Darlene's Musings

When I was 19 years old I played the piano for a mixed quartet that traveled for the school we all attended, Toccoa Falls College.  It was something the college had sponsored probably since the beginning of the school.  For YEARS it had been male quartets or ladies’ trios, but it was the 70s, so they had started sending out the mixed groups.  It was so much fun!! 

One weekend (September 15, 1972) we were sent to Lake Swan Camp just south of Gainesville, Florida.  I had been going there most of my life as it was the district family camp for the denomination I grew up in.  The Camp had built a new dining hall with air conditioning—a big deal back in the early ‘70s.  One of the guys in our group, Larry Smith, had worked at the camp all through high school.  We were asked to come down and provide the music.  Karen McCrary (eventually Mrs. Larry Smith!), Bev Wright, and Tim Penland completed the group.

Off we went!!  I was pretty oblivious to everything back then, so I didn’t realize what a big deal it was until we got there.  Oh, my.  The governor of Florida, Reuben Askew, was one of the speakers.  And the other one?  The Rev. Billy Graham.  Yes, yes!!  Rev. Billy Graham!!  So very cool that we were going to be in the same room with him AND get to sing for him.  Talk about some excited young people!

The dinner started.  The speakers’ platform was really high.  I was playing a studio piano—that’s an upright about five feet tall—and the platform was level with the top of the piano.  At some point, somebody asked me if I would continue playing through the meal.  The group would sing, I would play, the group would sing…you get the idea. 

I kinda get into it when I play the piano and this was no exception.  I was blissfully off in my own little world when this hand appears in my line of vision.  Over the back of the piano, right in the middle of my music, and I think, “What!?!” I look up to see who is putting his hand in front of my music, and I look straight into the sky blue eyes of….

The Reverend Billy Graham.

The man is on one knee with his hand extended to me, and he says, “I just wanted to thank you for the beautiful music.”

At the time I wrote in my journal, “The dinner is over and all that’s left is a handshake, a picture, and some kind words.”    Here’s the picture.  That’s me on the far right.

I think I shook his hand, and I think I said thank you.  To tell you the truth, I don’t remember.  I just remember the most renowned evangelist of the 20^th century down on one knee to thank a 19-year old college student for playing the piano.  Every time I remember the story, I think, “That was grace.”

I am thankful today for all the obvious things—decent health, wonderful children, a beautiful granddaughter, a roof over our heads, cars that work (most of the time!), and jobs we enjoy and make a living wage from.  I’m thankful for my church and my church family.  They have been there for me through some very tough times.  I’m thankful for the talent and abilities God has given me and for ways to use those talents to show His love to others.

The obvious things.

But there are some not so obvious things I am thankful for as well.  I am thankful that I have been able to love enough to miss people who aren’t with me anymore.  And I am thankful that they loved me enough, too.  I miss Mama and Daddy.  I miss Grandma and my aunts and uncles who have gone on.  I miss Jerry.  Today would have been his 70^th birthday.  I truly think Thanksgiving was his favorite holiday of the year.  The man loved to eat!!  I still cook the same menu I did when he was alive.  This year would have been interesting because he always wanted ham, great northern beans, and cornbread for his birthday but turkey, dressing, sweet potato casserole, and squash casserole for Thanksgiving!  Knowing him, I’d have cooked it ALL today.

I am thankful that sometimes you can love enough and be loved enough even if it wasn’t as much as you wanted.  How fortunate are we  to be able to say, “I was loved,” even if it didn’t work out or fell apart along the way.  If it was real for one minute or one hour, we were blessed.

So I am thankful.  I am thankful for love given and love returned.  I am grateful for a sense of humor, even if it is a little bawdy for a “church lady.”  I am thankful for a healthy mind, although it doesn’t always work as well as it used to.  I am thankful for memories, good and bad, that remind me of a life well-lived and a heart well-used.  I am grateful for second chances, and third, and fourth.  I am appreciative of a chance to give back.  I am thankful to be indebted to so many who have invested in my life.

Thank you.

