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“Empty” nest?

Posted by: on: January 2, 2016

As we turn the calendar to a new year, what are you anticipating?

Our youngest daughter is 21. Up to now, she hasn’t been in a financially secure enough position to move out on her own, but she is rapidly arriving there, so sometime in 2016, Lord willing, after 30 years, our Emancipation Day will arrive. We will join the ranks of the so-called “empty nesters”.

Being a stay-at-home mom, and especially a homeschooler, I have had people expect that this would be something hard for me. “Since you’ve always surrounded with kids, won’t you be lonely? After spending so many years with your time occupied with teaching, aren’t you worried about what you’ll do with yourself?” My answer is a laughing, but emphatic, “NO” to both questions.

I was blessed by a mother who set an example for me in this. She was always a stay-at-home mom, often essentially a single mother because my dad traveled a lot. Yet although busy with raising 5 kids, Mama always found ways to keep her own interests going. Clearing out her house after she died last year, I was struck by just how many different crafts she had undertaken through the years that confirmed her identity as an artist. She always found time to read. She always had a flower garden of some kind. She put a lot of effort into decorating the houses she lived in. Of especial importance to me as a role model, was that my mother was comfortable in her own skin and with her own company. She was “Chuck’s wife”, and “Tim/Gary/Sandy/Corey/Susie’s mom”, but she never was ONLY those things. She maintained a strong sense of self apart from anyone else.

Mama modeled an acceptance of life in each of its stages, and never repined over any season of her life. When we kids were elementary aged, she never sighed for the toddlers we were. When we were in high school, she never got wistful over our Tooth Fairy days. When we left home to go out into the world, she never wished we’d stayed home forever. When Daddy died at my house while he and Mama were visiting in 1991, she spent that night weeping and walking up and down our driveway, but by morning she had reconciled herself to her new life on her own – and was determined to fully LIVE that life. And she did, too!

Mama avoided two of the most common traps many moms fall into.

One is that they have confused their role with their identity.

Our roles are what we do; our identity is who we are. No matter how tempting it is to get our sense of self from a role we fulfill, roles were never meant to consume or define us. Roles change over time but we’ll be living with our self long after our kids are out on their own. If we keep in touch with our selves, nourish our individuality, ponder our unique purpose, and grow in our own faith, when we face a change in our role we won’t find ourselves living with a stranger.

The other trap for moms is investing all of their life in the lives of their kids, but none in their own.

At some stages, especially when our kids are very young, investing in our own life can be difficult, I know, but it is important that we do it, even if we can reserve only a tiny corner of our life for actively pursuing personal growth. This isn’t being “selfish.” Sacrificing all of our life on the altar of serving our kids does neither them nor ourselves any favors. If we can keep even a little flame burning makes it much easier to get the fire going when the opportunity arises; staying involved in our own interests as our kids grow up means that when the time comes, as it will, that we have more freedom of time, rather than feeling an empty “Now what?” we can feel an anticipation that says “At LAST!”

A few years ago, in a conversation with an older, single woman I know, we were talking about decorating for Christmas. She told me that she doesn’t bother to do it, because “there’s only me at home.” Mama decorated her house to the nines; there wasn’t a single nook or cranny in the entire house that didn’t wear a festive decoration. When I related that conversation to her, she countered, “So what if it’s just me? I consider myself worth decorating for!”

My kids may leave home.  Even my spouse could leave home, one way or another.  But my nest won’t be “empty” until I’M no longer in it!

 

Wherever your nest, may you find contentment in it, and may the new year find you filled with anticipation! God bless you all.

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Being just like our Father

Posted by: on: June 21, 2015

One of the interesting things coming out of dealing with my mom’s death is the revelation of just how different experiences with/perceptions of our parents were/are among my siblings and me. With a ten year age span between the five of us, several different living locations during our growing up, and, of course, our very different personalities and needs, it isn’t any wonder that such differences exist – indeed, it would be unbelievable if they did not – but knowing that these differences must exist and coming face to face with them in reality …. Somehow they still can be surprising. Even though our dad died 24 years ago, I’m still learning new things.

