It’s not a story, really. Yet perhaps it is the beginning of all the stories.
I had a conversation with my eight year old granddaughter a few days ago. She was having a hard time watching her twelve and fourteen year old sisters at a party with their friends and realizing, not for the first time, that she did not belong in their group.
“Nana,” she asked me with tears spilling out her eyes, “Were you the youngest in your family?”
“I was” I told her.
“Did you feel left out?”
“I did,” I said.
And then we went to Walmart and bought a blue dragon off her Christmas list and it didn’t fix anything, but sometimes you just do what you can do.
So I have been thinking about family dynamics and how we are shaped by these very complicated relationships.
I am the youngest of six (by a whole generation) and Paul is the second of eight. Needless to say we had very different childhoods. But then there is the family we made together, and they too had very different childhoods.
I know because they have told me that our six kids feel they grew up in different families. They feel that way because it’s true. The first four were all two years apart, were raised by very young and very poor parents and were shaped by who we were then and by their own experiences of those years. The younger ones came six years later, were raised in a more traditional church by older and sometimes more relaxed parents. Depending on your perspective, you missed out on the advantages the other group had. The older ones took note that the younger ones had rooms to themselves and opportunities that they missed out on. The younger ones missed out on the memories that the four shared that they would never be a part of. But what I know, and what we all know if we are honest, is that families, no matter how well intentioned, inflict wounds on us which are not always obvious to those on the outside or sometimes even to those on the inside.
Yet when we come together as adults, those are not typically the stories we tell. Rather we tell the ones that remind us that, for better or worse, we belong to one another and we try as best we can to find commonality and kinship perhaps in spite of, as much as because of, our childhoods.
I also know that sometimes families fracture. Sometimes those fractures heal and sometimes they don’t. And who is to say the how or the why? Perhaps only God knows.
I am grateful that as adults, my kids are figuring out how to care for and support one another across the age differences, woundings, physical miles and sometimes differing ideologies. And I am so very grateful that this Thanksgiving these guys will come together from three different states with various and sundry littles. To tell the stories, to make new memories and to continue to bridge the gap.
So hang in there, Tacy. You belong more than you think you do. And the story is not over yet.
Note: Doby was a part of our family’s story – but only tangentially. He is really a part of the story of The Three Musketeers: Doby, Blu, and Abbott. And so, when we lost him, it could only be Sean to tell this part of the story who is the last of the three Musketeers
There are many definitions of swoop. Merriam Webster dictionary defines it as: swoop – verb \ˈswüp\: to fly down through the air suddenly: to arrive at a place suddenly and unexpectedly
As a young Marine “swoop” was what you did on the weekend. It was the act of leaving base to ANY other destination – “to arrive at a place suddenly.”
“Let’s swoop.”
“We are swooping to my folks house this weekend”
“My swoop partner couldn’t come, so I’m going to hit swoop circle on my way out of town and find somebody else looking to go to Florida this weekend.”
Me? I had a handful of swoop partners over the years. Especially as some of the “regulars” got married, moved their wives to Jacksonville, and they stopped swooping. But the two “regulars”? That was Doby and Blu. Stephen Doby and Blu Berner. I never really called Stephen by his first name. He was always Doby. Likewise, I never called Blu Berner by his last name. He was always Blu. Me? I was always Abbott.
The Three Musketeers
On November 24th, 2013, Doby and I got the word. Blu Berner had passed. It wasn’t debated. It wasn’t discussed. It was just understood. We were going to make one last “swoop” in honor of our brother. And we did. We went to fold the flag, to stand with his wife and children, to say goodbye. We truly thought it was the final “swoop”.
And then there were two
And then Doby had an idea. We should do one more, one last swoop. We would drive up to my folks house. Just him and me. Re-live the old journeys, the old visits. The old adventures. One last trip, just Doby and me.
And then COVID hit. Our last swoop was put on hold, but we didn’t forget it. When we talked on the phone, we continued to plan this “final swoop”.
On July 29th I got the unexpected word. The final swoop was on. This was unplanned, but there was no way I was going to miss this last ride home.
Of course I’d need to make sure that my attire was correct. If this was the final swoop, everything had to be perfect. Clothes were purchased. Alterations were made, and then I was off to meet my friend for our last adventure. It took a few days to meet up with him. There was a brief stop in Texas to meet with his family and old friends. To reminisce and catch up, and then I was off to Kansas City to meet up with my old friend.
The morning of the final swoop, I was awake before my alarm went off. Nerves I guess. I woke up, showered, and then prepared my attire for the day. Every button was buttoned, every shiny tidbit polished the way Doby would have insisted. He was a dick about that after all. Every little detail had to be perfect, and if this was the last swoop, I wasn’t about to disappoint. Everything set to perfection, I set off to meet my friend.
He beat me to the airport of course. No surprise. Doby was always a member of the “15 minutes early is late” club (a debate he and I had many times). When I arrived at the airport I wasn’t able to initially see him. I was there to watch him board the plane and say hello. After he boarded, I was escorted to the plane, and then we were off on the last swoop.
A little different from what we had agreed on of course, and this was a little different than all of our other swoops…. but time and age change things. Leave it to Doby to make our last adventure together a true adventure.
When we landed in Atlanta to change flights, I beat him off the plane. While the passengers on the plane applauded my service, it all felt in vain. It would have been so much better if Doby was leading the way. I met him at the bottom of the plane. He was the second to disembark. I guess beauty and age do come first. There were brothers there to greet him. Brothers who had served and were there to make sure he also had the recognition he so deserved.
We spent the entire layover together. No more than an arm’s reach away. I regaled all who would listen with the Doby stories I had.
And then our time was up. The crew escorted us to the plane. Doby was the first to board, but again, we would not be sitting together. After he was aboard, I stepped up on the plane. This was the last leg of our final swoop to his home.
When we landed, I was invited off the plane first and received fervent applause, but somehow it rang so shallow in my ears. The pilot and co-pilot stopped me and asked if they too could greet Doby as he got off the plane.
We stood there at the bottom of the plane. The honor guard was called to attention, and I dutifully snapped to my position. The pilot and co-pilot mirroring my moves. As Doby came off the plane I rendered what I knew would be my final salute to all of our swoops and to all of the adventures of young men. Eight young men, pall bearers, and strangers to Doby and me, slowly came to attention and then carefully, and with the utmost grace, escorted Master Sergeant Stephen Doby into the hearse for his final ride home.
I wish I could remember all the details of that ride. I was worn out and tired in ways I am still learning to come to grips with. I will tell you this. It was monumental and epic. It was the ride of heroes, and without a doubt Doby deserved every moment of it.
It was, and will be, my final swoop. I may still travel, but unlike my past, the journey will now be a means to the destination, and no longer the adventure itself. I am no longer a young man, and all of my swoop partners are gone. I am too old and too tired to take the adventures that young men take. If there was to be a “final swoop” I am honored that his family allowed me to take my best, and my last, friend home.
We were always the the Three Musketeers. Doby, Blu and me – long before we. . .and I. . .truly knew what that meant. Today . . . well . . . today I feel old. For the first time in my life, I truly feel old and broken. Countless times in the last few days and weeks I find myself looking to reach out to my friend . . . my comrade in arms . . . my brother . . . and he was every bit my brother . . . but there is nobody there.
And so, as the Last of the Three Musketeers, I find it fitting that I end this story with a quote from another story.
“I have lost my friends,” ‘Artagnan said ruefully, burying his head in his hands. “I have nothing left but the bitterest of recollections . . .”
Two large tears rolled down his cheeks.
Athos answered. “Your bitter memories still have time to turn into sweet ones.”
And so my friend, I will work on turning the bitterest of memories into sweet ones. I will make sure that everyone knows your story. I love you. And I miss you.
