True Grit

July 17, 2015August 24, 2025 ~ Sharon Abbott ~ 4 Comments

He was a mystery to me when I was growing up. My mother and I traveled to Nebraska every couple of years and we would stay a few days on his ranch in the Sandhills, but ranchers are very busy people and he was a grown up and I was a kid. Besides, I didn’t know him and I would rather hang out with the other kids. He and his wife and four daughters came for Christmas every few years, but he visited with the adults and I was one of the children and that would not change for many, many years.

Many of the stories I know about him came from my mother. In the last few years, as I have gotten to know him, I have pulled some of them out of the man himself and learned about a life, a family, and a brother who was gone by the time I arrived on the scene.

My parents named him Charles Irvin. Charles for his two grandfathers and I don’t know where the Irvin came from, nor does he. I never knew anyone who called him Charles. The family called him Irvin. Everyone else called him Fletch. My mother always said he looked a lot like my dad and also had his temperament: both quiet, hard-working men.

Our Grandfather Barnes was a trapper. Irvin and his older brother Don thought they would give it a try. They set traps along the river, trapped muskrats and sold them (who buys a muskrat and for what?). When the winter came and the weather grew cold, they moved their traps away from the river and set them for other game. My mother used to tell the story about the day that Irvin was sent home from school because he reeked of skunk. They had checked their traps on the way to school and found one trying to escape. “What were you thinking??!” she asked the twelve year old boy. “Why couldn’t you have left it for later?” “Because, Mom, he might have gotten away.” He might have been quiet, but cautious he was not and he loved taking risks.

I think they must have been in grade school when the two brothers decided to spend the summer down by the water building a raft and making plans to float it down the river. Our sister Lila, who fell in age between the two boys, begged them to let her help. But they would have none of it – this was a boys’ adventure, pure and simple, and she was not invited. Yet she continued to accompany them down to the river every day and as the craft got closer and closer to completion and the moment of launch was approaching, Lila ran to the house. “Mom!!! Those boys are down at the water and they built a raft and they are getting ready to take it down the river!!” She had turned informant. My mother put a stop to the Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer adventure and my brothers learned a valuable lesson – never make an enemy of a potential ally – even if she is a girl.

After high school graduation he stayed on the farm to help my dad, but every chance he got he hit the rodeo circuit – riding bulls and bare backs and livin’ the good life. Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado: wherever he could find a rodeo, that was his real home. And though eventually, as the responsibilities of family and running a ranch kept him out of the arena himself, the rodeo life was in his blood and he made it part of his life’s work to preserve this sport and way of life for other, younger cowboys. Whether it’s introducing toddlers to the Pee Wee Pen or judging, sponsoring, and supporting the high school rodeo clubs, he still loves it all. When they organized the first Old Timer’s Rodeo in 1974, he was back – and he won first or second prize (he would never say which).

He was 22 years old when I was born in March of 1950. By the next October he had been drafted and shipped off to fight the war in Korea. He returned home in 1952 with a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. I know little to nothing of those years or his experiences of that war. I have read the citation that was given to him when they presented him with the medals, but I’ve never heard him speak with any detail about that frozen tundra and the battles he fought there nor did my mother seem to know much about it. A quiet man in the best of times, about the war years he is particularly silent. He was in high school when our oldest brother Don was sent to Germany to fight against the Nazis. One day Irvin was called to the principal’s office – his brother was missing in action they told him. You should go home and be with your folks. And though Don eventually did return home, I don’t think my family was ever the same after that. So I don’t know if it was against this background that he kept these stories to himself, or if it was simply that he was such a quiet man. I do know that it had to have marked him. How could it not?

By the time Irvin returned to Nebraska, my dad had bought his own farm and his son helped him to work the land and care for the animals; he also returned to the rodeo life. In 1953, he married a rodeo queen and worked as a hired hand on a ranch – living the good life. By the time I was five, our father was dead, my mother had sold the farm and moved me and my handicapped sister to Colorado where she could find work to support us. So I have no memories of my brother from my childhood other than the visits we made back to see family every few years and the Christmas visits where he would sit in my sister’s dining room and drink coffee with the adults.

The summer before Paul and I were married, we went with my mother to Nebraska. Paul had never met most of the family so this was his chance. To say that the city boy was intimidated by the country life would not be misrepresenting the situation. Irvin said, “The girls will take you out and show you around.” By this he meant that we would ride the pasture land on horseback to get the lay of the land. It wasn’t so bad when Raeleen took us (she was 14 and we were 19), but the day he sent us out with the five year old might have been just to get a reaction. And then came dinner. Irvin handed Paul a plate with a steak on it. Just a steak – nothing else. The meat hung over the sides of the plate. I could see the look of panic in his eyes. Paul had always said he didn’t like steak – that it was hard to chew and had no flavor. It didn’t help that his mother, God love her, tended to cook red meat until it was unrecognizable or that any beef he had ever eaten had come from Safeway. But he couldn’t afford to offend his new in-laws even though he whispered to me, “I’ll be here all night getting this down.” I was grateful that he didn’t ask for a bottle of ketchup. With the first bite, he became a believer. To this day he measures every other steak by that one and few, if any, come close.

After we were married, we didn’t make many trips back to Nebraska. We were busy raising a family and holding body and soul together. But as the kids grew up and moved away, I had a longing to connect with these roots and the stories of my family. In 1999, when Fletcher was 11 and Joy was 15, we made a trip west and stopped for a few days at the ranch. Irvin was retired by then but still had some cattle, some horses and some wild barn cats. He took our Fletch fishing for the first time. He baited his hook, stood him next to the water, put the pole in his hands and the line in the water and said, “If you feel a tug on the line, just reel him in.” Before long he had a bite. He hollered for his uncle. Irvin yelled, “Just bring him in! Bring him in!!”” Fletch yelled back, “But he don’t wanna come in!” One evening his daughter Raleene came for dinner with her two kids who were about the same age as Joy and Fletcher. Eventually someone mentioned that the kids were missing in action. A search turned them up out in the corral – blowing up cow pies with firecrackers – with the uncle/grandfather leading the charge.

Years later Paul and I would return to the ranch on our way to Colorado. We sat under the stars which were brilliant in the dark, Nebraska sky with no city lights to dim their light and listened to the quiet. And we went tanking on the Calamus River – meaning we sat in the tank which is used to water cattle in the field and floated down the river. It’s sort of like white water rafting – without the white water and without the rafts. We meandered down the river, we talked to cows, and we ate our cooler full of snacks, and Irvin fished. And of course, before the trip was over, we ate steaks.

And then one day a couple of years ago, Raeleen called me. “I have to be in Washington D.C. and I was thinking of bringing my Dad to visit you. I don’t know if he’ll do it. I doubt he’ll do it. But what would you think of the idea?” To get on a plane and fly to the city? Where there would be crowds, and noise, and concrete? Would he really do this? I wanted so badly for it to happen. She called back to say he would come. And then she called back to say he had changed his mind. “Why?” I wanted to know. “Well, he says he doesn’t have anything to wear.” Are you kidding me?? Put him on the phone, I told her. I assured him his boots and his hat would be perfect, we would meet him at the airport and that we would promise not to let the city eat him.

It was one of the best weeks of my life.

Sean asked him to bring his uniform. I wanted a picture. But who can fit into something they wore 60 years ago?? This guy. Seriously?

