Help

"I came in to help because I heard it was a big mess." Jack strides into the kitchen. That same on-the-ball-of-you-foot-stride of his father defines his countenance.

I shake a periwinkle rag into the sink. "I just finished," I say. "It was. It was a biscuit-crumbly-mess. I got down on my hand and knees to clean it up."

"Oh." He cocks his head, sandy red hair buzzed short and coarse. I shower the rag clean with the spray setting. "Thank-you for cleaning that up." His earnest blue eyes frame the moment.

Then it's Saturday. A long day of confrontation, redefining the clear boundaries of our home, a pool party, a tired crew, I find the long sigh of a day ends with me in the bathroom scrubbing mint green walls.

Jane trollies in to brush teeth. "Momma, how are you?" she chimes.

"Oh." I sigh. That personal conviction to always offer this child honesty, and I eddy. "Tired," I finally say. "Kind of worn out, like I'm giving and giving and not getting filled up." Somehow in the distance of a few words that female devotion to face-to-face conversation and both toothbrush and scouring rag have rallied to the peripheral.

"Momma, when you're having a moment where you feel like that we should go down into the library and read together." She furrows her eyebrows, the intensity of a physician. I slacken my forehead.

"That's a good idea," I say.

The moment spools on, but we just sort of stand there. And then, "Momma, when you give and give, it means other people are getting."

"Yep. And that's a good feeling. You never regret giving." I nod.

She half-nods, and then, "Except one time I did."

"Oh?"

Now seated coffee-shop style knee to knee, her on the step-stool, me on the toilet lid, she carries on. "One time," she says, "I gave Myra half my brownie and she didn't like it so she went and hid it. And then she showed it to me, so I kind of regretted that." Here we are again nodding in tandem like the swing pendulum of a vertical clock.

"Yeah," I agree, "I guess that shows how you should always be honest. That's another thing you never regret. I mean not like: YOU LOOK HORRIBLE TODAY, but honest like saying something even if it's bad news." I marvel at how we mimic each other's expressions, trace the emotions through mime. "Like with Myra," I say, "wouldn't you've rather she said: I DON"T REALLY LIKE IT?"

"Yeah." A simple exchange and suddenly we're each in possession of something new, something that was just a moment ago inside of the other person. Strength. It's the piecing together of a puzzle.

Another moment and toothbrush and scrub rag flutter back to motion. The evening carries on.

Gratitude:

4623. "Let's dance! Mom, let's dance," Myra titters. "That was fun. Let's do it again!" I try to make pancakes for lunch, but it keeps erupting into dance.

4624. "It DOES take patience," Lucy says as we sing the old hymns. "That's why I like this song." Me too.

4625. "I like casual," Jane begins. "I'm just like, why don't we just have a casual wedding where we wear clothes just a little bit fancier than church clothes instead of go out an buy like a $100 dress."

4626. Craig's mom brings us a little bowl of fresh strawberries. We make a strawberry cheesecake.

4627. Jane fries eggs. I make biscuits. "I enjoy doing this with you," she says.

4628. Cousins visit from Alaska. We have a swim day at Grammie's. The grown-ups eat turkey cranberry summer salad and recline in the shade next to watermelon and water fights, sidewalk chalk pulverized into paint.

4629. Cool summer dusk, a BBQ gone long, we linger with our small group.

4630. We start each day with a weed round-up in the garden. Lucy pulls 800 on Wednesday. Jack pulls 1000 on Thursday.

4631. I make harvest rolls as per Craig's mom's recipe. They perfectly encase BBQ fanfare.

4632. Feta salad with pecans and cranberries, Lay's potato crisps, another BBQ ambles and tarries into the evening. BBQs finally eclipse our winter soup pattern.

4633. Coconut ice cream, browned-butter chocolate sauce.

4634. By miracle I avert three migraines in one day a visual aura announcing each one.

4635. Lucy receies the dolly of her dreams: a baby boy. She names him JOE, swaddles him in a flannel blankie and brings him to sign language and chores. He hardly ever cries.

4636. Our ASL teacher returns from vacation.

4637. Friends join us at the pool. The kids and husbands swim. Wives visit. The night runs long and smooth like the sparkling sun on swimming water. We bask in the friendship.