I graduated from college in the spring of 1972 with a degree in Speech Communication and a teaching certificate that qualified me to teach grades 9-12. I chose this route largely because of the impact my high school speech teacher and coach, Mr. Ham, had on me.
I also graduated college with a four month old son on my hip.
So because I wanted to be at home with him, my teaching was limited to substituting in the high schools around town now and then. In 1979, now with three littles in our home, we decided to try out homeschooling – an educational option not widely recognized or accepted at that time. And so, from then until my youngest graduated in 2006, I was a full time teacher – teaching everything from pre-k to high school algebra – admittedly I was better at some subjects than others.
But then in the fall of 1991, I was asked to teach a Speech Class for some homeschooling kids ages 12 and up. The only thing I really remember about it is that it was in somebody’s family room in their basement and we did a Reader’s Theatre unit. I think there might have been four kids in the class – when they all came. Maybe somebody else taught a Biology Class and someone else a Spanish Class, but no two at the same time because we were using the same room. We met on Thursday afternoons. And that was the beginning.
But what began as a fledgling little experiment grew and we needed more space. So we found a church willing to rent to us, other gifted and committed teachers joined the staff – teaching everything from Watercolor to Chemistry to Yearbook to Physics – and at its peak we were offering dozens of courses (both Academic and Elective) and hundreds of kids traipsed through First Alliance Church every Thursday. It became a place of learning, of character building, of community. And I began to anchor my week for nine months of the year around Thursday. Because “Thursday Classes”.
Over the years my course load rotated and shifted: I taught junior high and senior high Speech, two different Improv Classes, Drama, Composition, Storytelling, Jr. High Language Arts. I remember the days of Dessert Theatre and Improv Hour in the gym at First Alliance which eventually gave way to Occassion For the Arts in the auditorium with the Improv, Storytelling and Choir all performing. The red ink of Composition Class which I understand still causes nightmares for some who have gone on to write their Masters Thesis. The nervous and jittery attempts at the first speech of the year which grew into confident and convincing persuasive speeches by the end of the year. The “Mr. Tumnus Tea” – always the highlight for the 7th and 8th graders who read The, Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with me in Language Arts. And the awkwardness of the first day of Improv which gave way to hilarity and true entertainment as the year progressed.
And then of course there was the MainStage Play. For twenty years we met for two hours on Thursday mornings and then hundreds of hours after classes ended in April. Tech week at Smith Theatre at Howard Community College and Olney Theatre, and then finally some pretty spectacular performances starring some very talented and committed students. It was magical. Watching a high school boy transform into an old man so convincing that even I forgot he was acting. Or a sighted girl covered with bruises from her head to her toes as she thrashed about the set – falling, and getting up and falling again – as she so believably told the story of a blind and deaf girl named Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan. The con man who was so convincing that the five year old boy in the cast really believed he could play the trumpet in a boys’ band. Working through the emotions and backgrounds of twelve jurors confronting their own prejudice and biases. The grueling hours we spent exploring these characters together and bringing them to life. It’s where my mind went during the week when I wasn’t in class: what if we tried this? what if she said that line more like this? what if we changed the blocking in that scene? what can I do to make that character more three dimensional? – and sometimes all the what ifs kept me awake late into the night. But in the end it was always the kids who made it work – they always found the way. And on opening night I sat in the audience and wept (even if it was a comedy) for the sheer beauty of it all.
What I loved most about Thursday Classes though was the community. Sometimes I would duck into the Study Hall between classes ostensibly to grab a Diet Coke from the snack bar or give a quick hug to Bonnie the Study Hall monitor who became my confidant and my friend, but really I loved listening to the hum of it: the chatter from the senior table where they laughed easily at the inside jokes and counted down the days until they were done. I loved watching the group playing chess at another table, quietly studying the board and anticipating their next move; the groups of two or three huddled on the floor, notebooks opened, cramming for their biology exam later in the day, I loved it all. I loved watching students walking down the hall, arms around each other, making plans for the weekend not realizing that their older selves would look back on these days as some of the best of their lives. I loved watching them execute their “senior prank” even when I was the brunt of it – which was often. I loved seeing a group huddled around one of their own, hands on his shoulders as they prayed over him for a sick parent or some other sorrow. And it will be this, more than anything else, that I will miss.
Because today it ends.
I have known for four years that this week would be the last day for CBA Thursday Classes. We made that call early so that we could work towards ending the Academy well. So I had time to think about what we might do on the last day. Maybe we would decorate the building with pictures of years past, maybe we would hang banners outside, maybe we would bring in donuts, maybe we would cancel classes and have a big party, maybe we would bring in alumni to share in the day and to say good-bye. Never in my mind’s eye did I imagine that it would end in a Zoom Room with each one isolated in their own little box on their computer screen with no hugs, no real contact, and nobody in the room with me to share this landmark. Who could have imagined this ending? But Covid.
To any VBA/CBA students who might one day read this, I want you to know that you are a part of the some of the best days of my life (okay – maybe some of the “not so best” days as well but we’ll save that for another day ). Thank you for being a part of the experiment that was Thursday Classes and for making them work. Thank you for your patience and your good will when I was trying to figure it out and especially for the times I got it wrong. Thank you for your generosity of spirit when I didn’t get what you were trying to say – or you felt not seen. Perhaps the most well quoted line about my tenure at CBA came from a student in her Yearbook Senior Quote – “Mrs. Abbott is sort of like God.You really love her. But you don’t want to make her mad.” JM
I remember one day years ago when I said in perhaps a too loud voice to the students who were milling about in the gym. “I don’t know where you people are supposed to be but it isn’t here. You should either be in class or in study hall. So leave!” As they were scurrying off I heard one of my daughter’s friends say to her, “I’m sure glad she’s not my mother.” My daughter replied not so much to defend me but more in a yeah, she’s weird way, “Yeah, she’s not really like that so much at home.” So yes, I know there were days, but I would not trade one of them.
There were other things that made CBA what it was, but Thursday Classes helped to make it a thing. There are many who think, and I count myself among them, that those hours between 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. on any given Thursday were the best hours of the week.
But on this last day of CBA Thursday Classes here’s what I want to say: thank you to the students who stuck it out to the end – even on Zoom!! You amaze me!
Thank you to the ones who came before who taught me how to be a better teacher and a better human being and have provided enough memories and stories to last me a lifetime. Thank you to all the other teachers and the staff who helped to build this amazing community. Thank you to the parents who supported and encouraged us over the years. Thank you to my own kids who got drug along every Thursday before they were even old enough to be in classes and thanks be to God for an incredible 30 years.
And that’s what I thought. That the friends I was investing in along the way – the people I shared my life with, raised my kids with, started churches with, ate all the meals with, shared my highs and my lows with, grieved with, celebrated with and shared the foxhole with – that we would be friends for even longer than forever.
But what I learned somewhere along the way is that not all friendships are meant to be Pooh and Piglet.
I’m not sure where I first encountered it, but at some point I was introduced to this idea: there are friends for a reason, friends for a season and friends for a lifetime. And what I now know that I did not always know is that you don’t know who your life-time friends are until you get to the end of your life and see, not who comes to your funeral, but who sits the death-watch with your family. But there’s the thing, hopefully there will be many, many of your friends for a reason and friends for a season who come to the funeral to tell that part of your story and celebrate your life. They all count.
