A Date

"Here, just a minute," I say, "I have to throw this away." Suburban door yawned open, there in the driveway, I scoop two candy wrappers out of the door trough. "You get in," I call. I flutter the wrappers into the trash can.

"Ok," Jane says.

I slip in behind the wheel, she in the passenger seat. Belts snapped, the cottony quiet of no other children clambering for attention, I draw an extra long breath and sigh long and trailing.

"Ya know," Jane says, "when you read your Bible in the morning it makes the in-between moments in the day feel peaceful, like when you're just sitting and waiting."

"Yes," I say. And she smiles, a gentle rolling-hill of a smile. "That's so true," I say.

"It's just peaceful," she says, "not like from a drug, but peaceful." She spreads her hands as if to trace that peace horizon. "It's not like the hard things are smaller," she says, "but it's like you are bigger."

"Huh," I say, nudged up against that peace.

Bigger. And bigger too, that quiet rest there between us, between the words, between each breath. Nourishment, a communion of quiet, we breathe, just breathe, there in the warm afternoon sun.

Gratitude:

6335. Craig roughs in greenhouse walls and plans the kitchen remodel all in his free time.

6336. Dan and Cerissa come over in the middle of date night to help.

6337. Jack continues to cook delicious pastries in the roaster over. It will be strange (and wonderful!) to have a working oven, one day, not too far off.

6338. Two friends loan me wraps, the beautiful luxurious kind, to play with with wrapping George.

6339. We meet up with old friends for afternoon dessert.

6340. Joe turns five.

6340. Monday afternoon, resplendent sun, we play with friends in the backyard, chickens out, swings up, mamas visiting amidst chatter and chirps.

6342. Peanut butter, walnuts, seaweed, treats and staples.

6343. The children while away out hours and hours in the fort out front playing with cousins.

6344. A new basketball finds its way to the kids.

6345. And somewhere in the middle of it all, I realize I am distracted, busy, and unseeing. I pray to stop and see, really see each child, my husband, and the arresting miracle of each day.

Bedtime

Photo credit: Urban Rose

"I've been really liking First and Second Peter," Jane says. She flops an argyle rice bag into the microwave and closes the door.

"Really?" I say. "About the persecuted church?" Opposite my girl, I lean an elbow on the counter, a plate of peach pie balanced in my hand. I cut the triangle tip off the pie and eat it.

"Yeah," she says. She turns the microwave dial to three minutes, presses start. "I mean, I like listening to Revelation too. I'm just not sure I want to hear about bowls of wrath being poured out and then wake up sweating," she says.

I laugh. She grins. "When you're listening tonight, pick your favorite part, and then tell me about it in the morning," I say.

"Okay," she drawls. "I will." She blinks in time with a slow nod. I eat another mouthful of pie, peach almond filling warm and effusive. Bedtime, it's a three-step watlz with Jane and me.

I ask her in the morning, "So what was your favorite part?"

"Hmm, I can't remember," she says. "I knew before I fell asleep, but now I forgot."

"Oh. Well, listen again tonight," I say.

Then it's bedtime again and the liturgy of jammies and toothpaste. I change the baby. Jane pokes her head in.

"I remember my favorite part," she says, First and Second Peter ambling in the background.

"Oh, what is it?"

"Ahhm, hmmm, I just forgot. Wait," she stares up and to the right, "hmm." I watch her, undivided attention bunching up like a scarf encircling us. "Oh yeah," she says. "It's the part where it says if you are praying, you never have to be afraid."

"Oh," I say. "I like that. I don't remember that part." We nod. An umbilical cord of connection pulses for a moment. "That's really good," I say.

And with that a whole universe folds up like a paper crane between us. Bedtime ensues. Children tumble into bed.

Later, in mind's eye, that paper crane, I pull it out to trace again the folds of love.

If you are praying, you never have to be afraid.