We sat on the deck and visited. We showed him our life here in suburban Maryland and the church we had built and Sean and his family came from North Carolina to visit with his uncle, a war hero from a different generation but one who understood and appreciated his nephew’s military life as only one who has served can do. We ate cinnamon rolls and pie and talked of our parents. He came to church with us and people wore their cowboy boots to show their solidarity and wanted their pictures taken with a real life cowboy.

Cedarbrook shows up in boots for this cowboy.

We took him to visit the Korean War Memorial. We wanted him to have time there. Time to just be there. To take it in in the daylight hours but also to see it lit up at night. But it was July and I was afraid that the infamous Washington heat and humidity would be miserable and unbearable and take its toll on this 85 year old man. I worried about how far we might have to walk. I worried that the city would be crowded and claustrophobic to a rancher from the Nebraska Sandhills who upon landing at the airport declared, “This place is so different you oughta have to have a passport to visit.” But all my worries were for nothing. Paul dropped us off as close as he could get us and went to find a parking place. As we walked along, I pointed things out to him and when we came to the foot of the Lincoln Memorial he stopped and stared up at the monument. “If the stairs don’t bother you, we could go up a little ways and get a closer look,” I offered. “We have time?” he asked. We had all the time in the world. He was off. I called to him to wait for us and though he claims sometimes that he doesn’t hear well, I think he hears everything he wants to hear and “slow down” doesn’t fall into that category.

When we walked down into the spot where the Korean War Memorial sits, it became a thin place for him and for all us who were with him. We walked slowly with him, stopping to just see or to read or to pray and I’m sure for him, to remember. To be there with him, haunted by his ghosts and memories, was to be in a holy place. As the afternoon wore on some of us went to find a place to sit and to wait, but he stayed, almost like a sentry standing watch. From our bench we saw a Korean family approaching him, a man with his elderly parents. “Excuse me sir, my parents do not speak English but they wish to know how old you are?” My brother told him, and he translated. “My father asks if you fought in Korea.” My brother nodded. “My father asks if he may shake your hand.” And the old woman bowed from the waist and spoke in Korean. “My mother says thank you for saving her country’.” The war veteran, in his boots and his cowboy hat, walked past us, not wanting conversation or company in what was understandably an emotional moment. But what a gift it was to bear witness to this act of gratitude, of humility, and of grace.

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On the morning he left for home, he came into the kitchen. This man of so few words stood next to me and told me that he was proud of me and of what I had done with my life. “And Mom and Dad would be so proud too. I wish they could see it all.” Have I ever thanked him for that act of generosity? For speaking on behalf of a father I never knew and a mother who has been gone for over 25 years. To tell me, on their behalf, “Well done.” For reaching across the generation that separates us and saying, you belong.

Our sister Lila died the following January, leaving us the last of the siblings.

First there were five.

And then I was born and there were six.

And now there are only two.

I sat beside him at the funeral. This brother who shared my genes and my story, who was shaped by bull riding and ranching and war and the Nebraska Sandhills, and I offered a prayer of thanks for this quiet, true grit of a man with his courage and resolve and strength of character.

A year ago I went to Nebraska and stayed three weeks with him. We watched bull riding on television, worshiped together at the Easter sunrise service, went fishin’, ate steak, and even trapped us some varmints. And sometimes he would talk, and I would listen and those were the best times of all.

But next time I’m in Nebraska, could we build a raft and take it down the river?

Nana Rocks

July 5, 2015December 12, 2024 ~ Sharon Abbott ~ 1 Comment

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 wanted was 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.

We Never Know What the Next Seven (or 100) Days Will Bring . . .

June 22, 2015March 8, 2024 ~ Sharon Abbott ~ 1 Comment

As Paul says every week at the end of his sermon and before the blessing, “We never know what the next seven days will bring.”

Today marks a hundred days since my first surgery for what should have been a routine hip replacement. In the grand scheme of things, not really all that long. Never-the-less, I have counted them down and looked forward to today since March 16 with both anticipation and anxiety. “It looks good,” my surgeon said at today’s appointment.” And so today I can move forwards (or backwards depending on your perspective) to my normal life. But so I don’t forget, I wanted to record the story and my take-away.

The first surgery went well, the physical therapist and everyone else marveled at how well I was doing, how I was ahead of schedule in the rehab, and I was on way back to my old life – minus the hip pain that had plagued me for years. All was well. Until it wasn’t. A few days before my six weeks check up with the surgeon where I fully expected her to discharge me, I noticed a pain in my thigh. I mentioned it to her during my appointment, almost as an afterthought. Her brow furrowed, her smile faded and she asked me dozens of questions and then, “We need to xray.” That xray revealed what she feared – the bone was not growing in around the stem that went down into my femur and the stem had shifted. In all of her years of surgery and out of the hundreds of patients she had treated, she had had only two cases where this had happened. I was the third. That appointment was on May 6th. By the 7th I was in serious pain and by the 11th I was back in surgery to replace the stem. We had to start over, only this time I would have to stay off the leg for six weeks, using either a walker or a wheelchair.

We never know what the next seven (or one hundred) days will bring. For me it has brought countless acts of kindness.

Visits, cards, care packages, texts, emails, FaceTime and phone calls from my family, always reminding me that I was loved, thought of, and cared for.

Offerings of well wishes left on our doorstep: a basket of muffins, a meal, balloons, flowers, home-made gingersnaps.

Old friends who brought quiche and fresh fruit on a Wednesday morning and stayed to visit.

A 20 year old girl and former student who came to sit me with me one afternoon so that Paul could go to work.

Work colleagues who stepped in at a moment’s notice to cover for me.

Chocolate covered strawberries.

People who sent gift cards to restaurants or showed up with Chinese food for lunch.

A friend who made me a necklace and sent it with a card which read– “Nothing says ‘Happy New Hip’ like jewelry.”

The anonymous Amazon shopper who sent me books through the mail.

Two sisters who showed up with a chocolate chess pie.

The flowers which showed up on just the right day.

A daughter who used some of her precious days off work to come and stay with me after both surgeries.

The texts and cards and messages that made me feel connected and cared for.

Nurses who cared for me so well both in the hospital and at home.

A physical therapist who came to my house three times a week and prayed for me more often than that.

And of course, always, always, always there was Paul: my companion, my chauffer, my meal provider (no, he didn’t cook – though under supervision he learned to make a mean egg salad sandwich ), my courier, my house cleaner, my gardener, my launderer, my encourager, my wheelchair pusher, my “whatever you need, I am here for you.” These 100 days have been a reminder that vows matter. “For better or worse, “ he promised. “ In sickness and in health.” But to do it with such grace and kindness and generosity. . .

But perhaps most unexpected and because of that the most lovely were the kindnesses of strangers. The old man who insists I take his place on the bench as we wait to get seated in a restaurant. The teenage boy with baggy shorts looking up from his phone to see me inching my way toward a door and turns back to open it for me or the seven year old girl who lets go of her mother’s hand to do the same. Everywhere I went, whether with the walker or the wheelchair, it seemed to me that people were quick to notice that I was struggling and offered their assistance cheerfully, eagerly, and with compassion not pity. Some people credit Philo of Alexandria, others say it was someone else, but whoever said it, we all need to tattoo it on our forehead: “Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” My battle in the last three months has not been great – it has been an inconvenience and I want to make this point clearly and loudly. I cannot begin to understand the battle that the physically disabled face in their battle to live, work, and function in an environment where everything is a challenge. Nor can I begin to understand the life of those living with terminal, chronic or debilitating illness or pain. I certainly don’t understand what it is like to fear for my health or safety or dignity because of the color of my skin. These are truly “great battles”. And the truth is, like most of us, I don’t know how to help or what to say to those who live on these battle fronts. But this is my point – my “battle” was visible to those around me and, without exception, their response was kindness. And it makes me want to treat everyone I meet like that (even if it’s just giving up a seat or opening a door or bringing muffins) because I don’t know what battle they’re fighting that is not so visible. But I can be sure that just because they’re not using a walker doesn’t mean they don’t need help – or kindness.