Friends for a reason. Friends for a season. Friends for a lifetime. Though those words may not shake your world – they sort of did mine. Because as we all know, friends come and go from our lives. The BFF from grade school who always played with you at recess and who decided with you what you should wear to school the next day so you could be twinsies. The one from middle school who you had sleepovers with every weekend and talked to on the phone every day when you got home from school. The one from high school who you told about all your crushes and wrote in your yearbook the same thing that you wrote in hers – that you would be friends forever. The one who was a bridesmaid at your wedding and you at hers and you shared the joys and challenges of early married life. The one who had kids the same age as yours and you bonded over potty training and teething. The one you called when your teenager didn’t come home and you had no idea what to do. All of them. The BFFs who were closer than family for a time, who you invited into the deepest and darkest part of your life, who shared in all the big moments and the small ones, who got into the rat hole of life with you, as Anne Lamott says, and is out there walking around in the world with a matching Winnie the Pooh and Piglet tattoo on her shoulder. (Well, okay maybe not that last one :).
But then one day, or more likely over lots of days, sometimes for no discernible reason, the friendship cools or falls apart, or maybe life just moves on and gets in the way or maybe you have a falling out and each go your own way. And you realize, these were NOT lifetime friends as you had supposed – but only friends for a reason or for a season. But now that reason has been fulfilled or the season has passed. So what does that say about the friendship: Was it real? Was it authentic? Did it matter?
And what I want to say now is YES. They all counted.
I would say most of my friendships started as “friends for a reason”. We went to school together. We worked together. We were on a team together to start a church. We were in a small group together. Our kids played together. We had shared interests. And in that reason, we found common cause and affinity. Sometimes, once the reason was past, the friendship wasn’t the same. Life moved on and demanded our attention and we made other friends “for a reason”. But some of those relationships evolved into “friends for a season”. Our kids grew up and maybe apart, but we stayed connected and our relationship deepened to be about more than what we had in common. The project we were both working on was completed, but our friendship outgrew the project and we did other things together. The small group ended but we continued to get together for tea and to share our lives. And so, while the reason no longer existed, our friendship transitioned. And some of those “friends for a season” lasted for years before they ran their course – before that season was over and we drifted apart and away. However, some of them have grown and deepened and matured and maybe we will be friends for a lifetime – but we don’t know that yet because we haven’t come to the end of the story. But here’s what I do know – all of these friendships were real and they all mattered and they all helped me become the person I am today.
I think it must be said that not all friendships end well. One or both parties come away wounded, scarred and bloody. But this I believe. . . even those friendships can serve a purpose. I also know this: sometimes they are restored and redeemed. Not always. . . but sometimes. Understanding that not all friendships are going to be “friends for a lifetime” has relieved me of the burden of trying to make them so. And that is not to say that I haven’t grieved some of those friendships that didn’t survive the reason or the season, but it has helped me to celebrate them for what they were – not for what they weren’t.
I have been blessed to have many friends over my 71 years, a handful of them perhaps will last a lifetime (if you’re reading this, I hope you know who you are). Let me tell you about two of them.
I think it was 1976 when I first got to know Amy Oliver at the University of Kansas I was a young mother of two – soon to be three. She was a college coed who came to a Bible Study with her boyfriend and indicated that she was interested in getting together to talk more about spiritual things. We went for coffee, talked some about Jesus, some about our lives and we began to get to know one another. Before we parted, I asked her if she’d like to pray with me. She prayed first, saying something like, “Thank you, God for this beautiful afternoon. . . “. “Amen”, I said quietly, agreeing with her. But apparently it was loud enough that she heard and she stopped abruptly, saying nothing more. So I picked it up and continued the prayer. It would not be till years later that she would tell me, “when you said, ‘amen’, I thought that meant my turn had ended and my prayer was over.” Nice job, Sharon.
But even after I so rudely interrupted her prayer, we continued to build our friendship. She went on to graduate from college and began her teaching career. She was our son’s kindergarten teacher and when after a few years, we decided to homeschool, she became my resident elementary school consultant, calming my fears and assuring me that all kids wrote their ‘b’s” and “d’s” backwards from time to time.
It was Amy who left a bright, shiny red tricycle on our front porch for our three year old’s birthday with the note that said, “to Tabi from Jesus” and built the faith of a little girl who had prayed and prayed for just such a gift and whose parents had no idea where they would get the money to buy it. Again, it wouldn’t be until decades later – when I was looking through Tabi’s baby book and recognized the writing on the card as Amy’s – that I understood the role she had played. It would not be the last time she was the hands and feet of Jesus to families who needed Him to show up.
In 1979, she would be on a church-planting team with us to Champaign, Illinois. She taught school in the day time and held Bible studies in the dorms in the evenings. We cooked countless meals for hungry college students – she taught me to make hopple-kopple (a dish with fried potatoes, eggs, and cheese) – and it was our go-to dinner for drop-in guests, of which there were many. She took my kids to the corner convenience store for “comfort candy” when I was in desperate need of a break and kept a limitless supply of red-hots with her that she doled out to outstretched little hands. To my older four she was like a really cool older sister. One season gave way to another and the seasons changed, but the friendship grew.
In 1986, we were ready for a new adventure. Our family was moving to the suburbs of DC and, long story short, Amy and a few others moved with us. We were more spread out here, it was harder to see each other as often and life was just faster and different. When she brought a young man over to meet the family, suffice it to say that my daughters were less than welcoming and more than a little protective, perhaps seeing him as competition for the affection and attention she had showered on them for so many years. It was a new season and it remained to be seen where the friendship would land.
Then, in 1989 we embarked on yet another church plant – this time in upper Montgomery County Maryland and once again, Amy joined the team – this time along with her new husband Kirk. For awhile the relationship was rife with adjustment, misunderstanding and disappointment, and yet we powered through it – talking, forgiving, letting go, holding on, and talking and forgiving some more. Amy is one of the most loyal people I know and she will fight hard to stay connected and committed to the people she loves. I have a lot to learn from her and I credit her for getting us through this season.
When her first child was born, I got to be the one to give her her first bath. Amy taught my son in his first year of school and encouraged and supported a new and inexperienced homeschool mom, and I now I got to come along side this veteran educator and watch her own children flourish under her tutelage as she taught them at home. When I directed her teenagers in high school plays, it was like seeing their mother all over again at that age: artsy, creative and so ready for fun and adventure! This season brought us another gift: her youngest was born in the same year as my oldest grandson (the son of her former kindergarten student) and they became fast friends until the Marine Corps moved them away from each other which was as sad a day as I have ever seen.
And now in this season we find ourselves with gray hair and grown children (that kindergartner is almost 50 years old and she is invited to his wife’s 40th birthday getaway) and shared heartaches. We have grieved with one another over the death of parents and friends, have commiserated with the other in the hard places, and celebrated in the spaces of jubilee. She knows what year we moved where and what year my fourth daughter was born and the year we got our Beagle and what the house number was on First Street and my third grandson’s middle name. Because her brain has an unlimited capacity to remember such things, while mine . . . . well, not so much. But more important, she remembers our stories. She reminds me of who I was, and who I am and when I forget, she reminds me of who I want to be.
And then there’s Peggy. Back in ’86 when we moved to Maryland, it was Paul and I and the kids, Amy, Marna, and Joe. We were coming from a small church where everybody knew everybody into a big church where we knew a handful of people, and as I said, even our little team was dispersed and scattered. It felt like I was starting over because I was starting over and to say I was overwhelmed is putting it mildly. Everyone here was so busy and lived so far away from each each other compared to our small church in the mid-west and the church was so big. And though they were friendly and welcoming, I felt alone. For the first time ever, Paul went to work at an office with a couple dozen other leaders (instead of his “in home” office where he had always worked) so even he wasn’t as available. But a guy named Dave Smith, who also worked in the office, had offered to help us move in and I think the first Sunday I went to church, his wife came up to me and said, “Hi, I’m Peggy Smith.” And that was the beginning.