Gratitude:

5603. Spices, the gift of spices. We restock the shelves of flavor.

5604. Jane finishes her stay as kitchen manager. Craig and I agree: we will miss all the pie.

5605. We experience again the special love of family and friends bringing us food and caring for our children.

5606. Betsy eats and sleeps like a champ.

5607. Craig and Jane brine and cook a 25 lb. turkey for the postpartum recovery.

5608. Joey samples my most expensive make-up with an electric toothbrush and a bottle of lotion. It's a total loss. Craig buys me new mascara so I don't have to go out.

5609. He runs all manner of errands, even those with the most exacting detail. Sometimes he comes home with chocolate.

5610. Mom makes our weekly talk date happen nary missing a beat.

5611. We pass the 15 year anniversary of our wedding engagement. Now more than ever, I'm convinced Craig can handle anything with strength and ease. We all lean into him.

Photo credit: Urban Rose

Revelation

"Revelations is a good book," Lu says. Peanut butter and honey sandwiches, white plates, crumbs past the radius of each elbow, we break for lunch.

"Revela-TION," I say. "It's Revela-TION. Not RevelationS."

I carve a trench in my lentil soup, yeah, Mom gets soup. I glance at Lu, kitty corner across the table. I crush taco chips and toss them over the lentil mush. It's one thirty, a rush of hunger now almost eclipsed.

"Yeah," she says. "Revelation."

Myra scooches next to me, slides her plate, chink, next to my bowl. "Can I sit by you?" she whispers, her lips on my shoulder. I smile, that red hair a cloud let loose. I encircle her with my arm. She's a chopstick of a girl folded up next to me.

"Oh, lean over," I say. "Don't get crumbs on the floor." She's grabbed her sandwich and nibbled the corner, a landslide of crumbs in her lap. She untangles from my arm like a magnet pulled from the fridge. "Here." I nudge the plate up to her chest.

"Revelation is all about the end of the world," I say. The jumbo chip bag almost gone, I rattle shoulder deep. Joey sets his sandwich on the table.

"Jack," Jane says, "if you read Isaiah, you'll get a pretty good taste of the same thing." The confidence of an executive, she bites into the white center of her sandwich.

"How did you know that?" I say.

China blue eyes oblivious, she shrugs. "When Dad was listening to Isaiah, I thought he was listening to Revelation."

"Oh," I say. An imperceptible nod passes, a tiny consensus. We all feel it, but no one says anything.

A day later, and it's bed time, the gallop and gaggle of five children in various stages of undress, some with toothbrushes, others begging to wear clothes to bed because they can't find jammies.

Like a warm front blowing in, a white thunderhead clearing the pool, Craig fires up the shop vac. The usual clatter forgotten, he drags the roaring red beast from corner to corner. I sigh. Noise, I hate noise.

And silt. At least the silt and dregs and sediment are being sucked away. Slag and debris from meals gone by, oatmeal, corn chips, sandwiches and pretzels, a peanut, some raisins, a loft of trailing hair, grey dust bunnies. I watch him paint clean across the floor.

The furrow between my brows eases. I grab a wet wipe, scrub behind him. A long scuff of black, some sciffs of red crayon, a splotch of milk turned dry and encrusted, I scrubby them down to hardwood.

"You're doin' a GOOD job cleanin' up out here," Lu says.

I look up. There on my knees, a quarter of a grumble swallowed down, "It's mostly Daddy," I stammer.

"You're being a big help too," she nods, slaps me on the back. She trots over to the canister of noise. Elation billows behind her. And confidence. A will to lead. She doesn't see it, as invisible as her backside.

Embroidered along the inseam of her smile, there it is again, that small agreement, that tiny nod willing good for each other. This is family.

Like a ship sucked under, my enmity toward Craig capsizes. I swim for the surface buoyant after all.

Gratitude:

5219. "I'm putting away everything when I'm done with it," Jack says. "Please follow my example, everyone."

5220. "An hour," Myra says, "means only like for four minutes."