I was at my Alma Mater this weekend—Toccoa Falls College.  I love going back for Homecoming.  I get to see old friends and reminisce about fun times.  It’s nice to be at a point where I remember more of the good than the bad, and the bad doesn’t seem nearly as bad as it once was.

I was a student at Toccoa Falls from 1971-74 and then went back in the fall of 1976 to teach for one year.  I spent many, many hours in the Music Building during those years.  Now, for those of you who have never been there, the school is located in a valley in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in northeast Georgia.  Toccoa Falls is aptly named because there is a 186-foot waterfall on the campus.  A creek flows from the Falls and circles the campus on two sides before it exits the property.  The girls’ dorm was at the top of a hill, and the music building and boys’ dorm were at the bottom of the hill.  No wonder I stayed so skinny while a student there!  Walking up and down that hill was enough cardio for anybody!!

At any rate, I made the trek down that hill just about every day.  At the bottom of the hill was a road that went behind both the music building and the boys’ dorm.  It ran parallel to the creek.  Across the creek, framed perfectly between the music building and the boys’ dorm, was a tree.  It was growing all by itself on the far side of the creek. 

Now, for some reason, I thought that was the most beautiful tree I had ever seen.  Nothing particularly special about it—I can’t even tell you what kind of tree it was.  It wasn’t a live oak, a maple, or a pine.  And it wasn’t a weeping willow.  Maybe an ash or even a white oak.  It was just a tree, but it was beautiful.  I think maybe it was because it was always there.  Morning, afternoon, evening—always there.  I’d leave the campus for a week, a month, a couple of years and come back, and it was there.  I needed that kind of constancy and dependability in my life at that time, and the tree gave me that.  Always changing, always the same—always there.  Like the ocean.  Like God.  Roots.  Stability.

I just loved the tree.  I looked forward to seeing it every day.     

Then, in November of 1977, there was a flood at the school.  At the top of the Falls, there was a huge manmade lake held in place by an earthen dam built by the US Army Corps of Engineers back before World War II, I think.  On the night of November 6^th, after five straight days of rain, that dam gave way and the water flooded the valley below.  The bottom floor of the boys’ dorm was flooded, the practice wing of the music building was washed away.  The creek that flowed around the campus from the Falls acted like the prow of a ship, guiding a twenty-foot wall of water and destruction through the valley.  When it was over, 39 people had lost their lives.  Dear, dear saints of God; precious, innocent children.  It’s been over 30 years, and the memory still brings tears to my eyes.

I was in Florida when all this happened, but I returned to Toccoa Falls the next fall to finish my degree.  A lot of clean up had been done but not enough that you didn’t know something awful had happened.  I walked down to the music building to see what was left of it, and the first thing I noticed was the tree was gone. 

Well, of course the tree was gone!! It had been washed away by that twenty foot wall of water along with the pianos I had practiced on and every building in its path.  But, somehow, the reality of the flood hit me in a new and personal way when I realized the tree was gone.  My roots, MY roots, were gone, too.

I’ve been back many times since.  That little space by the creek has always been empty.  In fact, it has been long enough that I finally stopped looking for the tree.

So imagine my surprise when I drove on campus yesterday and came around the bend behind the old music building, and there was…

A tree.

In the same place, growing by the creek, all by itself.  As I turned to drive up the hill, I looked in my rearview, and it was framed by the old music building and the boys’ dorm.  I parked the car and got out and looked down the hill. 

A tree.

I never told anybody about the tree.  It was just a private thing between me and God.  I missed it when it was gone.  I felt…abandoned.  And, now, here was a new tree.  At that moment, I knew it was more than just a tree.  I sensed God smile.  It felt like a gift He had been waiting for me to open.  I stood there and waited. 

And then the word came. “There are times when your dreams and hopes are ripped away from you by the floods of life like the tree was torn from its roots.  But I CAN PLANT A NEW TREE!!  And it’s just for you.”

Amen.  And amen.

I like a good conspiracy theory.  I’ll just admit that up front.  I like the movies and the books that speculate about how things might REALLY have happened.  It’s in my nature.  Yeah, I hate to say it, but I have a paranoid side.  Most of the time, though, I manage to keep it in check.  After all, it is paranoia.