Dave was the director of the home-schooling academy sponsored by the church. He and Peggy homeschooled their children as did we: the reason the friendship began. We spent time together around the kids – their oldest Andy was the age of our fourth-born, Sarah. Our oldest daughter Tabitha started to baby-sit for them and the youngest of their tribe at the time gave her the name that would stick for years “the Batha”. Our youngest and their youngest were born only days apart and over the years became more like cousins or siblings: scrapping, making up, fighting, playing, defending, attacking. I remember one day going to pick Fletch up from Sunday School and Peggy had him and Ellen outside preaching to the two four year olds who had been squabbling about something during class: “You two are just going to have to figure this out because neither of you is going anywhere and chances are you’re going to be together for a lot more years – so you’re gonna have to to learn to get along. You’re family. Now both of you say you’re sorry so we can go get lunch.”
By 1989, when we were ready to plant Cedarbrook Church, Dave and Peggy and their family were one of the handful of people (along with Kirk and Amy) who said, sign me up – we’re in! So another reason was born and bled into the next season and we were all busy with the starting of a new church and all of the challenges and work and fun and stories that came with that.
And then came the cancer. When the youngest were only babies, Dave was diagnosed with a rare kind of leukemia and the prognosis was not good and this brought us to a new reason for the friendship. We cried together, we prayed together, and it got very real very fast. Cancer has a way of stripping away the masks we wear and the games we play and breaks us down to the real us. And this is where we found ourselves in the season of cancer: vulnerable and raw and broken.
Then, after the cancer was gone and life had returned to its normal chaos, Dave said to Paul, “I’m looking for somebody to head up the high school program for the Academy. Might Sharon be interested?” And Paul said,” I don’t think so.” And of course, he was completely wrong – I was interested and I did want the job and that carried my friendship with Peggy, who oversaw the elementary program, into the next season. We would be working together and in the years to come there would be countless staff meetings, and graduations, and promotion nights, and Thursday Classes and so much, much more.
In 1992, the first year I worked for the Academy, the Main Stage play was born when another mom came to me and said, “let’s help the kids put on a play” and I said. “Count me out” . . . but of course, that’s exactly what we did. For the next 20 years.
The problem in that first year was I knew we had enough girls to fill out the cast but I was lacking in the boy department. So I said to Peggy, who had four sons, “Tell your boys they need to audition.” She said they didn’t want to be in the play and I said, “You’re their mother; you can make them”, so she signed them up for an audition time. When their time came and no Smith boys appeared I called Peggy. “Where are they?” “Well, “she said, “they’re hiding down in the woods and I can’t get them to come out.” What kind of mother are you? I asked her. What kind of friend are you?! But I forgave her.
I forgave her mainly because I needed her to paint a backdrop of the Swiss Alps (did I mention she is an artist to her core?). The boys thought they might like to help with that. And then they agreed that they would serve on the stage crew when performance week came around and by the cast party, they had been bitten by the bug and would henceforth be an integral part of the Academy theatre productions and they became some of the best actors I ever worked with.
For the next 20 years, Peggy was the set designer and builder for some of the most professional, beautiful sets of any high school production anywhere. For twenty years we worked together: creating, building a team, and telling stories. It was both a reason for and a season of our friendship. And I loved it.
The story is too long to tell (this is already longer than I intended) but at some point along the way, Amy, Peggy, and I became a unit of friendship. It wasn’t Peggy and Sharon or Sharon and Amy or Peggy and Amy, it was Peggy and Amy and Sharon. And we celebrated birthdays and Christmases, weddings and anniversaries and we continue to get together as often as we can for tea and just catching up. We share our lives. We share the hard parts, the funny parts, the ugly parts and the beautiful parts. We carry for one another what is too difficult to carry alone and we tell the stories of our past and dream of our futures. We recount the reasons, the seasons and at least up to this point are living out the lifetime part of our friendship. And who knows? Maybe there is a Pooh and Piglet tattoo somewhere in our future.
P.S. If you have read to the end of this ((I know it’s long!) and are feeling sad because maybe you can’t name any “life-time friends,” this is for you: That friend with whom you are building a relationship because you have discovered a commonality – invest in it. That friend who is with you in this season of your life but may not travel with you into the next one – make the most of it. Because, in the end, they all count!
“Let’s try it for a year,'” we said. And so, in 1979, when our oldest was seven and we moved to a new house in a new town, it seemed a good time to give it a try. We set up a school room in a tiny sunroom off one of the upstairs bedrooms complete with little school desks and bookshelves full of just-out-of-the-box curriculum and in that room, flooded with sunlight, we began our homeschooling journey. A journey filled with small victories and major breakthroughs, with tears of frustration (from both students and teacher), with forgiveness and grace and hours and hours and hours spent reading and learning and living. For the next twenty seven years, in one form or another, we would be a homeschooling family. We only had a “designated school room” for those first couple of years – after that school happened at the dining room table, under the dining room table, the living room floor, on Mom’s bed and for one glorious month one spring – at the beach. We always took it one year at a time, one child at a time. Sometimes we had one in public school, sometimes we had one in private school, but always there was somebody sitting at the dining room table with books and pencils and paper. And snacks.
For twenty seven long years. . .
. . . it was the best of times
The day she went from sounding out each letter to reading a word and then a sentence. “THIS IS GREAT!! I CAN READ AND LISTEN AT THE SAME TIME”
Watching the caterpillars spin their chrysalis and hatch into butterflies
Unpacking the books each fall and buying new school supplies and starting a new year with high hopes and expectations
Going for slushies on the last day of school and packing away the school books
The day I realized the four year old had picked up the letters of the alphabet and their sounds by listening to me teach them to her brother and figured out how to put them together into words – basically teaching herself to read
Wednesday mornings, when Paul would take the morning off and teach school and I could go for a walk or a cup of tea or sit in my room in silence and read a book of my own choosing. . . or sleep
Fixing cinnamon toast on homemade whole wheat bread for lunch on a cold winter day
Reading the entire Chronicles of Narnia Series every time we had an eight year old – and loving the way no matter how many times they had heard it, they listened as though it was the first time
Watching the toddler frantically collect all of his toys for the morning and throw them into the playpen before he climbed in to entertain himself while school was in session
Hearing the words from my mother’s mouth “Okay, maybe homeschooling wasn’t a TERRIBLE idea.”
Organizing and helping them perform their “Christmas Programs” which they performed for me, their dad, and anybody else we could bribe with homemade cookies to come and watch them
. . . and it was the worst of times
Drilling math facts again and again and again and again
Trying to explain why someday they would be glad they had taken algebra (I don’t think the day ever came)
Finding the whole week’s Language Arts workbook pages had been left undone because “I couldn’t find a pencil”
Coming to grips with the fact that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who can spell and those who can’t. And I had some of each
Knowing that there were no sick days or personal days in my contract
Repeatedly being asked: don’t you think they will be socially awkward? (like asking a complete stranger this question about her children doesn’t make you socially awkward)
The days I really was afraid I was ruining them (and there were many)
In those early days in the little school room on First Street in a midwestern college town, homeschooling was not yet mainstream. There were no co-ops, no classes, no field trips with other homeschoolers. You didn’t even know of anybody else who was crazy enough to try this weird approach to education, To homeschool your kids, you had to hide them during the day lest you be discovered by Child Protective Services. And so for the first two years, we diligently kept them inside during school hours, hidden away from anyplace where they would be asked for the name of their school, and lived in fear of being found out. But after we had a couple of years under our belt, we were done with such nonsense. We wanted to put them in scouting and the programs offered by the local library and other activities and we were done hiding. So we loaded up all of their work, all of their school books, all of my lesson plans, and every other scrap of paper we could find and made an appointment to meet with the superintendent of schools and explained that we wanted to homeschool our children and thought we could do at least as good a job as the public school. After a two hour meeting, he agreed and gave us a signed document stating that our children were legally allowed to be taught at home.