5221. "I love you," I whisper into Jane's ear. "I want to see your shining face," she says and she pulls out of my embrace, peers into my face, and blinks adoration. "Me too," I say.

5222. "I want to dance with Dad sometimes," Lucy says, "'cause I like to put my feet on his feet and dance and dance."

5223. "Jack," Lu says, "you want to watch me do 200 math facts in 15 minutes?"

5224. White chicken chili with red bell peppers, cheese crisps, berry cobbler, and coffee, all of us girls meet at Mom's house for lunch.

5225. "Mom, musket bullets have stuff like gravel in them," Jack converses from the shower. "Dad told me," he says. "I asked him on about it on the way home from wrestling." (Over and over and over, Craig tells me later.)

5226. Pizza and salad, belly laughs and banter, the leisure dinner that overlaps wrestling practice, family reclined at the table, we peel the night away until it's just a core of love and loyalty.

5227. Craig's Valentine's gift to me finally arrives: two cotton dresses.

5228. "When Jack is a grown-up," Lucy says, "Mom will be really OLD. She'll be like a hundred or somethin'."

5229. "Jesus," Jane prays, "help us to know how to love you."

5230. Lucy sings Amazing Grace while she works math facts.

5231. I pine for a headband that will stay on my head and Mom lets me in on the secret: make your own.

5232. Coconut sugar, cat cookies, non-GMO cornstarch: a grocery run.

5233. Craig finds 15 skeins of yarn for $5 at an estate sale.

5234. I wipe Joey's hand and pluck him from the table. His chubby legs topple the spool stool on my big toe. I huff and puff and glow with agony. "I dropped one of Jack's coins, and it landed on MY big toe," Jane comforts. "It hurt. I know how you feel." I bust with laughter.

5235. Craig rebuilds our silverware drawer.

5236. "Look, Mom. LOOK, Mom," Joey begins to say.

5237. A nugget from The Truth Project: Assumptions are caught and bought without an open and conscious dialogue. They are the most dangerous form of knowledge.

5238. I think of those small moments of agreement, those imperceptible threads that lace through us at the end of a moment: assumptions. We are fashioning assumptions. I pray each and every one honors my Lord.

Normal

"Momma, that's a verse I wish I had memorized first." Jane leans an elbow on the dryer, flaps a tattered paper as if it were a wing.

I negotiate coffee in one hand, saturated diaper in the other. "Uh, here," I flop the dipe on the top of the washer, pluck up the streamer-thin paper. "Why is that?"

"Because," she says, "it would probably be deeper in my mind by now, and I like that verse."

I uncurl the paper, pull it flat between my fingers. "That's true. That's good. Ok, why don't you say it."

She tilts her head, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds," she totters her head back and forth, stands on one foot, "because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish it's work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

Not lacking anything. I force myself to slow, slow down. A whole rushing river of a day -- we pause.  Trials. Joy. I listen to the hymn of her voice.

"If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God," she continues, "who gives generously to all without finding fault." She grins. I hold on to her gaze. Without finding fault. Perseverance. I match cadence with the words. 

A full deep breath and a silent boom lowers. The day blitzes on. 

Perseverance, the crown jewel. I hold on tight.

*****

"More, more, more," Myra chimes.

I glance up from our dinner prayer. I wrinkle my forehead, "You want to thank Jesus for more?"

"Yeah," she nods, punctuates with wide eyes and long blink.

"What do you want to thank Jesus for?"

She shuffles her shoulders, garbles, "Tus."

I blink, try to iron the word out in my mind, "Tus?"

"Tus."

I turn it over a couple more times, "Us?"

"Yeah, TUS."

"Jesus, thank-you for US. Amen."

*****

"That sunflower is so BIG," Jack tussles over the lawn, a yipping puppy at my heels.

"Yeah, that sunflower IS big. When they're big, they're big," Janie says.

"When they're big they're big," I chuckle.