But I must say this whole Osama Bin Laden thing has my radar going.  Hopefully, as the time line continues to emerge and more details come to light, all of this will be revealed for what it is:  an overactive imagination and a misunderstanding of the facts.  But in the meantime, here goes.

·         Bin Laden was executed Sunday afternoon (May 1^st) our time.

·         By midnight, he had been identified through DNA testing.

·         Apparently, shortly after that he was buried at sea in accordance with (or at least in observation of) Islamic law that people are buried within 24 hours.

So here’s my problems:

·         We go into a foreign country and kill a foreign citizen on their soil and NEVER notify the foreign government of what we’re going to do? 

·         DNA confirmation in less than 12 hours?  Really?  Okay, my science/CSI geek friends, is that actually possible?

·         And we can do DNA testing on a Navy ship?  Somebody out there knows the answer to that!!

·         DNA confirmation was by matching up Bin Laden’s DNA with his sister’s.  She died in New York of cancer a while back and they kept her BRAIN for such testing. 

·         So, we honor Islamic law by burying Bin Laden within 24 hours but we dishonor Islamic law by keeping a part of his sister’s body for DNA confirmation.  Does anybody else see a problem here?

·         By report, one of his sons died with him.  Why didn’t we use him?

·         According to Islamic law, bodies are only buried at sea for two reasons:  inability to get to land to bury them in the ground (on their right side facing Mecca) OR to prevent an enemy from digging the body up to amputate its ears, nose, or other limbs.  They got him TO the Navy ship by helicopter but they couldn’t fly him back to bury him in the ground.

·         So did we bury him at sea in a vessel of clay or with a weight tied to his feet and away from where it would be immediately attacked by predators?  That’s part of Islamic law, too.

·         Of course, being buried at sea keeps anyone from putting his remains on display for “right wing Muslim extremists” to rally around.  So why don’t we just say that!

·         And why the hell do we care?  Over 1000 bodies have never been found/identified from 9-11.   What about honoring their rights to the burial of their tradition?

·         Oh, and while we’re at it, this was a joint CIA-US military operation.  So they bury the body at sea so that no independent lab can run tests and confirm what we’re being told.  Not to say that the CIA or the US military has EVER lied to us, but run the independent tests just to shut up potential conspiracy theorists like myself!

·         And why are we so carefully avoiding the word “execution”?  Everything is “Bin Laden was killed.”  Yeah, right.  The last report said the SEALS went in, recognized Bin Laden, and double-tapped him.  I guarantee you there were words that sailor was saying that I’m not repeating in public as he sent Bin Laden to his afterlife.

It’s early still.  A lot of the information we need just isn’t available yet.  I was totally repulsed by the news video of the bloody bedroom where Osama was allegedly “killed”.   Gross.

There is a part of me that’s glad he’s dead—one less bad guy in the world.  I’m not concerned about “retaliation” although it makes me wonder what kind of enemy we’re fighting.  I mean, seriously, retaliation?  What are we—five?

There’s another part of me that grieves.  Not for Bin Laden, the man.  He was awful.  But for Bin Laden, the soul.  It makes me sad anytime someone dies outside of Christ.  He chose his fate, and it isn’t a pleasant one.

Of course, if Islam is right, he’s with his 72 virgins living in idyllic bliss for eternity. 

I digress.  Public Enemy No. 1 is dead.  Today is a day to find what we need to find in that:  celebration, relief, closure.  But tomorrow, I’d really like my questions answered.

When we take the view of God that He should just stop ALL the bad from happening in the world, we are taking a short-sighted view.  We aren’t looking in the mirror.  EVERY single one of us has done something bad, something awful, something that has destroyed another person’s spirit.  NONE of us is innocent.  The evil that needs redemption is too often from the depths of our own hearts!  It is frightening the horror that we are capable of—and that’s from the viewpoint of a culture that embraces and celebrates hedonism!  Imagine what that looks like from the viewpoint of holiness. 