The next day they were playing at the park across from the neighborhood school and were approached by a teacher. What were their names? What was their address? Their phone number? Where did they go to school? And just like that, when the pressure was on, they gave it all up. Names, ages, phone number, address and I’m sure they would have surrendered their social security numbers if they had known them. The next day the truant officer knocked on my door (Yes, really. A truant officer!). We produced the document and were never bothered again. Our children became a novelty at the library where they became favorites of the librarians who would pull their favorite books for them before each week’s visit and then talk to them about what they were reading.
Those were the Pioneer Days of homeschooling and while we got a lot wrong, I think we got some things right. Maybe the thing I am most proud of is that still today all six of them can get lost in a good book and that they are all critical thinkers.
Am I glad I did it? Yes, I am. Would I do it again? I’m not sure.
Eventually, the Pioneer Days gave way to the Settler Days of homeschooling; the movement became more visible and more acceptable More and more people were jumping on the bandwagon and they were looking for help. By 1991 we had graduated two from homeschooling, one was enrolled in public school and we had three still at home: a freshman, a 5th grader and a first grader. In that year I went to work for a homeschooling umbrella school to start a high school program for them. I took the job to build a community for my own kids – one that my older ones had lacked growing up.
I had no idea what the next 28 years would hold. But that’s another story for another day.
“There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other’s cooking & say it was good.”
It is one of my favorite Story People stories. We have it framed and hanging on our “family wall” in our living room. I think it belongs there because food is a part of every family’s story whether we recognize it or not – or at least it is a part of our story.
It’s the story behind Crescent Rolls and Chicken & Noodles. Canned Jellied Cranberry Sauce and Donuts. Chili and Cinnamon Rolls. Tuna Noodle Casserole and Vegetable Soup. Coconut Pie and Apple Pie made from orchard apples. Bread and Wine.
My mother was the best cook of anyone I have ever known. I, on the other hand, got married barely knowing how to boil water. Paul always thought it was a bait-and-switch: he came to my house, ate my mother’s cooking and just assumed it was a genetic thing and this is what he could expect when we were eating out of our own kitchen. It was a hard adjustment for him – we ate out a lot and went to my mom’s house once a week for dinner. But slowly I began to take an interest and figured some things out.
Crescent Rolls: On our first son’s first birthday, I wanted to do something special. So I opened my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook I had received from my niece as a wedding gift with the inscription that read: “Dear Paul, good luck. You’re going to need it.” I found a recipe for Crescent Rolls. Perfect! How hard could this be. Turns out . . . pretty hard. It was a time-consuming recipe which took most of the day, but so worth it! Over the years I tweaked the recipe to my liking and they became a “must have” for holiday meals. The story is still told about the year that “one of us” set his alarm and rose at 5:00 a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving to eat all the leftover rolls before anyone else could get to them – in a big family one must learn to out-wit, out-play and out-last the competition. We’ve had some glitches along the way. There was the year I forgot to set the timer and burned the bottoms to a blackened charcoal on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. So we cut the bottoms off, slathered them with butter and called it dinner that evening. Then I set to work on the next batch which took me late into the night. There were years the yeast didn’t rise because the milk was too hot or not hot enough and I had to start over. But if you come to our house on Thanksgiving or Christmas, you will get Crescent Rolls.
Chicken-and-Noodles: In those early years as I was expanding my repertoire I asked Paul, “What did your mother cook that you really loved.” He fired back, “Home-made Chicken and Noodles!!” So I made the long distance call to his mother to get the recipe and set out to wow him. I followed exactly the recipe my mother-in-law had copied from a newspaper column decades before. When it said, “Roll the dough very thin and cut into strips,” I labored with my rolling pin, stretching and rolling and pulling and rolling until the dough was indeed paper-thin. It was a labor of love, if a frustrating exercise, but I was determined to replicate his mother’s dish. I sat down to dinner ready to bask in his awe and admiration and gratitude. “What is it?” He stared into his bowl of paper-thin, perfectly cut noodles swimming in broth. Are you kidding me? It’s Chicken and Noodles! “No” NO??!! “Well, it’s not my mother’s chicken and noodles.” So I got up from the table to make another call. “I followed the recipe exactly and he says I didn’t get it right? What happened.?” I could hear the commotion in the background as she was rushing to get dinner on the table for the six kids still at home. “Read the recipe back to me,” she said over the din of two kids arguing over whose turn it was to the set the table. When I came to the part about rolling the dough paper thin, she interrupted me. “Oh good grief, Sherry! I never had time to mess with that nonsense. Just give it a few swipes of the rolling pin and call it good!” Okay then. And so now my own family thinks if the the noodles are not thick and almost chewy with a thick broth and huge chunks of chicken – then it’s not really Chicken and Noodles. Following a recipe can be so over-rated.
Jellied Cranberry Sauce: As I honed my skills in the kitchen I developed an attitude that “made- from-scratch-is-always-better” and so cranberry sauce should be made with fresh cranberries and a zested orange. Truth be told, nobody ever ate it but me, but that’s how I did it. Then our son-in-law joined the family and when we sat down to Thanksgiving dinner his first year he asked for the cranberry sauce. It was passed around the table to him. Nope. He was looking for the jellied cranberry sauce that comes out of a can. Now, every year, he gets a whole can of it to himself, and I eat the other. And everybody goes home happy.
Donuts: We were at the beach and Paul and I were headed out to the grocery store. I called out “Does anybody need or want anything from the store?” The four year old grandson never looked up from his Lego’s. “How ‘bout donuts!?” he yelled. And now, twelve years and eight grand-kids later, you haven’t been to Nana & Colonel’s until you’ve gone for donuts. The littles always love to hear how, when we were first married, Colonel was the guy who made the donuts at Dunkin’ Donuts and could eat all the donuts he wanted every night. I know, it’s not hard to impress them when they’re young.
Chili and Cinnamon Rolls: In both our families, the traditional Christmas Eve dinner was soup. At the Abbotts it was Chili. At the Fletchers it was Chile and Potato Soup and Oyster Stew. At the Fletcher’s it was Cinnamon Rolls and Potica (a wonderful Slavic Sweet Bread introduced to our food culture by my brother-in-law’s family). At the Abbotts it was Cinnamon Rolls and since I never mastered the art of Potica making, we stick to the Cinnamon Rolls. There was the year that I got distracted in the making and instead of dividing the dough into halves to make out the rolls I divided it into thirds and ended up making more, but much smaller rolls. I didn’t realize my mistake until one of the kids who was home for the holidays said, “It’s funny, when I was a kid these rolls seemed to be so big they filled your whole plate and now it seems like I could eat three of them,” Yup, pretty much. The year our son was in Iraq we sent a can of Hormel Chili and a box of Honey Buns in his Christmas package. In some way or another, I think most of the kids have carried on the tradition and live out the story.
Passing down the story from generation to generation.
Tuna Noodle Casserole and Vegetable Soup: Like most families, in ours you got to pick the dinner menu on your birthday. When our youngest was little, his favorite meal was Tuna Noodle Casserole. Nobody else really liked it so we rarely had it, but on his birthday he got to choose. One year he was spending his birthday with some family friends because Paul and I had to be out of town. Peggy asked him what he wanted for dinner. Tuna Noodle Casserole – of course! “Does your mom have a special recipe she uses?” Having five kids of her own she understood the risk of making something that was not like Mom’s. “Yes, she does. It’s on the back of the box.” And though her own kids gagged on it, she made Tuna Helper straight from the box and Fletcher was delighted. Clearly by the sixth one I had abandoned the “made-from-scratch-is-always-better” ideology.
