She's Here!

Our long-awaited, much-anticipated baby has arrived...and she's perfect. Ten beautifully formed little fingers, ten tiny little toes, a delicate little mouth and a sweet disposition. Was there ever a more gripping occasion than the birth of a child, whose arrival is the climax of months of planning, nurturing and dreaming - not to mention nausea, rashes and headaches? The price of gestation is always worth it the moment that sweet, innocent head nestles into the shelter of your protective love. It has been a whirlwind event, with family members in and out, caring for the "big brother," hospital visits and a Labor Day holiday thrown in there as well. Now the commotion has died down and the little family is home in the adjustment period of feedings and sleepless nights, along with a two-year-old to attend. It won't always be fun, it won't always be perfect....but it will always be life, as we on this planet know it. And, as this God-ordained circle of creation moves forward, little Charlene carries forth the beautiful name of her precious great-great grandmother, my adored MeMa. May I be privileged for my prayers to cover this amazing little life, and the life of her brother, the same way my MeMa's prayers of protection and love bore the weight of all my youthful indiscretions and prideful choices. Oh that the fervent petitions of a praying grandmother would be a powerful and effective tool against the tribulations of life.

I'm the Big Brother

This is my little man....my best buddy.....my goldfish cracker eating, block-building, book-reading, remote sneaking, sweetest ally. We spend a lot of time together and, truth be told, he makes my world go round. 

None of that will change on a Wednesday in late August, but it will shift dramatically. Because this engaging little guy is about to become a BIG BROTHER to a baby sister. And no amount of preparation can possibly suffice to ready him for how the orbit of his personal planet is about to shift.

This is my little girl. Thirty years ago, my parents, affectionately known as Tom and Mae, strolled into Northside Hospital, holding her by the hands between them. I still have the picture in my mind: I am standing by the nursery window where my newborn is sleeping peacefully in her bassinet. I look down the long hallway and see them heading my way - Tom and Mae with a little girl walking toward me like a big girl. Tears punctured through as I realized how grown up our baby was and that our sweet time together would be forever altered. The pure emotion of that moment remains all these many years later.

This time it will be my little man walking between my husband and me, history repeated. I have every reason to believe my daughter will experience the same life-shifting moment that I did at the sight of her baby visiting his new little sister for the first time. I am both joyful and misty that our baby boy's world is about to be profoundly rocked. There is great anticipation around the birth of this little baby girl, along with the apprehension that any change brings. 

So - turning two, becoming a big brother and starting pre-school are just a few of the adjustments that will have to be made in one small boy's life. I think he's ready for the challenge. He is surrounded by all the love that one little fellow could possibly have - a love that will transcend all the difficult and challenging moments of this most natural and momentous event in the life of one beautiful little family. 

Fog

There’s a Carl Sandburg poem entitled “Fog.” It goes like this: 

 The fog comes on little cat feet. 
 It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches
 and then moves on. 

It reminds me of the way the gnarliness of life can sneak up on you. It creeps in and the next thing you know, you’re covered in a thick cloud of indecision and loneliness and despair because of circumstances, be they contrived or uncontrollable. But, like the fog over the harbor, or the fog that hovers over the mountains where I live, these things eventually drift away and move on, one way or another. 

 And, in the meantime, while the fog still lingers, you have a choice. Certainly, you can sit, paralyzed by doubt and uncertainty and fear, waiting it out as you hunker down like a quivering mass of jelly, waiting for the worst and fantacizing catastrophe. Or you can try to outrun it like the storm chaser who finds himself in the path of a monster tornado. How you respond to the unfortunate events of life is up to you. 