We cannot see  all that is going on the universe.  Mathematicians have theorized that there are at least ten (and up to 26!) dimensions to the universe.  We understand four of them:  depth, breadth, height, and time.  Our knowledge is limited.  We can’t even fully comprehend what’s going on in the mind of someone we live with—much less ourselves!  How many times have we done something and thought, “What was I thinking?  That was so stupid!  Somebody could have gotten seriously hurt or killed!” and we really don’t have an answer.   

So it is with what is going on in the world.  There are earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, and fire.  People hate others with good cause or for no reason, and there is murder, rape, and abuse.  Sometimes love is the excuse.  People get hurt; people get killed.  We look for reasons.  We look for something, or Someone, to blame.  We psychoanalyze and theorize.  We need order in the chaos.  We cannot accept that evil, or nature, is ultimately random.

The point of the Bible stories we learn is that ALL things, good, evil, and neutral, will be REDEEMED.  God has to allow His creation to have free will. We cannot love if we cannot choose.  And because of that, we can choose evil.  However, the worst evil on earth can never be greater than grace.  Ultimately, whatever evil we are subjected to, individually or corporately, God will redeem. God will make it good.  We will do more than survive; we will become better, not because of the evil we were subjected to or are capable of, but in spite of it.  God will not allow evil to triumph.

I think one of the truly miraculous occasions in heaven will be to sit down with my guardian angel and finally see my life from his perspective.  I will see, at last, all the times his hand of protection was there.  And I will understand that when his hand of protection was restrained, his whispers to my soul still encouraged me to overcome, survive, and grow.  I will see the times he cried because I rejected his protection, but he followed me into the darkness anyway and did what he could to keep it from getting worse.  I will see his dance of celebration in all the joys of my life.  I will see how many times he kissed my forehead and held me in his arms because my pain was so great there was nothing more to do.  I will see his battle scars from all the demons he fought to keep me safe, and I will understand that I was never, ever alone.

Today, however, I am content with ambiguity.  There is a battle in the universe, a battle of which I am a part and on which I have a profound influence.   It is a battle that God has already won.  I don’t understand it all, and right now, I don’t need to.  But one day, I will understand.

I hate to be the one to break the news to you but sex offenders do what they do because they don’t think they are doing anything wrong.

I watched Lisa Ling’s Our America on OWN last night, and it was a program on sex offenders in Florida.  The men she interviewed were honest, at least as honest as any ex-con will be.  It was an interesting show with some interesting points, although I wondered what the big deal was with Lisa Ling.  Woman talks in a monotone.

At any rate, I revisited some thoughts I had when I was working at the jail.  The main group I worked with (outside of those with legitimate mental illness) was the sex offenders.  They fell into three basic categories:  men who did something stupid; men who were involved with child porn; and men who were truly dangerous.  In Florida, when they get out of jail, they will ALL be labeled sex offenders.  If convicted of a sex offense against more than one victim, they will be labeled sexual predators.

Men who did something stupid were usually the most benign of the bunch.  They were inappropriate.  They exposed themselves; they “wrestled” with a minor and touched a body part just a little too long.  The list went on and on.  Most of these men were young guys, between 18-25, who had sex with a girl 16 or 17.  Sometimes it was their girlfriend, sometimes not.  Many times the girl had lied about her age or the friend who introduced them did.  In Florida, if a minor has a baby and the daddy is over a certain age, DCF has him arrested, even if the sex was consensual and the parents of the girl chose not to press charges!!

Given those parameters, Joseph would have been arrested.  We don’t talk about it anymore, but I remember when I was a teenager someone said that Mary was probably 14 and Joseph pushing 30 when their marriage was arranged by their parents.  And at that time, we didn’t really think anything of it.  We knew about Loretta Lynn, who married at 14 to a man in his 20s.  I had friends a couple of decades ago who married when she was 15 and he was 25.  They were having a problem with their 15 year old daughter who wanted to get married, and the argument “You’re too young” wasn’t working.  A decade difference in age was common, and in certain subcultures of our society marriage at 14 was as well.  Daddy once told me, “Do you realize if we were in the mountains, we’d be looking for you a husband?”  I was 14 at the time. 