This Is Fletcher Paul Avvott

June 20, 2015March 8, 2024 ~ Sharon Abbott ~ 2 Comments

“What if we named him Fletcher?” Paul asked. I liked it. “And Paul as a middle name,” I offered. And it was settled. He would have my name (Fletcher is my maiden name), his father’s name (Paul), and our name (Abbott). His siblings were old enough to have opinions and less than enthusiastic. “You can’t name him Fletcher. It’s not a real name.” But Fletcher it was.

His birth was the most traumatic of the six. Over two weeks late and with complications developing, the doctor wanted to induce. The kids cried foul. We had a lottery set up – everybody had contributed something: a week’s worth of chores, $5 worth of candy, a favorite book, something – and the loot would go to the person who had chosen the day of the week he was born. The doctor had said Monday – which just happened to be Paul’s day. I was in no mood to negotiate – the sooner the better. I arrived at the hospital about 4:00 p.m., they prepped me, set me up with the IV and started the Pitocin. With the first hard contraction, the fetal monitor registered severe distress and only a few minutes later the room had filled with people. “Mrs. Abbott, if we’re going to save your baby we need to do an emergency c-section. Now.” In the confusion of it all there was miscommunication – someone told Paul to put on scrubs and a mask and he could accompany me to the ER. There was lots of hurrying, lots of chaos, and on our part – lots of praying. When we got to the Emergency Room, the anesthesiologist took one look at Paul and the last thing I heard before they put me under was “Get him out of here!!!” Paul left the room, walked down the hall, removed his gown and heard the baby cry.

As I fought my way out of the general anesthesia, I was aware only of the searing pain. “Why?” I asked Paul. (Because he can read my mind and finish my sentences, he knew I was asking – ‘Why am I in this hell-hole of pain?’) “Because you had an emergency c-section. But the baby is fine.” “What?” I asked him, (translation: What did we have?) “We have a boy.” And I would drift back to sleep. A few minutes later: “Why?” “You had an emergency c-section. The baby is fine.” “What?” It’s a boy. And I drifted away. And so it went. . . . over and over and over. . . Even from those first days we took to calling him “the boy”. There were now four girls and the bookend boys.

Paul spent the night at the hospital that night. Until security asked required him to leave in the early morning hours. Turns out he can be a bit of a trouble maker when he thinks the nurses are not following the doctor’s orders to provide pain medication every four hours. The hospital air conditioning was on the fritz and we were in the throes of a stretch of 98 degree days, the room was crowded with the three little kids of my roommate who was also recovering from a c-section and whose husband did not want to pay for babysitting, and Paul was caring for both of us and keeping the kids from killing each other. So we took “the boy” and went home early.

Probably because he was the youngest of six and five of them significantly older than he, he was a pack animal – always the happiest when surrounded by the rest of the pack. An introvert by nature, he didn’t even need their attention – just their presence. When he was three years old, his only brother joined the Marines. It was the first tearing apart of his pack but the girls were not far behind. The day his sister got married, I found him in tears at the reception. In all the talk about her getting married, he had somehow assumed that this meant that she would move back home and bring her new husband with her. He sobbed as he learned that in fact, this was not the case.

He was a home-body by nature – so much so we wondered if he would ever leave home or just take up permanent residence in our house. As his siblings moved out and left him behind, one family in particular sort of took him in and he spent a great deal of time at their house, soaking up the chaos and the mischief of a large family. They would often invite him to spend the night and we would load up his backpack and send him off with his sleeping bag under his arm. It was usually before midnight when we would get the phone call: Can you come get me? And so we would make the 15 minute drive to their house, bring him home, and tuck him into to his own bed with his Beagle, and they were both the happier for it. One night it was later when he called – maybe around 1:30. When we pulled up in the drive he was waiting on the front porch with his backpack and sleeping bag. “Problem?” “No. I just wanted to go home to sleep.” The next morning around 9:30 Mary Lee called me: “Sharon, this is really awkward but is Fletcher there?” “He is. Is there a problem?” “Well, when the kids came down for breakfast and Fletcher wasn’t with them, I asked where he was. They didn’t know. I asked them how they could not know. ‘ummmm, when we woke up he wasn’t here.’ ‘And you didn’t think that might have been important to tell somebody? How am I going to tell the pastor that I lost his son?!’ Not wanting to bother anyone, he had simply made the phone call, gathered his things and slipped out to wait on the porch while the family slept. He was like that. In all fairness, when he announced he wanted to go away to college, none of us saw that plan working out very well, but he took to it and to dorm life like a fish to water and he never looked back. Who knew?

I think he might have been about four when he wanted his sisters to take him shopping so he could buy me a Mother’s Day present. They made some suggestions as to what might be a good gift (within his budget). He thanked them but was clear that he knew exactly what he was looking for – he simply needed a ride. They obliged and drove him to the store where he was accustomed to doing all of his shopping – The Dollar Store. It took a while, but he finally found it. He brought it home and headed off to his room with a roll of wrapping paper and a roll of scotch tape and spent the afternoon behind closed doors. On Mother’s Day, he handed me his well-wrapped and tightly taped offering. “ I knew I wanted to buy you diamonds because I really wanted you to have diamonds, but then I found BLUE DIAMONDS and I knew you would love them even more!!!” And I do. And they are one of my most treasured possessions to this day. So a note to my daughters – when you are going to through my stuff after I die and you come across the blue diamonds – remember how valuable they are and do not say to one another, “Now why do you suppose she kept a pair of plastic, clip-on earrings?” I kept them because every woman should feel so loved. Give them to Emily. She’ll know what to do with them.

So many of the one-liners that made it into our family lexicon came from “the boy”:

“I’ll take a coke/fries” (said all as one word – think hashtag) – which is what he hollered from his car seat in the far back seat of the van every time we pulled up to a fast food drive-thru.

“I’ll take a twenty” – which is what he hollered every time we went through a bank drive-thru.

“STOP!!! I lost my tontact (translation: contact lens)!!” which is what he would randomly yell from his carseat as we drove down the road at which point we would send someone to “retrieve” the imagined tontact from the floor of the back seat. They would offer up an imaginary lense they had recovered but more often than not would be told “No, that’s not it.”

“What’s the plan?” – always wanting to be kept in the loop of the family’s coming and goings and afraid that he would be cut out of the festivities.

“Go Skins! Hot Dog! Beat the Bears!” – a mantra his father taught him to aggravate his sister who was a die-hard Chicago Bears Fan.

“I’ll bet that’s a small church,” – a muttered response to himself when he overheard a conversation about a pastor who said, “Anyone is welcome here. Except complainers. They should go somewhere else.”