One of the things that came up in these last months has to do with fixing things. We always said my dad could fix anything. My dad disagreed; some things, he insisted, were not worth fixing! Honestly, though, he was one of those amazing guys who can seemingly do anything in the handyman line. I saw him take apart and put together countless kinds of appliances and toys; more often than not, that alone would restore them to working order without him even having to figure out what had been wrong in the first place. He did all our home maintenance and repair. At one house he enclosed the carport to create extra rooms; at another he finished the basement AND added on a huge garage and a workshop for himself. Once he retired, he parlayed his skills into a handyman business, under which flag he expanded into even more projects. I’m not sure if there was anything he was totally unwilling to tackle, though if electronics got too complicated, he’d bow out.

Because of my Daddy, I am pretty fearless when it comes to taking things apart. As he always said, “If it’s already broke, I can’t make it not work any worse.” If I already can’t use something, I’ve got nothing to lose by trying to fix it myself – especially if it’s something that it won’t be worth paying someone else to try to fix, if that’s even possible! I know if something was put together, it can most likely come apart; you just have to try to figure out which was the last screw, or the last tab. I can hear my dad’s voice as I work, “OK, lay everything out in the order you remove them, then just work backward from there to put it back together.” I can look at gears and latches and movements and more often than not figure out how the thing is supposed to work. I can read a user manual and identify parts. (Yes, my dad actually read directions!) My mom and at least one or two others of my sibling have said the same thing about hearing my dad’s voice as they go along on a project. A few months ago, one of my other brothers made the point that he does NOT. In fact, he doesn’t understand why we DO.

As I thought about it, I was struck by the realization that I didn’t get any of what I just talked about because Daddy TAUGHT it to me. Although he probably thought he did, the fact was, Daddy didn’t TEACH. He might show us – “OK, do this-this-this-this-then-this and there you’re all done” (like my one and only lesson in changing a tire) – but he didn’t take us through step by step and have us do it. Because he had come by his skill naturally and had had plenty of opportunity to gain experience on his dad’s ranch growing up, I don’t think he ever quite understood how unusual he was; I think he expected that of course we kids – especially the boys – would know how to be handy with tools simply because HE was. (When I married a man whose own dad had been, um, the antithesis of my own in that regard, my dad made allowances and did make a point of working WITH my dh to teach him skills, a blessing from which our family continues to benefit.)

I didn’t learn from Daddy how to fix things, but somehow I managed to absorb an attitude from him that I COULD. Yet my brother was left with neither. There are other attitudes I absorbed that have had a far less positive influence, but that escaped my siblings’ notice altogether. Of both my father and my mother, we find ourselves asking one another, “Where did you get THAT??” or saying, “Boy, I sure didn’t see it that way.”

Is it any wonder, then, given how amazingly individualistic we kids are in how we react to our earthly parents growing up, that we are so individualistic in how we perceive God? We believers read the same Word, yet how differently we may interpret it! We worship the same Lord, yet relate differently to His holy character. We come to God from such different experiences and different paradigms, such different expectations, fears, hopes, and longings that we should not wonder that we sometimes ask each other, “Where do you see THAT in Him? I’ve never felt like that.”

Unity in the Spirit doesn’t make us like each other; it makes us like the same God. However, because our God is so diverse and beyond our comprehension – the Great Both/And, the Great Contradiction, Who Makes Exist What Does Not – being all like Him we end up as different from each other as can be. No other believer will ever be able to relate to God as I do. There is a facet of God’s image that only you can connect with.

I see my mom and dad more clearly now that I am learning to see them through my siblings’ eyes. In some ways, I continue to hold to my own perception, but I have learned to fully acknowledge the validity of theirs, no matter how different from mine. It would be so sad if any of us tried to deny family identity over those differences. In the same way, we should value those in God’s Family whose perceptions differ from our own and be willing to consider theirs. We don’t necessarily have to adopt those perceptions, but we should acknowledge their validity. Worst of all would be for us to attempt to disown others from the Family simply because they experience the Father differently, have learned some different lessons, see His world through different eyes.

Whom God has called His child is my brother, my sister. We all bear the same family name. May we all be our Father’s children in word and deed.

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The Shadow Lengthens

Posted by: on: August 5, 2014

And so it is coming. We’ve known since December 6th that Mama is dying. But knowing in the theoretical doesn’t really prepare you for the reality. Having never been present during the dying process, it is all new territory. And although she was present for both my dad’s mother and her own father’s slow journeys to their deaths, this is new territory for Mama as well, of course. You don’t get a practice run for dying.