I know all this - as I have executed many of my own worst-case versions of wailing and gnashing of teeth in the midst of life’s unhappy moments. But, in my better moments, I am able to take the position of choosing my response. I may not be able to control the situation, or I may have created a situation in my mind that, in actuality, is much less fearsome than I imagine. Yet, the fact remains, how I deal with it, is ultimately up to me. On my finer days, the choice is clear. I choose joy. I choose peace. I choose self-control. I choose to capture my thoughts and to dwell on what is good and admirable and noble. Instead of succumbing to the fog and being blinded to those things that are worthy, I choose to submit, hands open and trusting, to the authority of the One who knows me better than I know myself. And I choose to remember that there is a Creator who has a love for me like no other, a plan for me that has been in place since the foundation of the world and a hope and a future that is beyond my wildest dreams. 

I have a friend, an acquaintance really. Ever since I’ve known her, she has been dying. Today she lies in a hospital bed, her earthly journey probably drawing to a close. This will sound strange, but, in the short time I’ve known her, Margaret has taught me how to die, all the while living fully. She has faced her illness with grace and humor and, most of all, a compelling trust in her Lord. Through all her pain and suffering, and it has been egregious and extended, her countenance has portrayed an inner strength that can be sustained by no other Source. It has been a beautiful thing to watch, as Margaret has rested in her very personal fog. 

So, I guess the question I pose today is this: When the fog drifts in, as it most certainly will, how will you react? Will you stumble around, sightless in the shroud of doubt and fear? Will you cower in the dimness, waiting for the cloud to pass, or strike out blindly, trying to find your own way out of the mire? Or will you choose surrender to the greater plan and look for answers in the still quiet voice, as Margaret has done? 

That’s when you can rest - that’s when the reason prevails and the peace pervades your soul. That’s what Margaret has chosen. And, I know unequivocally, that when the fog lifts for her, there will be joy beyond imagining. That’s how I want to live out my days, making those choices that depend, not on circumstances or my own willfulness, but on the constant Presence of the Love that went to the Cross for me so I could live fully. I want people to look at me, as I have looked at Margaret, and say, “I want what she has!”

A recent Tuesday marked a milestone, one of those signposts along the way that life is nothing, if not fleeting. Our little girl turned 30 and it seems almost beyond belief. It is enough of a shock when your baby births her own, but when you have your very own thirtysomething offspring, it is reason to pause and reflect. I remember well my own arrival at the big 30. I was divorced and childless, something I would have never foreseen. My life had taken twists and turns that took me down roads I would not have chosen or presumed for myself. The perfect picture of life as I had planned was flung far into left field and I was left standing in unfamiliar territory. I was a child in my father's house, a child bride in my husband's and then a young woman alone, wondering how to be a grown-up. My own child turning 30 is a fitting occasion to ponder the varied events that have carved my own life's path; and while it is an undeniable fact that the world has steadily become more complicated and challenging since I was at her stage of life, we all must tread our individual mine fields. No one's road is always smooth, and hers will include it's own share of bumps and craters. Not the least of these will be raising children in this "new normal" of the post 9.11 world, where bombings and shootings have become mind-numbingly common. Yet, the life of this beautiful young woman, wife and mother that my daughter has become, bears witness to the fact that God remains sovereign and good, His love is enduring and He has a perfect plan for each of us. And the most comforting and irrefutable fact of all, as He has proven over and over, is that the prayers of the faithful are the most powerful and effective weapons we have.