None of us can hear the song God Bless America without hearing his little voice belting out the lyrics: ” to the lotion, white before“

When Fletcher was an RA (Resident Assistant) in college at the same time his brother was a Drill Instructor in the Marine Corps, we laughed that they both had the same job: babysitting boys away from home for the first time. “Yes,” Fletch said, “but he gets a gun.”

When he was about three, he loved to answer the phone: and raced to answer it before anyone else could get there. “Hello. This is Fletcher Paul Avvott. May I help you?” At which point someone would say, “Oh good grief! He’s got the phone again.” Which of course was a problem because he was not capable in any way, shape, or form, of taking a message.

So excited to join a t-ball team, he left for his first practice dressed in his shirt and his hat. When he got home he was heartbroken. Sensing something had gone terribly awry Paul asked him how it had gone. “Dad, I’m out of t-ball.” We could not imagine what had happened. This was the sweetest, most gentle child you could ever hope to see. What had he done to get himself thrown out of t-ball???!! Paul probed further – why, what happened? “Well, I hit the ball and then they said, ‘RUN!!’ and I did and when I got there they said, “You’re out!” Such a literalist he was.

By the time he reached high school, the other five were gone and it was just him. . . and his Beagle. His siblings complained about how easy he had it – when they were growing up they had to share bedrooms, stand in line for the bathroom and an even longer line to get access to a car to drive at any given time. He had the whole upstairs to himself – a suite of rooms really, or as one of the older ones put it – the only thing that keeps it from being an apartment is a kitchen which doesn’t matter anyway because he doesn’t know how to cook anything. He had a car sitting in the driveway which was his to drive whenever and wherever he needed to go. What he did not have was the rest of the pack. And those were lonely years for him.

We wondered often in those years before he left when the little red-headed boy had disappeared and left in his place this approaching-adulthood young man with facial hair. When he was little, he was an early riser and every morning he would come into our bathroom where Paul was shaving. He put the toilet seat down, climbed up and leaned against the sink to watch his dad cover his face with the white, billowy cream and then scrape it off again. “Watcha’ doing?” he asks. “I’m shaving,” is his father’s reply. “Can I have some shave?” he wants to know. Paul squirts a handful of shaving cream in his tiny little hand and he smears it over his face and then scrapes it off with a hand-me-down safety razor (sans razor blade). When they have both finished this task, he drys his face with a towel and toddles to the kitchen for a bowl of cereal. It was a daily ritual that they kept religiously from the time he was two until. . . . when did it end? Not after a year. Maybe it was sometime in the second year he began to miss days – he would sleep in a little late or get busy playing or go to get his breakfast first and forget about what was happening down the hall. And then he would return for a day or two . . . until eventually the days he came were fewer than the days he missed and then one day he just never came back. We don’t know when the last time was. Thank God for small mercies. It would have been too hard to know it was the last day.

I do remember the day we packed him up and took him to college and I knew – this part is over. I grieved the loss even as I celebrated the person he had grown to be. But in that person, I could still see the essence of “the boy” he had left behind: kind, polite, generous, funny, sensitive to the feelings of others, a thinker and a lover of Jesus and His church. One morning when he was little (probably one of those days when he was showing up less often for the shaving ritual), Paul found him at the kitchen table by himself eating a bowl of cereal, lost in thought. “Daddy,” he said. “When we cry down, here does God cry up in heaven?” Giving voice to the question that matters to us all – Does God care? We started Cedarbrook when Fletcher was a year old. He grew up during the hard years when we were planting and growing a church and he had seen behind the curtain – he bore witness to the sacred beauty and the ugly sinfulness of ministry. And yet. After all that – he chose ministry as his calling and his profession. God cares.

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And here’s the interesting thing. There are days now, 27 years later, when I swear “the boy” is back. I catch glimpses of him from time to time. It’s Easter Sunday and I see the picture of him dressed in his Sunday Best with tie and dress shoes and beaming from ear to ear. I see him following Paul out to feed the fish and imitating his every move. I watch him track the movements of the rest of the family and try to account for each one, hoping they have not scattered too far – always looking for his pack. And though his hair is blond instead of red and his name is Ezra instead of Fletcher, for a minute time warps and I expect to see the Beagle trailing along behind him. I watch “the boy”, now grown big, singing the same songs to his boys that we sang to him so long ago and it makes my heart happy.

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Happy Birthday, Fletcher Paul Abbott! So what’s the plan?

Remembering Murdoch

May 28, 2015March 8, 2024 ~ Sharon Abbott ~ Leave a comment

He loomed large in our story. A sort of bigger than life character. And in the telling and the retelling of it, he has become really sort of a legend. At one time or another we all had a love/hate relationship with him. He could be frustrating beyond belief and loveable as the day is long. He was quirky – which is to put it kindly. In truth he was eccentric bordering on neurotic. He was, on more than one occasion, an illustration in Paul’s sermons. Perhaps the most memorable was when he used him to unpack the mystery of the trinity. You sort of had to be there for that one.

He lived in our home for over 13 years. When he died I wrote a eulogy of sorts for him which I sent to all the kids – because it’s important to remember our stories. This past weekend when Fletcher was home with his babies, we told Murdoch stories and laughed and grieved a little that Ezra had missed out on the adventures. And it made me think that I should put the eulogy here – so that it will be here for the littles and for the rest of us. . . as though we could forget.

Remembering Murdoch

Remember when we said, “We should get Fletcher a dog for Christmas”, and somebody said, “I’ve heard Beagles are good with kids” and Faith said, “Somebody at Roy Rogers said that they follow their nose right out of the yard and wherever that journey takes them – other than that they’re great”. If we had only known.

Remember when we went to the farm to pick him out and they said, “Beagles are really pack dogs – they are truly happiest when they are surrounded by the pack”? (if we had only known) and we debated about getting two of them, partly because they were just so darned cute?

Remember when we brought him home on Christmas Eve and put him in the bathroom and on Christmas morning, he cried and cried because he wanted to join the party and Sean kept turning up the music? And after all the presents were opened, we said, “Wait! There’s one more for Fletcher”, and we brought him out in the box with the bow on it. And we took off the lid and the look on Fletcher’s face was pure joy and somebody said “Beagles are hunting dogs” and Fletcher said, “I always wanted a hunting dog!”. Remember how that same Christmas Fletch got a pair of Dalmation slippers and Murdoch loved them and wanted to chew them and Fletch would dance up and down to get away and that made Murdoch go after them even more?

Remember when Murdoch would take off on one of his adventures and we would all disperse and go searching the neighborhood and finally find him blocks away with no earthly idea where he was but clearly having made lots of friends along the way?

Remember when the neighbor came leading him home with a hotdog?

Remember one Halloween when some neighbor kids came to the door and Murdoch was standing at the top of the stairs (how he loved Halloween and all the visitors that came to see HIM) and one little kid said “Well, hello, Murdoch, we haven’t seen you for a long time” ? Was there anyone in the neighborhood who didn’t know and love him?

Remember the freezing cold Feburary night when we couldn’t find him and he was missing for an entire night and we were sure he had frozen somewhere? And the next day we called the pound and they said, “Oh yes, your neighbor has him and called in to stay he was with them.” And we went to get him and they wanted to keep him because he was so sweet and they had let him sleep in the bed with them that night?

Remember when he went visiting his friend Paisely, the little bull dog around Peanut Mill, and dug under the fence and helped her to escape and then brought her home INTO THE HOUSE and they played chase around the living room? And then we took Paisley home and explained that she had just shown up at our front door and the people said, “I don’t understand it – she has never done this before”?

