She was my easiest labor, easiest delivery and was born on the Thursday before Mother’s Day. We had some friends over for dinner: chili and cinnamon rolls – admittedly an odd menu choice for May but nonetheless, that’s what we had. Why I remember this detail is anybody’s guess. We left for the hospital about 7:00 p.m. and a couple of hours later we were the proud parents of our fifth child – Joy Leanne. Joy because it just seemed so right and Leanne because it was the middle name of her three older sisters (another story for another day) and it seemed a little odd to change things up now.

I came home from the hospital the next day. On Sunday we went to church and then to Ponderosa for lunch since it was Mother’s Day. Paul took the other four in to get a table while I stayed in the car to feed and change the baby. When I finally made my way through the very crowded restaurant (it was Mother’s Day) an older lady stopped me. “How old is your baby?” she wanted to know as she admired the little red-headed bundle in my arms. “Three days”, I answered, sweeping  the room for the table for seven. “Oh honey! You might do something this stupid with your first one, but trust me. . . by your second, you’ll know better!  You’ll know to stay at home and rest!” Apparently I am a slow learner.

The child was a force to be reckoned with. She walked at seven months – not a few, halting steps but she walked across the room. And she never looked back. They asked us to move her out of the nursery because she roamed the room, snatching crackers out of the babies’ hands and moving on to the next one before anyone could stop her. At home, our only recourse was for everyone to man their stations and keep her out of their stuff and away from places she shouldn’t be. There is no use trying to teach a seven month old what is off limits.

If she learned to walk early, speech was not far behind. By a year old she was talking in sentences and by two she was talking in paragraphs . . . and talking. . . and talking. . . and you never knew what she would say or sometimes even what she meant by it but you had no doubt that she knew exactly what her point was.

Her favorite song was Joy to the World and she would randomly (and loudly) serenade the family, the restaurant, her Sunday School class or herself – even in mid July. I mean when you have a song that is written about you, why would you not?? Sometimes when she was feeling particularly generous she would substitute someone else’s name in place of her own “Fletcher to the world….” and always at full volume. But mostly, and often, it was Joy to the world. When people would comment on her head full of red curls – which they always did- she would agree “Yup, it sure is cully”.

When she was almost three we had a single guy who was living in our basement for a few months while he was between houses. Joy would corner him on his way in or out and chat with him. One day she said to him, “Joe, did you know I’m getting married?”

“Really??” he asked her. “I did not know that! Who’s the lucky guy?”

“You’re looking at him!!!”

As it turns out, that relationship did not work out – but not for her lack of boldness.

In both the church and the neighborhood I was known as Joy’s mother. She knew everybody and everybody knew her and they all found her enchanting – as did we. She seemed to draw a crowd wherever she went. One day Paul took her to McDonalds for lunch. Usually on such an outing she was so busy talking that she left most of her food untouched. But this day she had eaten all of it. “Good job on the chicken nuggets!” he encouraged her. “What does that mean?” She wanted to know. “Well, it just means you ate all your chicken nuggets. So good job.” She thought about it for a minute and then said, “So was that in Spanish?”  One day I was combing her hair (or trying to) when she said to me, “Mom, you know why I like you? Because most of the time, you don’t even treat me like an orphan.” There was her revelation that the Super Bowl is really only a football game (which I wrote about in the story “It’s All  About the Snacks”.)  It was her world and we were only visiting.

When she turned two we rented a house that had an indoor swimming pool and a sauna. Crazy, right? I was paranoid about having a baby and a pool and so we set out to teach her to swim.  Before long, she could jump into the pool, turn around, swim to the side and crawl out. We worked on this routine every day, but after putting her through her paces a few times, her teeth were chattering, her little body was shivering and she would say, “Only one more time, and then I get to sit in the warmer.” And while I could do without the swimming pool, I have often wished that every house I lived in thereafter had a warmer where I could reward myself at the end of an unpleasant task.

It was in that same house where she grew into our “hobbit child”.  Not because she acted like a hobbit in terms of avoiding adventurers, but because she just so looked like one.  I always thought if she had been born at the right time and the right place, Peter Jackson would have totally cast her in his films.

She was about three when we got a Cocker Spaniel puppy. Always thinking ahead, she asked if the puppy would have puppies. Maybe. What would we do with the puppies? Well we would probably sell them to somebody else who wanted a puppy. It was shortly after that she learned a new baby was coming to the family and that she would get to be the big sister. She seemed to take it in stride. And then one day I heard her talking to herself: “We will have baby puppies and a baby baby. And if we want, we can always sell the baby.” Let the record show, however, that when the new baby brother arrived she was over the moon and has been a devoted and loving big sister for the last 27 years – except, of course, for the times when he was being an annoying and irritating little brother.  But as far as I know, she has never once considered selling him.

Her older siblings were 12, 10, 8, and 6 when she was born, so she came into a family with a clearly defined pecking order and a history that she had not shared, which my own experience teaches me had to make her feel at times like the odd man out. But her sisters doted on her. They carried her in their bicycle baskets, put her in a cardboard box and pushed her around the house keeping her happy with an unending supply of Smartie Pills, bought her toys with their own money, threw her birthday parties, and advocated on her behalf. When she desperately wanted an American Girl doll for Christmas and I thought they were outrageously expensive, they offered to pitch in with their own money. It was their idea to give her a Victorian doll house (one that came in a kit and had to be glued together piece by piece and then painted and then decorated and furnished) and helped put it together late into the nights before Christmas. It was her brother who salvaged an old computer and repaired and restored it for her when she got older.

My mother always said that looking at her was like turning back the clock  – that in her she saw me at that age.  She died when Joy was only five and I’m sad that her youngest granddaughter has few, if any, memories of her.  She lost her other grandmother in her early teens and this, too, robbed her of a strong and remarkable woman.  But she comes from a long line of such women, and their legacy and their traditions live on in her.  And for that I am grateful.

And now, 31 years after that lovely May evening when Joy came to  our world, she has a husband and three little girls of her own.  And I swear that sometimes it’s like turning back the clock. Each in their own way, they are like their mother:  sensitive, filled with a bull-in-the-china-shop energy, and the  one with the head full of “culls” (even if they are blond instead of red.)

 

Happy Birthday to you, my dear  . .  and Joy to the world. . .  this and every day!