Old Photos and Mirrors

Well, it's a reality. You really know you are old when Greg Allman (of the Allman Brothers Band fame) is on the cover of AARP Magazine. Okay, not really - it was Georgia Magazine. But when I first glanced at it, I thought it was  AARP magazine. Because Allman looks like a senior citizen with a pony tail. It's in my face everywhere I go. I mean, literally in my face, as my super-magnifying, wrinkle-illuminating make-up mirror so achingly reminds me each time I go there. I have a love-hate relationship with that thing. Without it, my eyebrows would be reminiscent of Joan Crawford in Mommy Dearest. But it is not a pretty sight by any stretch of the imagination - and yet I must gaze there daily if I am to "put on my face." A framed picture sits on my desk beside me as I type this. It is an adorable photo of my Kindergarten class at Barrow School Elementary in Athens. I can name almost everyone in the photo. A couple are no longer with us, many still live in Athens, but almost everyone still looks the same, only more used. They probably see the same thing I do in their make-up mirrors if they dare to go there. Yesterday, there were more reminders of years passing, as I spent the afternoon going through a box of old photos. I am one of those horrible people who has, over the years, simply thrown my pictures into a box, with the intention of one day getting them organized. Now, decades later, they are still in the box, only more disheveled than ever. There are photos of my grandparents intermingled with wedding shots and pictures of childbirth in all it's gory detail. There are even some of people I don't even know. Anyway, as I sifted through the mess that is evidence of my life these past 60+ years, I determined that now is the time to get it together and catalog all those memories into some sort of format for future generations to peruse, if they are even interested. I see photo after photo of this pretty young thing. And in all those pictures she looks better to me now than she thought she did then, if that makes any sense. Today our lives, including all our snapshots, are on our computers. So, if they are not backed up, and something happens to our laptops, our history is erased. I never thought things would get so complicated in order to get easier. So I look at the cute little Kindergarten girl, fourth from the right on the second row, and think it's just as well she was unaware of all the next 50 years would bring. She didn't know her life's records would be shoved in a box and forgotten in a closet somewhere. She thought life would always be simple, with Mamma and Daddy taking care of all her needs and happiness as close as the next banana popsicle or trip to the library. And she wouldn't have known a wrinkle if it crawled in her lap. Okay, enough rambling and musing. I have to get on with my photo project before I get too old to give a crap.

Christmas Past, Present and Future

Okay, so I knew this day would come. And I am trying so very hard to be mature and adult about it. But not having my baby girl home for the first time ever at Christmas is proving to be a much more emotionally charged life event than I had anticipated. It's not that I am upset that she has met a wonderful man who is taking her almost 3000 miles away to share his own family traditions. How could I find fault with that? I'm thrilled for her. But I am a hard-core traditionalist and messing with my traditions takes its toll. Believe me, all I have to do is take a good look in the mirror to see the unmistakable proof that time marches on. People leave us, whether temporarily or finally. It's just that my Christmases past were so magical and I have such wonderful memories of long-ago friends and family that are seared in my mind and heart. Those heart memories - my own feeble memory allowing - I will always have. But children grow up, parents die, babies are born and new friends enter in. Time, indeed, marches on. As much as I would like to freeze-frame a certain segment of past Decembers, I find solace and, yes, joy, in knowing that my girls are forming their own traditions in their own ways. They will take some of what we have instilled, and put their own spin on it. And our family circle widens, the ripples reaching far shores. Most important of all is the immutable fact that throughout all of this, the same Savior reigns. That doesn't change. And that is the good news that dries this mother's sad tears, transforming them to tears of pure gratitude.

Friends For Life

I have recently emerged from a four day cocoon, during which I re-visited my youth. The 3rd annual '68 Girls of Athens' Retreat at Amelia Island was a fun, festive, laughter-filled time of relaxation and renewal. It also allowed the opportunity to catch-up on children, grandchildren, old times, new adventures and all the things that once were. As we mature, I think we become well aware that those are the things - good and bad - that have made us each who we are today.

It astounds me that we slip right back into being part of something that could have so easily been lost. But we carry on without a hitch, much more comfortable today in our saggy skin then we would have been in those earlier insecure days. We look at old photos of ourselves in kindergarten, in elementary school, junior high and high school. Gazing back at us from all of those little bits of pictorial history are eyes full of hope and promise and eagerness to get on with life. Since those times, most of us have suffered misery and misfortune, jubilation and joy - all those things that just come with time and this thing called life. But we press on with whatever wisdom we have extrapolated from all those life experiences, and still we look forward. It is a most remarkable thing and these are most remarkable women.

Through grace I was born in Athens, GA and had the fortune of garnering friends who have been part of my life for all these many years. And until we are so infirm that we are unable to gather, or until God calls us home or comes back, those of us who are able will continue to reunite and share tales of past pain and glories, present strivings and successes and future dreams and yearnings.