Remember when we would try to take him for walks around Peanut Mill and he would dig in his paws and REFUSE to walk – brave soul that he was.

Remember when he opened the refrigerator door when we were gone and pulled out the cucumber and celery to get to the two pounds of raw hamburger in the back of the fridge and then drug it out on the back deck and ate the whole thing?

Remember when he ate a five pound bag of potatoes that were in the utility room and then chewed up the insulation in the walls?

Remember when Fletch had the dream that Murdoch was dressed up in a business suit and glasses and walked on his hind legs and carried a briefcase?

Remember how when he was feeling neglected he would parade through the house with a shirt (preferably one of Fletch’s) in his mouth and then bury it under the deck?

Remember when he couldn’t find a shirt of Fletch’s and raided the laundry basket instead and Blu said, “Whoah! There goes the dog with the Rev’s underwear!!”?

Remember how much he loved going to the Smith’s to stay with Pepper at his “country home”? And the time we went to pick him up to bring him home and he hid under the picnic table and didn’t want to leave? And after he went home, Pepper would go to the edge of the woods and bark for him?

Remember how Jackson used to call him Murdog?

Remember how Faith always gave him a sweater for Christmas and how much he always seemed to like wearing it?

Remember how when Fletch left for college, Murdoch got in the front seat of the car and hid under the steering wheel and wouldn’t get out?

Remember how even after he was going deaf – he could still detect when it was Dad’s “snack time” by the sound of the box of crackers being opened and would show up for his share?

Remember how when last year a Beagle won the Best in Show and Leo called so excited to say that he had seen Murdoch on TV?

Remember how when kids would come home after being away for awhile Murdoch would bark and bark, scolding them for having left the pack for so long?

Remember the role he played in our story?

Enough memories and stories to last a life time.

And so this afternoon, we wrapped him in one of Fletch’s old shirts and buried him in the backyard. It is enough. And it isn’t.

Joy to the World. . . Every Day

May 10, 2015March 6, 2024 ~ Sharon Abbott ~ 1 Comment

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!

This Week on Nana and the Colonel

April 6, 2015March 6, 2024 ~ Sharon Abbott ~ 2 Comments

We have 13 grandchildren ranging in age from 23 to 1. Sometimes that realization still shocks me – that we are the grandparents. Not the kids, not even the parents, but the grandparents. That role should be played by my mother or Paul’s mom and dad. But in truth, they are gone and the roles have been re-cast. The grandparenting has fallen to us.

So maybe it’s time to explain exactly how Paul became The Colonel.

Over twenty years ago we were having dinner with our oldest son Sean and his wife Marge. We visited about this and that through the salad and the main course and then came the reason for the invitation: “What do you want the grandkids to call you?” We were going to be grandparents!!!! Obviously we were over-the-moon excited. The speed with which we delivered our answers reflects our personalities. I blurted out as though I had been thinking about this forever and was just waiting for the opportunity to share it (which of course was true) “NANA! I want to be called Nana!!” Paul said, “I’ll have to think about it and get back to you.”

But he couldn’t decide. My nephew, who had been a grandparent for a couple of years already, went by Papa Nick which I always thought was kind of cool. I suggested Papa Paul. He rolled his eyes. “That sounds like I should wear a beret and have a cigarette holder.” Clearly that was not going to happen. “Well, there’s always Grandpa.” Nope. That wasn’t an option either.

My sister Lila was married to a man named Tony. But he never went by Tony. Lila called him Slim and his kids all called him Snads. The Slim I got. Snads? Who knows? But Paul liked it. Then there were our friends, Julius and Audrey. Audrey’s Dad went by Chief. His kids called him The Chief and his grandkids called him The Chief. And Paul really liked that one. A lot. I think he actually wanted to be called The Chief but that was taken. So somehow he settled on The Colonel. I’m not sure where it came from, but that’s what he decided. And now – a dozen grandchildren later – he is, indisputably and without a doubt, The Colonel. You will understand when I say that, along the way, this has created some interesting moments and some “issues”.

1. Here’s the first problem. Sean was in the Marine Corps for four years. Then he got out, went into the business world, got married, and had three kids. When Paul chose The Colonel as his name, he had no idea that Sean would re-enlist and be a Marine for the next 20 years. That we would be spending a lot of time on military bases. See where I’m going with this? It got a little awkward to be walking around a military base with a four old who is yelling at the top of his lungs, “Colonel! Colonel! Wait for me!” and watch all the young privates suffering whiplash from spinning around in circles looking for the officer they were supposed to salute.

2. When he chose the name, I’m sure he wasn’t thinking about a toddler’s vocabulary and how, when they are asked to pronounce a word that is unfamiliar to them, they will replace it with a similar sounding word that they recognize. Thus “Colonel” became “Turtle” for Jackson, the first born grandchild, and if our own kids had had anything to do with it, it would have stuck.

But to his credit, he held the line and by the time the next one came along, Turtle was in the rear-view mirror, and he was firmly entrenched as The Colonel. Ezra calls him Kerkel – but he is outnumbered by the seven older ones so I doubt it will gain any traction. If you can get them going in the right direction, the ones down the line just sort of seem to fall into step.

3. When he said he would be The Colonel I asked him what he was going to say when these kids grew up and asked him what war he fought in. “I’m going to tell them ‘you have no idea how many battles I’ve fought’.” Fair enough. After 40 years in ministry, I couldn’t really argue with that.

4.. But then there is. Nana and the Colonel sounds like a sit-com. Am I right? You can just hear the voice over now. “Next week on Nana and the Colonel.. . .”

But it is what it is and now all the bigs are used to it and the littles don’t know him as anything else and so Colonel it is. They could not love him any more if he were a General.

Tabitha, Arise.

March 4, 2015March 6, 2024 ~ Sharon Abbott ~ 7 Comments

She was born exactly two years and two weeks and two days after her brother. This time I was prepared. I knew not to expect her on my due date – which was good considering she was almost a full two weeks late. By this time we had moved from Colorado to Kansas and so my mother had agreed to come and help out. When she arrived, she took one look at me and announced, “Oh, this will be a while. You’re not nearly miserable enough to be at the end.” As usual, she was right.

11001641_10205939108940665_4626973006023086453_o — “If you need anything,” she offered. She had no idea how much I would need her over the years.

But eventually I was miserable enough. It was a Sunday night and we had been to our house-church that afternoon. I should preface this next part of the story with this: this was a church made up of predominately college students. We were one of the few (as in two) families in the church. One of the young, single, (and not very sensitive) young men approached me. “I don’t mean to be insensitive, but I just have to tell you that being around pregnant women really makes me uncomfortable.” What do you even say to that? I was getting ready to tell me him exactly what he could do with his discomfort when a girl standing nearby, sensing the volatility of the situation stepped into the conversation. She was fairly new to the group and I knew her only a little. “Sharon, isn’t it? I just wanted to tell you that if you need anything, you can call me. I could come watch your little boy or whatever you need. Here’s my phone number.” I should pause here to say that that woman became one of my very best friends-for-life and befriended and mothered not just this baby, but all of my first four. Her name is Lori and I am deeply grateful for the part she played in my life in these years.