She stopped her cancer drug about a month ago now and officially entered hospice care. The drug was more or less holding the lung tumor at bay, but doing nothing for the brain tumor, and though it was keeping her alive, it wasn’t giving her a LIFE. The decision to stop was not hard. She knows her destination and is eager to reach it. It’s the dying process itself that scares her – a not unreasonable fear given the likely symptoms involved.

The doctors promise that you don’t have to die in pain and discomfort, but they don’t always make clear that to do that, you will have to be on massive amounts of drugs, and that the side effects of those drugs can be as difficult to manage as the symptoms of the disease itself – especially if, as with Mama, you can’t tolerate some of the best drugs for the symptoms.

In the last month, and especially in the last week, Mama has deteriorated noticeably. Quite probably the brain tumor is exacting a high price by now, and the lung tumor is also likely to be far more vicious. The cancer may have even spread further. Certainly she has more frequent and worse pain, has absolutely no energy, and now is dealing with some mental confusion. It doesn’t seem likely that she can go on for too much longer. None of us would want her to.
Yet it still comes as something of a shock, this adjusting to constant new realities, this realization that change will be the new “normal” from here on out. For all the grieving I have already done, I keep finding new depths to plumb – and I expect it will go on until, and after, she is gone. I dread her being gone, even while I pray for the Lord to take her quickly. It’s such an odd mixture of emotions.

But what I’m going through is nothing new. Children have been helping their parents through death since Seth and his siblings watched Adam and Eve die. Being at the tail end of the Boomer generation, many, many of my friends have already lost their parents, or are in the same process, or expect to be there before long. In one way, it is irrelevant because no one else has gone through MY loss, and yet, in another, it is a huge comfort to me to know that I share my lot with others. It was the same when we lost a child to miscarriage between our 4th and 5th children, and I discovered at my women’s Bible study that of the 12 women there, only two had not suffered the same loss – and of those two, one had not married until after her child-bearing years were past. What I am doing in taking care of my mother is nothing extraordinary, either. It has been done by millions of children, is being done by millions of children, and will continue to be done by children until the Lord comes.

In his first letter, Paul tells the Corinthians that “nothing has overtaken you but what is common to man.” Although he was talking specifically about temptation, in reality, the same thing applies to all of life. None of us goes through anything really and truly unique. The exact circumstances may vary, but the kind of trauma, the kind of loss – in these, too, there is nothing new under the sun. Most important of all, in His temptation in the wilderness, in His suffering and death, Christ somehow experienced every human experience. There is no trauma or loss that Christ cannot relate to. He is not standing by watching what we are going through and saying, “Man, I wish I knew how to help, but this is beyond Me.” No, He is ever-present, sure and steady, our Rock in the midst of the flood. As He wept at Lazarus’ tomb, weeping at the destruction brought about in His creation by the entrance of sin, He shares our grief at the death of our mother, but beyond that He stands with us to give us the strength to bear up, the peace that even this is one of the “all things” that He is working together for good for those who love Him, and the sure and certain Hope of the Resurrection to come. What blessed comfort!!

“Jesus walked this lonesome valley
He had to walk it by Himself
Oh, nobody else could walk it for Him
He had to walk it by Himself.

You and I must walk this valley
But we don’t walk it by ourselves
No, He gave His live to walk it for us
So we won’t walk it by ourselves.”

I Would If I Could…. A Christmas to Remember, Part 2

Posted by: on: January 12, 2014

Finally getting a chance to finish up telling you about our Christmas. And this time, I have pictures!

If Christmas Eve was “O, Holy Night”, Christmas Day was definitely “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”! This will definitely go down in our family history as one of the most zany and outrageously funny ones we have EVER had.

For a number of years now, our family has been trying to do things other than the traditional gift thing. Partly this arose from the fact that with this big a family, it gets awfully expensive, not to mention difficult, for everyone to get everyone something. Besides, and more importantly, buying stuff just for the sake of buying stuff – even to say “I love you” – when we already have MORE than enough stuff, seems pointless. So, for a few years, the kids did a round-robin exchange. Then they had each person do a donation in the giftee’s name and give the giftee some little something connected with that organization. Last year, we all pooled of our Christmas gift money and sent one big donation to an organization my brother is involved with. This year, Bethy suggested we do our own things about donations, and do a round-robin exchange of “I would if I could” gifts. That is, “If neither time, money, nor physics were an object, I would give you …..” A new car? A bigger house? A vacation in France? A trip to the moon? All the tea in China? The only limit would be our imaginations. If desired, you could also give a real gift related to the imaginary one, but the important thing was the imaginary one.

