by jphilo | Oct 20, 2010 | Family
Tuesdays are usually for visiting my mom, Dorothy. Most weeks we go out for lunch, run errands, keep appointments, pay her bills, and balance her checkbook. But my crazy week of travel meant our day out was today, Wednesday.
Which was fine by Mom. She’s been hankering for schedule change ever since Village Inn started their Wednesday-free-pie-with-any-purchase promotion. So today we made a beeline for Village Inn – before putting gas in her car or buying some birthday cards – and made quick work of lunch. Then we ordered our free pie. Cherry for Mom. Strawberry-rhubarb for me. It was surprisingly good pie, though it couldn’t hold a candle to homemade.
The fact that it was free had Mom, thrifty survivor of the Great Depression, grinning from ear to ear. Free pie made her happy enough to crack a few jokes on the way home. Engaged enough to read yard signs and comment on the political leanings of home owners along the way. Secure enough in who she is to use her cane in the Target parking lot. Silly enough to choose the goofiest card she could find for her son-in-law’s birthday. And to think, all it took to make her happy was a schedule change and free pie.
Wednesday with Dorothy – priceless.
by jphilo | Oct 19, 2010 | Family
Ahhh…home again after two days of interviews and speaking engagements, two nights in strange beds, and two drives through the countryside where farmers were harvesting at full tilt. Though my eyelids are drooping and my body can’t wait to rest on our mattress’s familiar bumps and lumps, my heart is grateful for the people who made this quick trip a treasure of joy.
First, my cousin and his wife opened their home to me Sunday evening. Catching up on life with the adults was grand, but catching up on kid stuff with their children was a gold mine of information. I am now fluent in Thomas the Tank lingo, northwest Iowa youth tackle football league play-offs, downloading MP3 files, or the alphabet song – thanks to their three boys (ages 12, 10 & 5) and their 3-year-old daughter.
Monday yielded its own delights. The morning’s walking trail wound past a farmer combining corn and the local grain elevator with its growing pile of Iowa corn. Later in the day, the professionals and parents in the special needs community who agreed to be interviewed for my book shared nugget after nugget of wisdom. Then my daughter, her husband and I went out to dinner to celebrate his new job.
Which brings us to this morning when I spoke at a service club in my hometown, sharing childhood stories and memories of the people who helped our family after Dad was diagnosed with MS. Afterwards a friend of my parents spoke to me. “Every time I visited your dad,” he said, “I left with more than I had given. It was impossible to visit him and not leave smiling, feeling good.” We looked at each other, our eyes bright with tears.
Home again, reliving the memory, I wonder if this dear man knows what his words mean to me. They the assurance that my father’s life mattered, that he is remembered, that he gave more than he was given. His words are my golden treasure.
And I am grateful.
by jphilo | Oct 12, 2010 | Family
Phone calls are not my favorite thing, probably because of the bad news relayed by phone over the years. Never mind that ten times more good news than bad has been the subject of phone calls, too. The bad news announcements make me skittish every time I say hello.
So when the daughter called and said, “Hi, Mom,” in a doleful voice, the bright October day dimmed. A half dozen worst case scenarios flitted through my mind.
She’s dropped out of college.
Their basement apartment flooded.
She lost her job.
She or her new hubby has cancer.
They’ve had a fight.
They crashed their car.
Lest you think I’m an alarmist, you should know that two weeks after their wedding, the daughter and her hubby called with trifold bad news. All in one weekend, his workplace h had unexpectedly closed, their computer crashed, and their car died.
The daughter’s slow, mournful voice continued. “We called to tell you that,” and here her voice grew animated and energetic, “that my sweetie got a job.” Our new son joined her on speaker phone to fill in the details.
Not just any job, but a full time job.
Not just any full time job, but one where he’ll make a difference in people’s lives.
Not just one where he’ll make a difference, but with decent pay.
Not just decent pay, but one with evenings, weekends and holidays off.
An answer to prayer. When they were done sharing the details, we all agreed that God had once again provided beyond what any of us could have imagined or conceived. I hung up the phone and smiled. A few hundred more calls like that one, and my phone phobia will bite the dust.
Ya’ know, miracles do happen.
by jphilo | Oct 7, 2010 | Family
If asked to name those who embodies the values of my husband’s side of the family, two names would come to mind: Uncle Harold and Aunt Harriet Walker. Because of their example and forethought, their descendants gather at Shadow Valley each summer for Family Camp.
We’ve always known Harold and Harriet were remarkable people, but a recent email from Aunt Harriet (well into her eighties she’s learned to use email, scanners, calendar makers, and digital photographs) informed us that the rest of the world is catching on, too. A local reporter interviewed Harold and published his story in the Oconee Leader. The article spans his life as a young boy in Kansas and Idaho, his stint as a bomber pilot in WWII, his long career as an educator and the books he’s self-published. You can read the article at Oconee Man Chronicles Memories.