Which takes us to Sunday evening. That young, single, and insensitive guy, (who was also our good friend until his unfortunate comment earlier in the day) had stopped by to see Paul about some church business. The two year old was in bed, my mother was reading in the living room, and I had gone to lie down, exhausted from the day. Before long, I wasn’t feeling so well and my body remembered before my mind, that this was the same pain from two years ago. So I set the plan into motion. I told Paul to send Bill home since I obviously wanted to be sensitive to his comfort or lack thereof. My mother would stay with Sean, and Paul and I would head off to the hospital. Here is where the plan went awry.

Bill said that if it was all the same to us, he might like to come along for the ride and my mother wondered if there was anyone we might call so that she could also be at the hospital (my guess is she couldn’t tolerate the idea of Bill welcoming her grandchild into the world before she did.) Which is how we ended up calling Lori Phillips (a girl I barely knew) to come and stay with Sean so that Paul, my mother, and Bill could all be at the hospital – and even as I write this I wonder – What was I thinking??!!

Tabi as a flower girl in Lori's wedding — Tabi as a flower girl in Lori’s wedding

Through the night, Bill and my mother kept each other company in the waiting room. This time Paul was allowed to stay with me (we had made a lot of progress in two years). Sometimes my mother would come in and sit with me and give Paul a break – I suspect it was so that she could get a break from Bill as well. I drew the line at Bill: he would remain in the waiting room. And then came transition: or the “hold my hand don’t touch me” stage of labor as we affectionately call it (see post entitled “Valentines and Birthin’ Babies” ). I grew agitated and unhappy and snapped at my mother: “I can’t do this. You go get Paul and tell him to get in here because I am done with this. I can’t do it.” She was happy to leave. Paul’s greeting to me as he walked into the room was, “You are never going to believe this??!!! Guess who is in the waiting room??!!! You’ll never believe it!” I assumed the only reason he would bring this up now is because it was somebody that he knew I would really care about (Robert Redford comes to mind though what he would be doing in Lawrence, Kansas is beyond me.) So I gritted my teeth and managed,

“Who?”

“Bill’s dentist!! His wife is in the room down the hall. Small world, right!!!?”

“ARE YOU ^&*%$## KIDDING ME??!!!

And the only thing that saved him was that the nurse said, “We should get you to the delivery room.”

This was Paul’s first time to the dance and I have to say that having him there made all the difference. When my first one was born I remember being wheeled into the delivery room with bright lights, masked faces, and I felt so alone. Paul was amazing and throughout I knew that this time I was not alone. This time was different – we were there together and we were a team. I had no idea how the next hour would unfold and how desperately I would need my team. I pushed and pushed and pushed and with each push I knew I was pushing this life into the world and I felt powerful and strong and invincible. Paul was encouraging and cheering me on. The nurses and doctor were cheering. Everyone was cheering! One really hard push, another and another and then the doctor said, “One more push and we’re going to have this baby here!!” And I pushed and the baby was here and then the cheering stopped. It was quiet. Too quiet. And then it got noisy and the doctor was barking orders and the nurse who had been at my head hurried to join the doctor and they were all moving so fast and the doctor asked for something and a nurse dropped it and he swore and they ran to get another one and they put something down my baby’s throat and I kept asking what was wrong and why wasn’t she crying and I could hear Paul praying, and the tension in the doctor’s voice as he gave instructions to the nurses and they seemed to grow ever more desperate while the two of us watched this helpless little baby turning bluer and bluer, her eyes huge and her mouth opened wide, struggling to draw air into her little lungs. It was clear they were losing her.

Do names matter? Do we live up to or grow into our names? I don’t know. Maybe.

Somewhere in the pregnancy we had decided that if the baby was a girl we would name her after a woman in the bible, “a disciple named Tabitha” whose life was characterized by her kindness, generosity and service to the needy. When she died, the people in her village were so distraught that they sent for the Apostle Peter who happened to be in a town nearby, hoping against hope that he could do something. The book of Acts records it this way: “He knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said, ‘Tabitha, arise.’ And she opened her eyes, and he gave her his hand and raised her up”. And now, early on that Monday morning of March 4, 1974, it felt to me like a voice spoke into that room, a voice heard only by the baby girl named after a woman who was raised from the dead: “Tabitha, arise.”

How overwhelmingly grateful I am that this child who almost wasn’t came to be in our family. She has filled our lives with love, with laughter, with care, with generosity, with joy, and of course, with stories.

We lived on the second and third floor of a big house in the student slums that had no air conditioning, so in the summer we slept with the windows open. Our neighbors were a houseful of college guys that liked to party late into the night and then crawl out their second floor window to sleep on the porch roof. Tabi’s crib was next to the window which meant that she (along with the rest of us) were awakened often during the night by the party revelers. But the thing about her was that no matter how little sleep she got the night before, she always awoke at first light in a really cheery and talkative mood. And I always felt a wicked sense of satisfaction when I could hear her calling out the window at the top of her little voice, “Hi, guys!!! Whatcha’ doin? HI!!! HI GUYS!!!” until they crawled back through their window to sleep off the remainder of the party.

It was in that same house that she and her brother were playing one afternoon, he with a toy fire truck and she with an abandoned set of keys she had found. I suppose it was inevitable that eventually the metal keys would find their way into the exposed electrical socket, that sparks would fly, little fingers would get scorched black, that piercing screams would bring me running into the same room from which her brother was fleeing (expecting that he might be blamed for the incident), and this would be forged indelibly as one of her very first memories. Later I asked her why she had put the keys in the electrical outlet. “To see what would happen.” Of course.

We lived in that house the year that she so desperately wanted a tricycle for her birthday. A red one. With a bell. I tried to explain that there wasn’t a lot of money for tricycles right now and offered some other (less expensive) options. What I knew was that there was NO money for a tricycle. And while we fretted and worried, she prayed for a red tricycle with a bell. I knew that this was going to end badly, and I was heartsick over her impending disappointment. The house had a big front porch and it was on that porch on Ohio Street in Lawrence, Kansas, that God showed up one March morning. Paul left for work and when he hit the porch he turned back, taking the stairs two at a time. “Tabi, come outside!! You have to see this!!” And there it was. A bright, shiny, red tricycle. With a bell. And tied to the handlebar was a tag which read. “To Tabi. From Jesus.” She had prayed every night, we had said nothing to anyone, so…. where. . . And then we noticed the little girl standing next to us with tears spilling down her face as she stared wide-eyed at that tag. “Oh no,” she cried.” What could possibly be the problem? Isn’t this exactly what she had wanted? Her bottom lip trembled. “Jesus was here. And I missed him.”

And since that day I have always wanted to be like that little girl who yearned for the giver rather than the gift. We did our best to explain to her that sometimes Jesus uses people to be his hands and his feet and that this time he had asked somebody else to deliver his gift to her. And maybe this is why, from that day to this, she has sought to be the hands and feet of Jesus to others – anticipating and meeting needs in an almost supernatural way. A sidenote: it was not until two decades later that I ran across that tag in Tabi’s babybook and recognized the handwriting as someone who, for years now, has been one of my closest and dearest friends. Whether we called her Amy Oliver, AO, Amy Patton or just Amy, she has for almost 40 years been a part of our family’s stories and our lives. At the time I didn’t know know her well enough to recognize her handwriting. I knew her then as a young, single woman in our church (who also had no money) and who almost certainly, had no idea how far reaching her act of generosity would be.