For some of us, it was an invitation. As Brooke put it when I announced that I would be texting each person with the name of their intended victim, er, recipient, “Let the shenanigans begin!” For a few, there was at first a “Huh? What on earth am I gonna give X?!?” reaction, but blank stares were quickly replaced by gleams in the eye, mischievous grins, and “Oh, boy, this is gonna be GOOD!” Those of us who knew something of what others were doing pitched in with extra ideas, helping to hone the projects to perfection. The results couldn’t have been more worth it!

Phil gave Bethy her dream house – big house, nice front porch, huge yard with gardens. All she has to do is assemble the 300 pieces of the jigsaw! Jillian gave Brooke a house, too, specifying a number of rooms, such as one JUST for her sewing, complete with a fashion runway. (Brooke is a fashion design grad.) It also came with a huge kitchen for her to play in and all kinds of equipment for cake decorating – starting with the set included in the package.

Bethy gave me three letters. The first is dated 12/20/2014, from writing agent Walter Wordsmith, telling me how blown away he was by the manuscript my daughter submitted for me of my first book, Raising Five Kids with Five Brain Cells, congratulating me for being on the New York Times best-seller list for 15 weeks, and suggesting two more books. The second letter, 2/21/2015, from Spurilious Publishers editor Douglas Inktopolous, confirms the contract for the second and third books, and says he hopes to see the draft for the second – Where Are My Kids and Who Are These Teenagers? – by Christmas. The third letter is from film director Frank Philographer letting me know how the filming of the story based on my third bestseller, Rockin’ & Rollin’ On the Front Porch Swing, is going. I get a cameo appearance, of course, and “(after reviewing the 217 photos your husband submitted) the casting call for child actors for that scene was quietly dropped since your actual grandchildren are clearly cuter.”

To Darien, the fitness buff getting a degree in kinesiology so he can be a personal trainer, Brooke gave the gym of his dreams, and suggested services such as a wind tunnel for sky-diving training, indoor rapids racing, a 5 story climbing wall, shark tank swimming lessons, rabid wolverine wrestling, Temple of Doom Endurance obstacle course, and King David’s Mighty Men certification. Bonus gift: 5 year exclusive contract with Brooke’s imaginary clothing company to produce all his “gym swag needs.” Along with this certificate came the T-shirt Brooke made, as seen in the photo.DSC_0433

Cherry gave her dad some coffees from around the world, and a note that said, “If money were no object, I would pay for you to spend a year travelling the world, taking pictures and tasting exotic coffee.” The funny part, though, was that the first time she printed the note up, she used a fancy font that looked very dignified an official-like….. Reading it, however, she realized that the “x” looked almost identical to the “r”, which gave “exotic” a rather unfortunate appearance!

My brother, Tim, a physics prof at Azusa Pacific, was up from SoCal to see our mom. He is a wonderful guy, witty, thoughtful, tender-hearted….. and as disorganized as you will ever find. He is chronically behind on grading tests and papers, his office shelves look like an office supply store exploded, and I don’t know if he even remembers what color the carpet is under all the files, books, and other detritus thereon. So, we gave him a new app – the “iDO”. When he needs something done, he just has to say, “Who wants to …?” and “iDO!” Jillian designed the button for it with many helpful suggestions for the app to do, such as “schnorfle the snickerbokers” and “unfrazzle my frumpkis”. 1-Tim iDO app

Jillian is a major Dr. Who fan. (If you’re not, you probably won’t get this.) So I gave her a little computer monitor bobblehead of the Tardis, a DVD of the 50th anniversary episode, and a note with a picture of David Tennant (her favorite doctor) that said, “Come fly with me! You have been chosen as the Doctor’s new companion to defeat the Daleks, outwit the weeping angels, and have many adventures with that wibbly wobbly timey wimey…. Oh, you’re back already! Hope you had a good time!” DSC_0451

To nephew, John, who is part of a medieval knights re-enactment troupe, went participation in a full re-enactment of Henry V’s Battle of Agincourt –with a little set of knights and castles Legos to practice with. Tim’s wife, Beth, whose daughter and family moved to Oklahoma this year, bringing on an acute case of grandchild-withdrawal-syndrome, got a Star Trek transporter.

