I thought. I mean, how was he going to do this?  We live 3000 miles away.  There just weren’t enough hours between all the things he wanted to attend, and too many miles as well.

But what I said was: “You do what your heart tells you to do.”

So he bought a ticket.

Thursday he had to be there for his trial.  He is, after all, the judge. So the ticket he purchased had him leaving Salt Lake City at 12:50 am Friday morning.  I dropped him off at the airport at midnight, wishing I had insisted on him taking a pillow in his bag.  He arrived in NYC Friday morning, got himself a bowl of Chinese Sesame Noodles at one of his old favorite restaurants in the city, walked around for a while, then showed up at the Yale Club, where he spent a portion of the afternoon nestled among shelves of wonderful old books in the library.  He had contacted some of their “brothers” who were in or near New York, and they joined together that evening in the dining hall of that brilliant old building, where tradition and honor and history hover around the beveled glass and thick soft leather and finely polished wood. Peter was genuinely astonished at their presence.  Stunned, actually, that David would travel from Utah.  I imagine it was a heart swelling kind of night for Dave, being there in that familiar place, with those familiar spirits from days gone by.

Dave sat next to Brian, another of the brothers, who had suffered a profound personal loss eight years ago.  His wife, a warm and well respected business woman and the mother of their two young sons, had died in a tragic fire in a Virginia Inn, where she was staying for a recruiting trip for her law firm. I cannot imagine the sorrow.  Truly.  David had travelled back east for the memorial service.

Dave hadn’t seen Brian since that time.  They were able to share meaningful conversation Friday night; clapping appropriately for Peter, and cheering for the track seniors.  As the evening drew to a close, Brian leaned over to Dave and looked him in the eye.  Quoting some unknown philosopher, he said these words:

 “There are friends.  And there are friends who show up.”

I know Dave well enough to imagine the man tears welling in his eyes.  I imagine them in Brian's eyes as well.

Peter invited Dave to stay in his place in Manhattan before his return flight, but Dave would have had to leave for the airport at 4 am, so he thanked him and said it was no problem to just wait a while at the airport. 

“Thanks for being here, Dave.  I really cannot believe you came all this way. I’ll never forget it.”

Dave spent the night trying to find a comfortable position in the stiff metal seats at JFK airport. His flight left New York early Saturday morning.  I picked him up just in time for him to shower and change into his suit for Sophie’s baptism early Saturday afternoon.  He had not laid down since Wednesday night.

Sometimes the thing that matters most is that you just show up.

Three weeks ago I loaded my guitar into my car, heading out to sing at Summer’s grandma’s funeral.  When the garage door opened there stood Annie, her little Calvin dressed in his Sunday best.  We drove together, quietly, up the road…the long path of love…that led to the place where we could minister. 

No words necessary. 

We just needed to show up.

  

True friendship isn't about being there when it's convenient;

it's about being there when it's not.

Anon.