Tabi could read by the age of four though I don’t think anyone taught her to do it. She just sort of picked it up by osmosis and maybe so as not to be outdone by her older brother. One day I asked him if he could recite the Bible verse we had been learning. He could. “A wise son makes his father glad, but a foolish son is a grief to his mother. Proverbs 10:1.” Tabi said she too, had learned the verse and would like to say it. I was ready to coach her but she put up her hand to shush me . She didn’t need any help. “A wise son makes his father glad. And a foolish son agrees with his mother. Problems 10:1”. I have always felt in my heart of hearts that Paul preferred this translation.

We went through a phase when we decided that the kids needed to learn table manners. So once a week we would fix a nice meal, set the table with a tablecloth (okay, so it was plastic) and flowers (maybe they were plastic, too) and everybody got a full table setting of silverware at their plate (which admittedly is a little sketch to give even butter knives to three kids under the age of seven), put on some music, dress up in our nice clothes, turn down the lights, light the candles and try to get through the meal. The idea was that if you gave them a challenge they would rise up to meet it. And so Paul would say, “Tonight, Mom and I are so glad to be dining with such ladies and gentlemen.” And then through the meal would remind them, “Oh a lady doesn’t blow bubbles in her milk. . . A gentleman doesn’t eat his peas with his fingers . . . A lady doesn’t climb on the table . . . A gentleman says, ‘Please pass the bread’ instead of grabbing it out of his sister’s hand. A lady doesn’t kick her brother under the table.” Finally Tabi could stand it no longer. She stood on her chair and demanded in her most authoritative voice. “TURN ON THE LIGHT! I WANT TO SEE THE LADY.” This lady would grow up to share more characteristics with her father than either of his sons did. She loved to talk cars with him and was the only one of the six who inherited his sense of direction. She was his constant football companion and spent many a Sunday afternoon watching the game with him (just ask her about her about Walter Payton, but not unless you have some time) and she shares some of his perfectionist tendencies. And of course, she has those blue eyes.

It seems she has always had a job – since she was eight years old. By the time she was 14 she was an administrative assistant and handled the day to day of operations of an office with such skill and efficiency and maturity that when people met the person behind the voice on the phone, they were astonished that she was little more than a child. She saved her money and bought herself a car before she was old enough to drive. She did her research and she and her dad poured over ads in the paper until she found the right one – a stick shift no less. She put herself through college, working full time and going to school full time and graduated suma cum laude from the University of Maryland. And all the while she continued to love and to serve and to care for her family and her friends and strangers – to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Because she doesn’t know any other way to be.

She is a first grade teacher who, like all good teachers, does more than show up for her shift. She has loved so many six year olds over the years and taken them into her life, her heart and her prayers. She nurtures them, accepts them, celebrates them, challenges them and makes a real and lasting difference in their lives. I am in awe at how she continues to give so much, to show up and be present with them day after day, how she gives hours of her own time because there is no way to get it all done in the work day, and most of all I am in awe at how she loves them and just keeps showing up for them.

And of course you can’t tell her story without telling about the little people (some of them now grown big) who call her Aunt Tabi and who love her to the moon and back as she does them. One of the best gifts she has given to this family is her husband Jason and together they have captured the hearts of these nieces and nephews and been the hands and feet of Jesus to them as well.

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Our story would not be the same without her. And every year, on March 4, the memory of that baby struggling so desperately for breath comes rushing back to me; I offer up a prayer of thanks to the God who spoke life into her lungs and who brought her to live out His grace among us; and I hope she has changed her mind about the folly of agreeing with her mother. And I am so, so grateful for all of the ways that Jesus shows up through her. Happy Birthday, Tabitha!

Valentines and Birthin’ Babies

February 16, 2015March 5, 2024 ~ Sharon Abbott ~ 1 Comment

I was 21 the winter of 1972. I was a full time college student, a full time wife, a part time Dunkin’ Donuts employee, a soon-to be first time mom and it could have been me instead of Prissy who said to Scarlett in Gone With the Wind, “I don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout birthin’babies.”

And yet. . . on February 14th I was going to have a baby no matter what I did or didn’t know. I knew with absolute certainty that the baby would come on the 14th because when my obstetrician had said, “Congratulations, you’re pregnant!” he had also told me “and your due date is February 14th.” Which explains why, when I told all my professors the first of February that I would not be in class on the 14th because I was having my baby that day, they made the obvious inquiries: c-section? induction? And when I explained that no, but my doctor said the due date is the 14th so I will need all of my assignments ahead of time and will probably be out for several days, the kinder ones smiled and the rest snickered and some even laughed out loud.

While I had never really been a die-hard chocoholic, as this Valentine’s Day drew near I drooled over the elaborate boxes of chocolates on display in all of the stores and cursed my doctor who had threatened me within an inch of my life if I gained more than 20 pounds – seriously, this was the dark ages. But I made it known to my husband that I would be expecting one of those super large boxes of confectionery delights to show up in my hospital room in a few days and I didn’t care if he had to spend the rent money to buy it. I oh-so-carefully selected a Valentine’s Day card for him and wrote a sentimental and loving note in it since I didn’t want to be outdone by what he was sure to give me along with my candy: a beautiful expression of his gratitude, appreciation and love for the mother of his new little baby boy or girl.

Valentine’s Day arrived. I refused to go to class because how could I show up there still pregnant??? Later in the day we sat at our kitchen table. I gave him my card and he swallowed hard. “I haven’t gotten you anything yet. I thought I would bring it to the hospital.” “That’s okay,” I said barely choking back the tears. “I wasn’t expecting anything.” But of course I was. I was expecting a baby. And he hadn’t come. I was devastated. No baby and no candy. Could this day get any worse?

Lucky for me (and my GPA), we didn’t have to wait long. Paul worked the night shift and it was early in the morning that I called him to come home. “I think this is it.” Suffice it to say that my labor was long, it was hard and that due to the fact that I was pretty heavily drugged because that’s the way it was back then, I don’t clearly remember much about it. What I do remember is that I had no idea what was happening, I was scared, I was hurting and they kept chasing Paul out of the room. I also remember that eventually I reached the point where I could not go on. Only later would we learn that this stage of labor is called transition and that it is marked by irritability and a need for emotional support. And that’s pretty much the way it went down.

Paul: What can I do for you?

Me: Just hold my hand.

Paul: I’m right here and I’m holding your hand.

Me: But don’t touch me.

Paul: Okay. I won’t.

Me: Just hold my hand!!

Paul: Okay.

Me: But don’t touch me!!!!!

Paul: oka…..

Me: HOLD MY *#$% HAND!!!!!!!!!

And so it went for the next hour.

Finally they took me to the delivery room. My 68 year old mother and my 21 year old husband (who they almost didn’t let onto the maternity ward because the nurses thought he did not meet the requirements of being 14 or older) sat together in the waiting room. Finally the doctor left the delivery room to give them the news. He looked from the old woman to the boy and unsure of any of the relationships asked, “Are you with Mrs. Abbott?” They assured him they were. “You have a son,” he told my husband. It was February 16th. The day my life changed forever.

That evening Paul came during visiting hours (yes, even husbands were restricted to visiting hours) carrying a big, heart-shaped box filled with chocolates. This had worked out well for him. “It’s so good you waited to have the baby because now all the Valentine Candy is 50% off!!!!” Of course, by then the craving was gone and I don’t think I ate even one. But the nurses were grateful.

Thus began our journey into the world of parenting. And from that day to this I have lived with the revelation that if I knew nothing about birthing babies, I knew even less about parenting. Thank you to my first born for loving me anyway and for not giving up on us. And thanks for some great stories.