Darien gave Nathan a huge workshop in which to create interesting and/or destructive electronic toys. So what’s with the slice of pickle, you ask? That’s a loooooooong-standing family joke. When I was in high school, my brother Corey gave me a bookbark that was all green and on the top corner looked like it had a bite taken out of it. The bookmark read, “This isn’t a bookmark. It’s a flat pickle.” So, every Christmas, at various times, someone will make a joke about some package being a flat pickle. Darien just figured it was about time someone DID get a flat pickle! 082-Christmas 082

The two most elaborate gifts were put together by the two family members who I think any of us least expected it from. Nathan gave Cherry a trip around the world. That is, he wrote out THREE PAGES of an itinerary. It detailed where she’d go. It detailed how she’d travel – for instance, by elephant from Thailand to Australia. It detailed the kinds of things she would buy where, and came complete with homing drones to carry all of her purchases home so she wouldn’t have to worry about shipping. The description was filled with bits such as “Run out of money? Just print more. (Hey, it works for the government!)” In the very first paragraph, she was instructed to bring with her a bag of marshmellows, and throughout the trip, there would be a reminder about that bag of marshmellows. At the end, she finds out that that day is the pilot’s birthday, and, luckily, she has a birthday present on hand for him: a bag of marshmellows!

To Phil, Rob gave a Seahawks Superbowl package for him and three friends. (Yes, they ARE going to the Sueprbowl. The Seahawks, that is, not Phil and friends.) The package included flying to New York in Paul Allen’s private jet; staying in the same hotel as the team; having a team Visa card to use for all expenses; being in on all the practices, film reviews, coaching meetings, etc.; being in the locker room before the game and running out the tunnel with the team, carrying the 12th man flag; getting to sit in … all the various places in the stadium where they have coaches and spotters and whatever, as well as in the VIP booth. And when the guys return home, Phil will be greeted by Brooke and the girls who will just have gotten home from a trip to any spa of their choosing in the world! This was all detailed in about FOUR pages of description, complete with photos of all the relevant people named. And it came with a Seahawks lanyard to carry his VIP pass on. DSC_0467

Yep, this Christmas is going to be awfully HARD to top!!

When I think of Christmases growing up, I think of a lot of FUN. And quite often, my mom was at the bottom of it. She always found the coolest, funniest, most intriguing little things to put in our stockings. There was the Christmas of The Wind-Up Cars. She found these tiny little funny wind-up cars that went Zip!, and we each got one in our stocking. I’m not sure who started it, but that whole holiday, I remember that every meal was accompanied by cars zipping across the table hither and yon, crashing into glasses and plates or launching off the edge. Her creativity in wrapping was amazing; every package was a work of art. I remember one package like a scene around a little silvery foil lake, with cotton snow, cut-out pine trees, and paper-clip ice-skates for the skaters. Mama loved secrets, and hiding things, and the fun of the discovery – though she did occasionally hide things too well. Until maybe my teens, there seemed to be a tradition that she always forgot one of my presents somewhere. One of my siblings would ask what I thought of my new thus-and-so, I’d looked puzzled, and they’d holler, “Mama! You forgot the –!” And Mama would stand trying to think just where she’d put that…. She always did remember. Sooner or later.

I could go on for pages with funny memories from those Christmases long past, but I won’t. The point is that Mama and Christmas fun are entwined in my memories of childhood, so how incomparably fitting it is that this, the last Christmas where she will be present, should have so much fun in it?

Now to start working on ideas to do for NEXT Christmas! Mama won’t be there – but her spirit of fun and legacy of laughter sure will!

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A Chrsitmas to Remember

Posted by: on: January 5, 2014

The manner of my parents’ dying is a study in contrasts. My dad died of an instant, massive heart attack, totally unexpected and unheralded. He was gone in the blink of an eye. Losing him that way had its blessings. Alzheimers claimed his older brother, and is now claiming his younger; it is highly likely that Daddy, had he lived longer, would also have had it. There was no lingering and suffering. Though the grief was sharp – heart- and mind-numbing- the worst of it was packed into those first few months. Losing him like that also had its own difficulties. I regretted that there was no chance to ask all the questions about his past that I had been only lately wondering about, such as his experiences flying medevac flights in the Philippines during WWII. The hardest thing for me to deal with was that we didn’t get to say goodbye. We didn’t know the “lasts” were, in fact, the lasts. We didn’t know we had spent our last Christmas, last Thanksgiving, last visits. There were no special last memories made.