4638. A friend lets us pick their strawberry patch clean while they vacation in Hawaii.

4639. "What are you thankful for lately?" I spur conversation while the kids and I wait in the Costco parking lot for Craig. "Everything," Jane pipes up. "Just everything." Everything. I marvel at the good fruits of confrontation and discipline: Everything. Thankful for EVERYTHING.

4640. A light headache still seasons the evening; still, I set my mind to do what is good -- what is right and good.

Harvest

"Do you think God's worried about if you're happy?" I ask.

Jane perches on the hearth arms breath away. Joe bobbles his legs there on the ottoman. He slaps his thighs, waves and wobbles. I lunge for a wet wipe, flick a rumpled half-sheet of paper from his eager hands. I scoop his feet up by the ankles. He grins.

Jane watches, plucks up the paper and smoothes it flat. "He's worried about if it's good in the end," she says, "not if it's fun now." She cocks her head. Hair knotted up and speared with hair sticks, a cockle of curls blooms out the side and frames her face. "Like in school," she adds, "sometimes it's not fun learning, but it's fun knowing how to do stuff."

I picture the hours bend over that floppy blue reading book, unyielding rigid hours that unfurled in wings wide as the horizon.

Such wings. And such practice. It's true: those who persevere are the ones we say are blessed.

Gratitude:

3487. "Look," Myra exclaims, dolly perched up on her feet, "my baby flying."

3488. I find an old pleather recorder case with a whole deck of Crazy 8's inside. Myra doles the cards out like money. Later I find two cards and an old straw on Joe.

3489. Mom and Jane disappear downstairs to quilt together.

3490. I find Joe fast asleep with arms sprawled wide.

3491. Kitchen apron and latex gloves, a whole river of lye and a sewer snake, Craig unclogs our kitchen sink. I overflow with love for him.

3492. We barbecue with friends up north. In the dusty air and setting sun, tables sag with brats and salads and chips and brownies. We pause in all the riches to really see each other.

3493. I go to eat bbq leftovers and see the words Love you! scrawled on the ziplock bag.

3494. Jack, breathless from the run inside, bursts with, "Mom, Mom, I'll show you what we are doing for Lucy's monkey bar lessons."

3495. I spy Myra, toothpaste in hand. "You weren't gonna just eat that right out of there were ya?" She nods, "Yeah."

3496. "Momma," Jane chirps, "you're just fun to be with and to visit with."

3497. Lucy gets in trouble then comments, "I'm just sad because you told me that Lady Macbeth made Macbeth want to kill the king."

3498. Mom and Dad come for dinner. We share fried eggs and brownies, garden bounty, cucumbers, black grapes, and an evening, the best part.

3499. We swim for a whole afternoon out in the country. The pool feels like it is on the edge of the world.

3500. We play Canasta late into the night with my little brother and his spunky wife.

3501. I pray for Joey when I tuck him in. I cup his face. He hugs my arm.

3502. All the monkey bar training and Jane pulls a muscle in her stomach. "Jesus, please help Jane not feel that way," Jack prays, "because I love her a lot. We love you. Amen."

3503. Friday night, a week of hard work, and we celebrate: salted brown butter rice crispy treats.

3504. An amphitheater of children surround me as we brown butter and melt marshmallows.

3505. Jane cuddles with Craig. "Daddy, I love you," she whispers.

3506. I eat the first two squares of a Godiva chocolate bar.

3507. The children gobble up cinnamon clove zucchini bread fresh from the garden.

3508. Cerissa and I talk school and weave the excitement of another new year.

3509. Not even two weeks in and Libby makes mothering a newborn and toddler look simple and easy, the work of an artist.

3510. Craig labors half a day over more grilled pineapple salsa.

3511. A dear friend goes in and out of surgery and all looks good.

3512. Joe loves to nurse, rolls his eyes in satisfaction.

3513. Salmon and lemon zucchini bread down on the farm, the cadence of family in each week.

3514. The children pick a bucket full of cherry tomatoes.

3515. I tuck Myra in for her nap and fall asleep myself.

3516. Extended family filter in and out on the farm, the afternoon a revolving door of familiarity.

3517. We study the family homework for Sunday church. "God loves it when you do good to others," Jane comments.

3518. My brother tells me that 1 Peter and 2 Peter were written to the persecute church and are still beloved by persecuted christians all over the world. I begin to re-read them with a new lens.


3519. Another Sunday night and I remind myself: be faithful with what I have been given. Be faithful.

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.