I think he was about six when I heard him explaining to his younger sister that when she grew up and got married she would have a different last name. She found this slightly alarming. “What would my name be?” “Well, if you married George Norcross then you would be Tabi Norcross.” “What if I married Mark Kennerly?” “Well, then. . . he said with only a hint of hesitation. “I guess you would be Mark Norcross.” Say what?

He was maybe four when he yelled to me from the bathroom one day. “MOM, COME IN HERE NOW!!” I came running, expecting there to be a crisis of unimaginable severity. “What’s wrong???” “There is a spider in here!!!” By now he was hyperventilating. And don’t ask me why I asked him the next question or what I expected his answer to be, but certainly not what it was. “What kind of spider is it?” I asked him as though he would know or it would make any difference to either of us. “I don’t know,” he replied. “But I think it’s Jewish.” I have no idea.

When the first Star Wars opened in the theaters he was five years old and like every other little boy in America, he lived and breathed the characters and the stories. . . for years. He drug his sisters outside to play, assigning them roles. He would play both Hans Solo AND Luke Skywalker and they would be cast in the roles of Leia ( the sister who had the braids that she could put into buns on the side of her head), Chewbaca (the sister who had a rust colored winter coat that he insisted she wear even in the August heat), and C3PO (the sister he wanted to be able to turn off her constant chatter with a switch). There’s only room for one director.

He might have been ten the year we gave him the book The Hobbit for a Christmas present. He read all that day and into the night, caught up in the world of hobbits and elves and dwarves and the Shire. It must have been after midnight when he came out of his room into the living room in tears. “What’s wrong?” we asked him. “Nobody told me that Fili and Kili died,” he sobbed. “Who thought it was a good idea to give a little kid a book like that for a present?!” But thus began his life long love of Tolkien.

He was 19 when he joined the Marine Corps. The recruiter came to the house to pick him up and watching him get in that car and drive away was one of the hardest things I had ever done. His stories from the Corps are legendary, but those are his to tell. . . and he does it so much better.

Except for this one: He graduated from Boot Camp on July 4th in Paris Island, South Carolina. The entire family traveled to his graduation. What we didn’t know is what we carried with us.

After graduation he returned home with us for a few days and then we sent him off to North Carolina for more training. A few days later we got a call on our answering machine: “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Abbott. This is Captain _____ (I no longer remember his name.) I am calling in regards to your son. Private Abbott is under quarantine at the Base Hospital with the Chicken Pox. And our experience is that in situations such as these, the Marine recovers better at home.” Translation: the Marine needs his mommy.

And then there is this. It was his fifth birthday. We lived in an apartment which was on the second and third floor of an old house, and I had sent him up to my bedroom on the third floor to retrieve my hair dryer (the kind that was sort of a portable model of a salon hair dryer.) As usual his sister, two years younger than he, was on his heels because she followed him everywhere. He was lugging the dryer down the stairs and explaining to her: “Tabi, it’s a good thing Mom sent me to get this hair dryer because it is so heavy that only a five year old can carry it.” She nodded, appropriately impressed with his new-found five-year-old strength. “And,” he continued, “sin is so heavy that only Jesus can carry that.” From the mouths of babes.

My first born is now himself a good husband and father and leader of men.

It has been a long road from that day 43 years ago when I finally got my Valentine Card, my box of candy, and my son. And not always an easy one for either of us. But Jesus has carried us and our sin and His grace to this place where we are today, and for that I am grateful. And I am blessed to be his mother.

Happy Birthday, Sean! And have some Valentine candy. It’s half off!

The Proposal

September 5, 2014March 5, 2024 ~ Sharon Abbott ~ 3 Comments

We had known each since the 4th grade. We
were high school debate partners who became friends and then began to date. We fought and broke up and got back together like most high school romances and then we graduated high school and he moved away for the summer and we became pen pals – writing daily letters back and forth between our cities, each envelope containing a window into the other’s soul.

He returned home and we started college and fought like crazy. But by Christmas, when he left town again, there was no question but that we were in love.

The problem, as I saw it, was that he had made it pretty clear from the beginning that he had no plans to marry me or anybody else really. Ever. He wanted to serve God. I say all of this to explain why then, when he returned from Christmas break and wanted to take me to a really nice restaurant (one where they set the desert on fire right at your table!) and a movie (Bullet starring Steve McQueen – I know, right?) I was not really expecting what came next which is how the whole plan went terribly awry.

This of course, was long before wedding proposals were well choreographed, well scripted, and well planned productions complete with a supporting cast, a film crew, gynormous budgets and an engagement ring in its little black velvet box awaiting the reveal. They were really more like. . . well, like improv. In hindsight, it might have gone better for him had he made his move during dinner with a little set up: I’ve been thinking about this and praying about this and over the past six months I realize that serving God and marrying you are not actually mutually exclusive – or something like that only more romantic. At any rate, either because that was not the plan, or he deviated from the plan, that conversation never took place – not until much later. So after a lovely dinner and a car chase through the streets of San Francisco with McQueen, he took me home where we sat outside in the car, saying our goodbyes. And that’s when he said, “Will you marry me?”

There is a reason why the next words out of my mouth have become part of the family lore and legend.

What I said was, “Go home and sleep on it. And if you never mention this again, neither will I.” Granted, if I had had a better script writer I might have said something like, “Are you sure you’re not just caught up in the moment and the romance of the evening – the flaming dessert and Steve McQueen? This seems contradictory to all our previous conversations about marriage. What changed?” But it was the best line I could improvise in the moment. And so, while what I was thinking was – you are in love with this moment and this evening and the romance of it all, and tomorrow you will wish you could take it all back and I do not want to have that conversation with you – what I actually I said was, “Go home and sleep on it. And if you don’t mention it again, neither will I” and I got out of the car and went in the house.

He called the next day to say he had to run some errands and did I want to come along. Sure. We might as well get this over with sooner than later. I had just “set” my hair. You may or may not remember using empty orange juice cans for hair rollers. You get the picture. If we were going to have this conversation, it was going to be with the real me. In the cold light of day. We were driving down 18th Street.

“Well,” he said.

“Well what?”

“Will you marry me?”

“Okay.”

“Okay WHAT?!”

“OKAY! I’LL MARRY YOU!!” I type this all in caps because, when he tells the story, he yells this part – in sort of an angry voice. I don’t remember it that way. But who knows?

So that was the proposal. By today’s standards, not a very impressive production. But a great story. And it is our story. One of many.

We have been married 45 years today. Those years have seen their share of incredible joy and gut wrenching heartache. But he is now, as he was then, the love of my life. And had I known him then as well as I know him now, I would have known that that proposal came with great planning and care and intention. That he would never have been swept up in the moment (even if it did include Steve McQueen) and that he always, always acts out of conviction. I would have known that his love for God is what fuels his love for me and that together we would make a pretty good team.

Had I known then what I know now, I would have said without a moment’s hesitation, “YES! I’ll marry you!” But then again, where would the story be in that?

because our stories matter

Once Upon My Story

True Grit

Nana Rocks

We Never Know What the Next Seven (or 100) Days Will Bring . . .

This Is Fletcher Paul Avvott

Remembering Murdoch

Joy to the World. . . Every Day

This Week on Nana and the Colonel

Tabitha, Arise.

Valentines and Birthin’ Babies

The Proposal

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