Tabithas’s request was always Vegetable Beef Soup – preferably without the beef. The other kids groaned – what kid really LIKES soup? But that was what we had every March 4th. Even on the years that spring came early and we were eating soup with the air conditioning on. The one thing that redeemed her choice is that she always asked for Boston Cream Pie, and who doesn’t like that?
Pie: We are a family of pie lovers. Favorites may vary from individual to individual but somewhere in our DNA is a “pie-lover” gene. My mother taught me to make pie crust. To her, pie-making was an art form. I learned from her to treat the crust gently and carefully – don’t overwork it or the crust will be tough; use only as much water as you need to make the dough hold together and make sure the water is ice cold. She was a master craftsman.
When Fletcher wanted to bring a girl home from college to meet us I told him to find out what her favorite dessert was and I would make it for her. “It’s Coconut Pie”, he told me. “Wow! What are the odds?” I asked him. “You really do have a a lot in common!!” And so every time she came for a visit we had Coconut Pie. It wasn’t until many years later at their rehearsal dinner I learned the truth. Emily’s mom wanted to know what the deal was with Coconut Pie. I explained I made it every time she came since it was her favorite dessert. “Actually, I don’t think she had ever had it before she came to your house.” As I said – it’s in his genes. He may also be a little manipulative.
Paul’s mother made three chocolate cream pies every report card day. That way if you got good grades you could celebrate. If you got bad grades, you had a way to drown your troubles. My mother made him chocolate pies every time we came for a visit and threatened if there was any left, she threatened never make another one for him. He always rose to the challenge.
And then there were the Apple Pie Baking Marathons. When the older kids were little, every fall Grandma Fletch would come for a month-long visit. She cooked and baked and told stories and loved us well. One of our days we spent at a nearby orchard. We picked apples – bushels of apples – and returned home to roll up our sleeves and get ready for the days long process of pie baking. She set up an assembly line. Everybody had a job to do: washing the apples, peeling and coring and slicing, combining the sugar and cinnamon and then mixing it all together in a big bowl with the fruit. Grandma was always in charge of the pie crust. After several days we would have dozens of pies: baked, wrapped and ready for the freezer. All year long, anytime we wanted a special dessert, we could go to the ancient chest freezer in the garage and pull out a pie to stick in the oven and soon the house would be filled with the buttery, cinnamony, apple aroma that took us back to the way the house smelled on those days we worked side-by-side next to the Master Pie Baker herself and created all that deliciousness. For years after she was gone, we kept the ritual. We went to the orchard on a crisp fall day, picked the apples, and formed our assembly line just as she had taught us to do. The year we stopped was the day it was time to go apple picking and there were still pies in the freezer. The family was shrinking and we no longer had the mouths to feed or the laborers. But anytime I smell apple pie, I can still see us all in the kitchen with Hazel, each doing our job.
Bread and Wine: I have begun to feel that gathering at the table, sharing food and drink and sharing stories is a sacred experience.
When his followers asked him, “Teach us to pray”, Jesus included this: Give us today our daily bread. Maybe this is about more than just nourishment for our physical bodies; maybe it is also about the table where we gather to tell our stories, nourish our souls and remember who we are.
I am struck by how many stories about Jesus are about the table. He goes to dinner parties with outsiders and undesirables, he performs his first miracle at a wedding feast, he provides a picnic for 5,000 people on a hillside, he cooks dinner for his friends on a beach, and 2,000 years later we are still telling those stories.
And then there is this: knowing he was going to die, he sat down around a table to share a meal with those who had shared his journey and would continue on without him. Because that’s what the family does in such a time. He washes their feet and cares for them with such love and affection. Around that table of special foods filled with such rich meaning, they remember and retell the story of the Jews miraculous exodus from Egypt and God’s faithfulness. But before the meal is over, he will take the bread and the wine from that same table and use it to explain to them the hard truth of what is to come: the bread is his body which will be broken for them and the wine is his blood which will be poured out to forgive the sins of many. They had no idea what it meant. Or what was to come.
But we do know. He left us this gift of symbol and remembrance and ritual. And time after time, we gather and remember and retell the story. “As often as you do this,” he said, “do it in remembrance of me.” Jesus, too, knew the power of story, of remembering and of gathering around a table.
Perhaps, in the end, that is the real reason we are here.
They had moved to California early in the summer and we made a trip to visit them. He took us on a tour of their “very own” house – which was really base housing which meant that it was the government’s “very own” house, but he didn’t know that. “And this is our very own kitchen. And this is our very own living room. And this is the brothers’ very own room. And this is our very own. . . what is this, Mom?” A fuse box. “And this is our very own fuse box. ” So excited he was!
We took them school shopping to get back packs and school supplies. He had his eye on a hiking pack that would have weighed down his Marine of a father – but maybe he recognized it as something like what his dad took with him to work every day when he went into the field. Whatever the reason, he would not be dissuaded. We showed him other ones that were more appropriate for the first day of kindergarten. “Oh, look Jackson! This one has Spider Man on it!” I offered. No, thank you. “How about this one with all of the cool cars on it?” No, thank you. Finally his mother said, “Jackson, Nana and the Colonel are not going to buy that back pack. Choose another one.” He was fighting tears as he tried to readjust his expectations. And as any grandmother will tell you, I would have laid down the 200 bucks for that sucker in a heart beat. Yet, somehow I knew this would not bode well for either him or me in the long run. I tried to distract him with a more acceptable choice. “Oh WOW, Jackson. Look!! This one is perfect AND it even has a place for a water bottle.” Maybe that would make it feel more like a “real” backpack to him, I reasoned. He turned, studied me like I was speaking gibberish and then said to me in the most patient tone he could muster, “Nana, that’s just crazy talk.” And that’s how that phrase entered the family lexicon.
But no, that can’t be right – it wasn’t just last year, was it? No matter how unbelievable it seems, it was twelve years ago, and though I can still see that little boy so clearly in my mind’s eye, now he is seventeen and grown to be a man and graduating high school. How can this be true?
He is the first born of my firstborn – the one who made me a grandmother. The first one to call us Nana & the Colonel. He came to us new and tiny and amazingly sweet. And now he is old(er), and taller than any of us (by a long shot), and still amazingly sweet. He came into a family of untested grandparents and aunts and uncles and parents and we wrapped him in the blanket that his great-grandmother Fletch made for his dad and swallowed him up in our tribe and he was the first.
We were in the waiting room of the Maternity Center when he was born and held him in our welcoming arms when he was only minutes old. From that moment on we were smitten. I forgave my son nearly every transgression and bone-headed thing he ever did for giving me this moment (I later rekindled the grudge, but another story for another day). Later that evening, some of the family went to the house to welcome him home. I was holding him when he spit the pacifier out onto the floor.
We all froze. We were in unknown waters here. No longer the parents, but now the grandparents, we waited for our cue. What was the protocol? Should we pick it up and take it to the kitchen to wash it? Sterilize it? Throw it in the trash and open a new one? I know what I did when it was my babies. . . but those rules no longer applied – this was uncharted territory and I was more than a little uncertain. It was no longer my call. His mother reached down and picked it up off the floor, brushed it against her shirt, checked it for any visible dog hair or other debris, and put in back in his mouth. We all breathed a sigh of relief – this was going to be just fine! And I must say a huge THANK YOU to our daughter-in-law and son for making our first foray into grandparenting so easy. They were beyond generous with all of their sons and patient with our mistakes and I know not everyone is so lucky.
I knew from my own mother some of the ground rules of being a grandmother:
No matter how much you would do it differently yourself, keep your mouth shut and let their parents figure it out themselves. You had your chance at parenting – this is not a do-over for you.