On a side note, Aunt Harriet is an accomplished writer and historian in her own right. Her book, Your Alaskan Daughter, was named as an all-time favorite by several women in our book club, and we’ve been meeting monthly for almost a decade.
If you’re looking for primary source material for historical research about homesteading in Alaska or the end of WWII in the Pacific theater, their books and memories would provide invaluable resources. Or, if you’re looking for people who embody unconditional love, faithfulness, joy in all circumstances, or good stewardship, leave a comment. I’d be happy to introduce you to them. Knowing them has made a difference in my life. They could make a difference in your life, too.
by jphilo | Sep 27, 2010 | Family
Have you checked out the fall shoe styles lately? If your 1950s and 60s grandma shopped where my grandma shopped, then your as stymied by the style pictured above as I am. Me and my cousins had only one name for them.
Grandma shoes.
Nobody under the age of sixty wore shoes like that. We wouldn’t have been caught dead in them, not if we wanted to show our faces without being laughed out of school. Not even my mother, who was a school teacher and thus queen of sensible shoes, wore them because she didn’t want to be laughed out of the teachers’ lounge.
Grandma shoes.
The shoes my grandma wore. In those days she was a big woman. A beefy woman. Stout and matronly, her feet always clad in sensible, totally non-sexy shoes. They were the perfect match for her dowdy print house dresses and her grey hair permed into tight little curls. She was a grandma, not a cool dresser.
And these are not cool shoes.
They are the kind of shoes girls wear when they dress up as little old ladies for Halloween. Or when they’re cast as the grandma in the high school play. I ought to know. I wore a pair – in fact borrowed them from my grandma – when cast as a hard-of-hearing, scotch-tippling nursing home resident in our high school production of The Silver Whistle. The shoes were the finishing touch of a stellar costume, which included a pillow padded bosom and corresponding derrière. The footwear garnered more snickers than the bosom, even amongst high school boys.
Now that’s saying something.
I learned something else during my run as a drunk old lady. Grandma shoes aren’t comfortable. At all. Sure, they stay on your feet and the arch support is top notch, but they have no cushion, no give, no bounce. They suck the spring right out of your step and make you walk funny. Like an old grandma, to be exact.
Think about it.
Who wants to walk old lady sooner than necessary? Maybe women under the age of 50 will give it a whirl since they still think they’re immortal. But for those of us over 50, old ladydom is approaching at lightning speed, and we don’t want to dress the part any sooner than necessary. So I’m not jumping on this fall’s fashion bandwagon, no matter how popular the shoes become. I’m sticking to my footwear guns and hoping something better comes along next year. Ask as often as you like, but my answer will be the same.
No Grandma Shoes for me.
by jphilo | Sep 23, 2010 | Family
I am such a sap. If my parents had been given any inkling of the weepy woman they were raising, they would have taken out Kleenex stock and made a bundle of money. Who knows why, but I cry at senior dance recitals, weddings, funerals, graduations, parent/teacher conferences, and reunions – not just those involving my family but those of friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers. I also get teary-eyed at the sight of wheelchairs, healthy babies, sick babies, hospitals, nursing homes, old couples holding hands, parents holding their kids’ hands, the American flag, soldiers, and I’d better stop there or the list will never end.
So I should have said no last fall when the producer of Words to Live By, an international radio program produced by RBC Ministries, invited me to share our family’s story for a future broadcast. (Don’t let the invitation impress you. RBC is the parent company that also owns, Discovery House Publishers (DHP). And DHP released A Different Dream for My Child last year and will also publish Different Dream Parenting.)
Instead I said yes. Of course, I cried through much of the interview. So hard, in fact, that they had to turn off the tape and give me time to blow my nose. More than once.
Well, last week word came that the segment featuring our family’s story will air this coming weekend, September 25 and 26. At first I didn’t tell anybody, because who would want to listen to a weepy woman blubber into a microphone? But yesterday, the nice people at RBC sent a CD of the program. I listened to this morning and was pleasantly surprised. Somehow, the miracle workers at Words to Live By edited out my snuff-snuffs and nose drips so the broadcast is not a blatant marketing ploy for tissue barons.
If you want to listen to the show, go to www.words.net and use the station finder to locate your closest station and air time. You can also listen to the broadcast at www.words.net from September 24 – 30. And from the looks of things, a free downloadable podcast will be available at the iTunes store a week or two after the show first airs.
So have a listen and see what you think. To be on the safe side, have some Kleenex handy. Just don’t pull them out of the box before you need them. No sense making the tissue kings any richer than necessary.