"I though it was sort of funny I had to clarify that." She giggles. Jack slaps his knee, shakes his head.

*****

"So how's it been, Jane?" For the afternoon, we leap-frog from summer sale to summer sale, stock up on kids' clothes. Jane and I, we swing our arms, hold hands. We weave conversation as we go.

"It's been," she pauses. I peer at her in the rearview mirror, "good." I smile, wait, let the words work their way out. "It's been -- normal," she finally says. "But it's good. I really like the normal."

She nods. We let silence wash in, warm and soft.

The normal, me too. Perseverance, it makes a way for normal to be good.

Gratitude:

3383. I show the kids Auntie Rosie's blog. "Yeah, that looks like her," Jane says. "It looks like how she would do it."

3384. Lucy tries to persuade Jack, "Jack, it's nice to let ladies go first, you know."

3385. We backyard-picnic with families from our church, the ones we do life with. We compare notes and spur each other on. We rise to this grand occasion of raising children and leading our family.

3386. I tell Myra she's a crack-up. "No, you crack-up," she pounces back.

3387. We take a long afternoon with salad and lawn chairs. Rose, Lib, Mom, and I linger in the shade of a big tree at Mom's. 

3388. Rockie blows bubbles in the pool, then demonstrates how her daddy does push-ups.

3389. "Jane, I'll tell you my best present at my party," Jack smiles, "my best present every year: people coming to my party."

3390. "Mommy," he says to me on his birthday, "maybe we can go to coffee together when we go on a date. I want to go to that place that has mints." And we do.

3391. Myra holds my face between her hands, kisses me on the lips.

3392. Jack turns 6.

3393. Lucy scrubs cucumbers at the kitchen sink. I interrupt the work to make coffee. "I just was being sweet 'cause I wanted to," she says.

3394. Joe smiles wide, splits the morning open. "Don't you like it when they look at you like, you are so AWESOME?" Jane asks and smiles at me as I beam at Joe.  

3395. Myra kisses my toes while I nurse baby Joe.

3396. Lucy wraps up the evening, "Thank-you that Jane gots the baby that she wants. And thank-you that we won't obey the Devil. Amen."

3397. I sip coffee with Mom and exchange whole spools of conversation. We marvel at how pride motivates almost every bad decision. 

3398. Toenail polish, cherry red.

3399. A new shirt, stripes and modern.

3400. We celebrate Jack with the big family barbecue. After a round-robin exhortation, Jack meets the eye of each guest and thanks them.

3401. Myra poops and pees in the toilet. Cerissa and I potty train Zeke and Myra side by side. Oh, how much lighter the work.

3402. Jane comments on Gramma, "She's one of those people that can read your mind before you even think it."

3403. Lucy punctuates the birthday season. "I like it that God's at my birthday every time." 

3404. "He knows everything you do. He knows everything you do. He knows everything you do..." Lucy sings Jesus-songs while she delivers fresh folded laundry.

3405. Joe hums while he nurses.

3406. I serve mismatched burritos and sandwiches, rotisserie chicken, black rice salad, a mosaic of leftovers and almost-meals. "Mom, you make dinner so well," Lucy says.

3407. We explain the passover to the children. "The lamb saved them," Janie exclaims, "and Jesus is sometimes called the Lamb of God. It all just sort of fits together like a puzzle."

3408. Jack prays before bed, "Help Great-Grampa turn to you. And thank-you that Great-Grampa never tells lies."

3409. We zip to church Sunday morning. "Mom, is it hard to stay in the lines when you are driving?" he says from the back seat.

3410. We talk about how sometimes bad people prosper, how sometimes doing wicked things can get you ahead for a while. But in the end you always lose. As we sit on the edge of my bed, Jane nods, "It's like, you may be ahead on points, but you're gonna get pinned here in a couple of minutes." 

3411. Pinned. When you're pinned being ahead doesn't matter. Every moment matters. I'm grateful and sobered.