With my mother dying as she is, we WILL have to watch her suffer. It won’t be for a period of years, as we went through with my dh’s parents, but it will be more than long enough! (Google “dying from lung cancer” and you can find descriptions of what she faces.) By the time she dies, we will long to see her free from the ravages of this disease. Our grief has already begun, coming in fits and starts, and I expect we will have done most of our grieving by the time she is finally released.
But it is a blessing is that we have the chance to ask the questions. We have the opportunity to treasure the “lasts” that we are given. We have opportunities to make special memories that will last us all our lives, to savor moments so that we may fix them in our minds.

So let me tell you of our Christmas to Remember.

From the Friday before Christmas till the morning of New Year’s Day, I had from at least 4 to as many as 15 extra people here every day. All five of our children were here, two with a spouse and 2 granddaughters each. (The first Christmas with all the adult kids for about 3 years, and all 5 together only twice for a few hours in the intervening years.) Also here were my oldest brother, wife, and 2 grown sons, who I only see every few years. The day after Christmas, our oldest son and his family left to visit HER folks, and my youngest older brother, wife, daughter, and their foster baby took their places at the table. (All of which is why I’m not writing about any of this until now!) My kids would have been here, anyway, but my brothers came as a special visit to see Mama.
Mama is no longer able to attend church services. (She had no idea that the Sunday before Thanksgiving would be her last!) So we decided to do a candlelight Christmas Eve service at her house, early enough in the evening for those with little ones to participate. In the dark and hush, the 4 and 2 yo great-granddaughters played well with the Granma’s house toys that the two girls who live here know well. The 7 mo spent the first half-hour or so sitting quietly in Granma’s lap, exceptional for a wiggle worm like Fiona. After a prayer, we began our first carol. As we started on the second verse, I nearly broke down. All my life I have associated Mama and music. She loves to sing, and there are several hymns that always make me think of her because she used to sing them as she did housework. As we were singing that carol, I was suddenly struck by the fact that her voice was missing. The breathing required for singing is too much for her now. I realized I will never hear my mother’s lovely voice lifted in song again.
By the end of the second verse, I had recovered and was able to sing again. Various ones of us chose carols to sing. When our kids were young at home, we sang carols – ALL the verses – throughout the Advent season, so although some were a bit rusty, we made it through all of them. In between songs, we read the story from Luke. I had Bethy read Granma’s favorite reading, a piece written as from Mary to the apostle John, talking about not just Jesus’ birth, but His whole life, through His death and resurrection. Several others shared special things they had been thinking about. Most touching of all was our son, Darien. (This is the one whose teen years we refer to as the Hell Years. Now nearing 25, we are closer than ever, and we have seen amazing growth in his relationship with the Lord.) He has been listening to one of his favorite punk Christian bands and their cover of the old, old hymn, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”, and some lines in it had hit him in a profound way. He read them to us. “Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God. He, to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood. How His kindness yet pursues me! Mortal tongue can never tell. Clothed in flesh till death shall loose me, I cannot proclaim it well.” He was crying as he read it, and afterwards spoke of the personal meaning of those lines, and his growing awareness that we will never be able to fully express the wonder of God’s grace until we reach heaven. Of all my children, to hear THIS son speak so! What a blessing! The evening continued with song as we asked Mama for suggestions, and we finally ended with prayer. It was one of the most profound, most moving, most holy times I can ever remember with my family. What a memory to carry with us!!

During the week, each of my kids who live far away spent special one-on-one time with their Granma, and my brothers and their wives spent many hours over all the days of their visits sitting and talking with her. We got some great pictures. My brother’s family, Cherry and I also did a Sunday morning service and hymn-sing, another special time together. My mom’s voice couldn’t be raised, but she whispered those beloved words with radiant face.

Each of us had our times of tears, thinking of the Christmases to come where she will be celebrating with the One Whose birth the angels heralded rather than with us. For the out-of town visitors, it was oh, so hard to put a final end to their conversation and say goodbye, not knowing if they will have another visit – or if, by the time they visit, our mother will be on the threshold of heaven. We are all starkly aware of the impending separation. But what a gift to be able to celebrate just once more while she is still here! What a joy to experience just a small foretaste of the joy we will enjoy together for eternity!

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To most people, a solution is the answer to a problem. To a chemist, a solution is something that's all mixed up. Good thing God's a chemist, because I'm definitely a solution!

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