It’s not about presents – it’s about presence. Be present in their lives as much as you can.
It’s not a competition or a zero sum game. Your grandkids need as many people to love them as possible in as many ways as possible. That means that you have to share.
Bake pies. Bake cookies. Bake bread. Bake.
And now he is no longer little but still the first. I’m not sure when it happened, this transition from the little boy to the man, but I remember the day when I thought to myself – it’s happening and there will be no turning back. They were home for a visit – maybe over Christmas. His uncles (whom he adored and always wanted to hang with) were making plans to play a new game – late into the night, after the children were in bed. “You should stay and play with us J!” they offered. But the “littles” were all sent to bed, and his parents sent him up with them. Eventually he made his way back down the stairs and made his appeal – “They invited me to play with them. I’d really like to. Please? Can I?” And so he sat at the table with them that night, laughing and scheming and playing a game with the men. And he fit. He belonged at that table. And I knew. . . something had shifted.
This week he graduates high school and it is both an ending and a beginning.
The end of childhood . . . and the beginning of learning to be a grandmother to an adult and what that will look like. And all I can think of to say is “That’s just crazy talk”.
The way the rest of the family tells the story, the reason she was relegated to play the Wookiee in our Star Wars games of make believe was because of the rust color coat she had and her red hair. Okay, that might have been part of it, but the real reason was that she was my partner and what is Han Solo without his partner, Chewbaca. And yes, I did play both Han AND Luke but I was the ONLY brother and besides, it was my game: I would play the hero (Han) and not for the first or the last time, she would be my partner. It is my first clear memory of her.
She was my first sibling and my first sister. She was my first friend and my first playmate. I’m sure my parents told me before she was born that my life was about to change, but I was too young, and that is too long ago for me to remember. I have many early memories of her, but as I grow older, the exact sequence of events gets hazy. I do have some very vivid memories of a Christmas morning many, many years ago in Lawrence, Kansas. We lived on the second floor of a two story house. The living room was wallpapered. In my memory there doesn’t seem to be a lot of paint in the early to mid 70’s – just wallpaper. Regardless, the wall paper was a mist green with a pine cone / pine tree / pine branch print. There was a beautiful Christmas tree set up in the room and we (the kids) were opening presents. I sat opening presents with her. Nothing really remarkable or worthy of a memory maybe, but we sat together in the room with the pine cone wall paper and she was there.
It was in that same house that Tabi got shocked by the electrical outlet. Same room actually. Now there is some debate on the exact sequence of events. Tabi claims I challenged her to stick the key in the outlet. I plead the fifth. I was too young to really understand the consequences of what had happened, but I do know that after she stuck the key in the outlet and all hell broke loose, I was acutely aware of the pain my sister was in, and I knew that this was (a) BAD, (b) I didn’t like it, and (c) I was very scared for my sister. Fortunately for both of us and for the partnership, she didn’t die and I didn’t get in too much trouble. I have other memories from that house with her, most of them involving riding tricycles and playing in the trees in the back yard / alley area. And picking mulberries with her. We used to spend hours picking mulberries together.
As the years rolled on, Tabi continued to be my partner. Of course we fought, like all siblings do, but how many times had we seen Han and Chewie in a heated argument (even if we never really understood it)? That was us. We fought constantly (even if no one understood it), but we always made up.
As I grew older and we no longer played Star Wars on a daily basis, Tabi was the first one that I confided in about my life. Usually it was my crushes, but as a young boy, what else is there in life?
When I joined the Marine Corps, Tabi continued to be my partner. In the fall of 1991 she drove down to Camp Lejeune to pick me up and bring me home for Thanksgiving. A 14 hour drive there and back (who thought that was a good idea?) She didn’t make the trip down to Lejeune often, but she was frequently the one who volunteered to pick me up where my ride dropped me off on many a weekend, whether it was in Maryland, the Eastern shore, or West Virginia. I never truly appreciated the sacrifice that she made to do that, but as a result of those times together, we continued to grow closer.
Once I got out of the Marine Corps, we even made a few additional road trips together. I have vague memories of the two of us almost crashing a car – a memory in which a spider played a major role. To this day I can’t remember who was driving, just lots of girlish screaming and a smashed spider that ended up on the ceiling of the car. One of the screaming voices in the car (the louder one) may or may not have been my own.
As I grew older we continued to grow closer. Even after I was married, and during the times I struggled in my life and I felt that I was all alone, she was consistently the first one to reach out to me, let me know that she loved me and that she was there for me. Her compassion for me during those times was a testament to her name. In Hebrew, the name Tabitha means – beauty, grace – from the Aramaic word for Gazelle. She has been the definition of grace.
Now that we are both adults, she continues to amaze me. She is an awesome aunt to my three boys. She deeply and truly loves them as if they were her own. She is an amazing friend to my wife and loves her as a sister and a friend. When I was injured in an accident in 2014, she took time off work and out of her schedule to drive down to North Carolina to take care of me and my injured Marines, allowing us to heal, and providing the extra support needed for our family during that time. And trust me when I say that cooking and caring for three recovering Marines is a monumental task – one she performed with grace. Chewie himself could not have not done it better.
We both still love Star Wars (and with the recent movie there have been many texts and phone calls), but we have also expanded our love for stories. While Tabi was taking care of me and my fellow Marines, I got her hooked on The Arrow and The Flash. I don’t talk long on the phone very often to anybody. Except Tabi. Every so often I call my partner to discuss the latest plot twists in our stories. And those phone calls I truly do enjoy and love.
She was born two years, two weeks, and two days after me which makes today her birthday.
It was over Thanksgiving break when he wanted to go ring shopping. And so we all tagged along: his dad, his mother, two of his sisters, and two little nieces. Because when you’re the baby of the family, nobody thinks you can do anything without lots of help and advice (and supervision). “We’d like to look at engagement rings,” we told the sales clerk. After we all agreed that yes, this was the one and money was exchanged, we celebrated by going out to lunch. Once home we put the ring safely away until he would need it for the proposal in April “Because,” his dad insisted “you cannot keep this in your dorm room.” Sometimes you just feel the need to state the obvious.
And so the plan was made and we settled in to wait. He came home for Christmas and we got the ring out and looked at it again and talked about what exciting times lay ahead. He returned to school and we all felt good that there was a plan and everything was working according to the plan and that April would be here before we knew it.
But then the plan changed. “I’m thinking I am going to propose on Valentine’s Day. Could you bring the ring down this weekend?” What happened to April?? Valentine’s Day was on Monday.
And herein lies the problem: this was the winter of 2010 – “Snowmageddon” as it came to be known. The third of four monster snowstorms to hit the east coast that year came on Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 9th and 10th. We would be buried in a mountain of snow. The roads would be terrible. This was a disaster waiting to happen. I said no. But because his dad is a romantic at heart and because he is always up for an adventure, he said, “Oh the roads will be cleared on Wednesday and we’ll drive down on Thursday and back on Friday. Sure.”
The next problem to be solved: though the main roads may or may not be cleared on Wednesday, our cul-de-sac certainly would not. Paul thought we could shovel the driveway and once out on the street we might just be able to drive through the foot of snow on the road. Plan B: maybe we could shovel our street enough to get the car out to the main road. Seriously? But here’s the really cool part about a snowstorm – people who are pretty much strangers the rest of the year come together and pull together and become neighbors. So when they saw what we were doing and we told them why we had to get out, they all took up the challenge and with one little snow blower that the woman on the corner owned and the rest of us armed with snow shovels and a spirit of romance and adventure, we shoveled out our street to the main road and we were free! The Black Gate is Open
We stopped in Frederick to pick up Tabi because of course schools were closed and would be for the rest of the week and since she would be trapped in her classroom of first graders well into the summer to pay for all these snow days, why not join this party of adventure to deliver the ring to her baby brother who so badly wanted to pull off his Valentine Proposal? And besides, it’s hard to have a fellowship of the ring – with only two people. And Three is Company.
The next obstacle: Journey to a Crossroads. We exited the interstate highway to travel along the state highway and so far so good. But then we saw the police cars blocking the road ahead. “Is there no way through?” we asked the officer. “No, the snow has drifted and we have to close off the road.” (The Black Gate is Closed) How long before it might reopen? No idea. We explained our mission. We were the Ring Bearers and we must make it to Mordor Lynchurg – the fate of the proposal was in our hands. And for whatever reason (adventure, romanticism, boredom) one of those kind police officers stepped up. “Follow me, I’ll get you around this and back to the highway.” said Officer Strider. Okay, that wasn’t really his name but it could have been. Which is how the Fellowship of the Ring found itself with a police escort across the backroads of Maryland into Virginia until we were once again able to travel the highway.
We sent texts along the way to friends back home who knew of our secret mission. “The Ring Goes South”. The reply comes back “Keep it secret. Keep it safe.” “If Sharon starts calling the ring ‘my precious’, abort. ABORT!!” And so it went for four hours.
We did make it to Virginia that day. We went to Joy’s house and Fletch and Emily met us there for a visit. (A Long-expected Party). I chatted with Emily while Paul and Fletcher headed to the back room (Many Meetings). I asked if they had plans for Valentine’s Day. She wasn’t sure if he had made a plan yet. A Conspiracy Unmaskedwould happen soon enough.
We all went to dinner that night and chatted about the storm and how this would be one we would all remember and tell stories about for years to come. Amen to that.
The next morning we were Homeward Bound to await the telling of the rest of the story.
The way the story was told me to me was that my father would come in from farming his fields at night and while my mother would finish up supper and get it on the table, he would take me on his lap and together we would find the rhythm of the old rocking chair and enjoy one another’s company. And then one day he didn’t. I was four years old when he died in a car accident. I have no memory of him or those evenings in that rocking chair. But I have always wondered if something in me remembers and if that is why for as long as I can remember, I have had a desperate and almost compulsive need to rock.
Soon after his death, my mother sold most of our things and she and I moved off the farm, away from everything familiar that felt like home to either of us. She needed work and so we moved to another city, another state and another life. Our new “home” was a three room apartment – the best we could do while she got settled and found work. The story goes, though I have no memory to validate it, that I would sit for hours at a time, rocking back and forth and banging my head against the back of the couch which was against the wall – irritating the neighbor whose apartment shared the wall. It seems some people have a very low tolerance for objects flying off shelves and pictures that won’t stay put on the walls. So my brother Irvin, who had come to help us settle in, said to my mother – “if you’re going to live here, the child needs a rocking chair” and went to a thrift shop and got me one.
I wish I had kept track of the rockers we have owned over the years. But I have no idea how many there have been, where most of them came from (thrift stores and maybe even a dumpster or two) or even what some them looked like. But I can tell you what happened to each one of them. I. Wore. Them .Out.
The first one I really remember was an orange, upholstered rocker. I think maybe my mother bought it new after we moved into our “real” house because the other one was literally falling apart and she assumed this one would be sturdier. Growing up, I watched TV from that chair, I read book after book in that chair, I did homework in that chair, some nights I put myself to sleep in that chair and sometimes I rocked myself awake when I crawled out of bed for school. I rocked when I was sad and when I was happy and when I was trying to sort out life. Sometimes I just rocked and did nothing at all, which perhaps was the best use of all. But eventually I broke it. It was what was called a platform rocker and what we learned soon after we bought it, which might have been good to figure out before we parted with our money, was that it is actually possible to break the chair off the platform. So every time one my brothers would come to visit, he would somehow jerry-rig it up and it would be good to go. . . for a while. But then it would break again. Did I not understand, they wanted to know, that rocking was never intended to be an athletic activity? My mother actually ended up giving me that chair to take with me when Paul and I moved to Lawrence, Kansas. I’m sure she was glad to be rid of it and I was delighted.
When I graduated from high school, my sister Minnie took me shopping for my graduation present. And I don’t remember whether it was her idea or mine, but we came home with a rocking chair. A black Boston rocker with red cushions. I had that chair for 25 years and moved it to 14 different homes. We replaced the cushions several times and when we couldn’t afford new ones we reupholstered the old ones – once with fabric from an old crushed velvet stage curtain that a local high high school was throwing away. I think everything in our house was covered with that stuff and if I’d known how to sew I would have made myself a dress of it (think Scarlett O’hara in Gone With the Wind). Even when I had other rockers scavenged from one place or another, I held on to that Boston Rocker until it finally just came unglued. I rocked all six of my babies in that chair and if there was ever one thing that made a new house seem like home, it was this.
I remember when the Montgomery Wards in Champaign, Illinois, was selling big oak rockers for $50 a piece. We bought two of them, figuring they would last forever. I loved them and while I could certainly rock my way across a room in them, they were never really that comfortable.
And there were others along the way. Collected from yard sales and other people’s junk piles, they fed my need. Eventually I learned that it is really more convenient to have a rocker in every room of the house (no, there is not a rocking chair in my bathroom, but then again, if we enlarged the bath.
I think it was about 1992 that I discovered the Cadillac of the industry: the Glider! Paul bought me one for Christmas that year and I was hooked. Rocking had never been so easy . . . so smooth. . . so effortless. . . so quiet. . . so “glide-y”. Rocking in one of these babies was the ultimate ride. And then the reality. While what I really wantedwas a Cadillac, what I needed was a jeep. It turns out gliders could be pretty fragile and not intended for the well-trained and competitive rocker.
When we built the new house in 2002, we bought a really well-made, sturdy, and expensive glider. Made to last a lifetime (or so they said). But over the years, it got squeakier and squeakier and much less glide-y and then it began to thunk each time it moved. Paul tried to repair it but to no avail, and no amount of WD40 would silence it. It seems I was just chewing up the mechanism. He complained that he couldn’t hear the television over the noise of the rocker and I had to admit, it was time to trade it in. But that chair rocked lots of grandbabies and provided hundreds of hours of nurturing to my soul.
This last fall we set out to replace the rocker. We spent whole days visiting furniture stores and test-rocking chairs. “What are you looking for?” Paul wanted to know. “I’m not sure. But I’ll know it when I see it.” And then one day we walked into a store and there it was. The one. It is a chair-and-a-half in size. It is overstuffed and comfortable and not a recliner (I really don’t like recliners). It’s a glider but with an exposed mechanism that can be repaired. We turned it upside down on the sales floor and looked at it from every angle until Paul was convinced it could be fixed when it broke. We kicked the tires and picked out the upholstery and signed the papers and then waited for the delivery date. When it arrived, Paul knew before we even unwrapped the plastic that we had a problem. It was the right size, the right upholstery, the right everything except the most important thing -it wasn’t a rocker. “Why would you even bother to make a chair like this that didn’t rock?” I demanded of the company. They made another one and long story short – I now have a rocking chair that I can sleep in if I want and that I can snuggle up with a grandbaby (or two) and that fills that need somewhere deep inside of me. Life is good.
I don’t know where that need in me comes from: but I do know that it’s as real as my need for the light and warmth of the sun, the sound of the surf breaking against the shore, the beauty of creation and the assurance that I am known by the Creator. Maybe it comes from a memory stored out of sight of the conscious mind; the memory of a little girl sitting in her father’s lap waiting for supper and enjoying his company.
because our stories matter 