Men involved with child porn were the most ornery.  They resented being arrested, much less being convicted and given jail time.  They tended to be arrested in groups.  We have one of the most effective cyber-crimes units in Florida right here in Santa Rosa County.  They run sting operations and catch these guys.  One convicted felon told me, “The only thing I’m guilty of is looking at dirty pictures on my computer in my living room.”  They refused to acknowledge that their desire to look at children doing “dirty” things was causing those children to be raped and abused.

The last group was the truly dangerous.  I honestly did not deal with many out-and-out rapists.  They didn’t talk much.

I remember one inmate who was lobbying for an addition to the sex offender label.  He was talking about assigning a “threat assessment” to the label.  He probably had a good idea.  For those men who did something stupid, that assessment would be a 1 or a 2, maybe even the child porn guys.  If it involved a child under 14, the assessment would be higher.  If it involved a stranger or abduction, the assessment would be higher.  It would certainly make understanding how much of a threat someone is much easier.  Some idiot 30 year old has an affair with a 17 year old—stupid, inappropriate:  absolutely!!  But a threat to society?  In all probability not.  Same thing for an 18 year old who gets his 16 year old girlfriend pregnant.  Stupid?  Yes!  A threat to the rest of us?  Don’t think so.

We need to protect our children, no doubt about it.  Men who offend because they are attracted to a certain age and gender are dangerous to our society, and we need to be prepared to deal with them.  But let’s start showing some sense.  Sex offenses are the only ones that continue to hang over your head for the rest of your life.  They NEVER go away, at least not in Florida.  There is no “I did my time, let me move on with my life.”  You may spend 5 years in prison, but you are serving a life sentence.

We can do better.

This is what our President had to say to the people of Indonesia.  Americans must learn to “stop mistrusting Islam.”  I think Americans must learn that Islam is not a religion like Christianity, the Koran does not read like the Bible, and Allah is not Jehovah. 

I make a definite distinction between Allah and Jehovah.  Jehovah said about Jesus, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased.  Listen to Him.”   Mohammed wrote, “We believe in God (Allah) and in what was sent down to us and sent down to Abraham and Ishmael….and Jesus…we do not make any distinction between them.”    

Jesus constantly taught that He did not come to destroy the Law and the prophets, to replace the Law and the prophets, or to negate the Law and the prophets.  He came to FULFILL the Law and the prophets.  He claimed a unique place in human history:  God made flesh to dwell among us.  Since He fulfilled all God had revealed through the Law and the prophets, there was no need for one to come after Him who would know God better—and, indeed, change what God ordained.

Jesus said to love your enemies; Allah demands they be killed or subjugated.  Jesus saved the sinful woman from being stoned and then told her to sin no more; Mohammed had the adulterous woman wean her child, then he gave the child to someone else, and  stoned her!  Jehovah said not to bear false witness against your neighbor; Allah said not to lie to other believers, but unbelievers were to be lied to if it served Islam.  Yes, the Old Testament has its commands of violence, exclusively when the children of Israel were to occupy Palestine.  However, those commands of war, as distasteful as they are to 21^st century America, were specific  to a particular time and a particular people.  Later we were commanded to “as much as it depends on you, live at peace with ALL men” (emphasis added).

And that’s another huge difference between the Bible and the Koran.  The Bible reflects a definite movement toward a higher level of responsibility and moral reasoning.  It starts with a legalistic definition of holiness and ends with holiness fulfilled through the redemptive work of Christ.  And Jesus meant what He said.  He did NOT come to destroy the Law and the prophets.  Those who are outside of Christ will be judged by the Law.  Those of us who have accepted Christ are redeemed by grace, which is the ONLY reason we don’t have to keep kosher!

Did you know that Islam is the only religion IN THE WORLD that does NOT have a General Rule of Beneficence?  In other words, there is no Golden Rule in Islam.  When the tsunami hit Sri Lanka in 2005, the United States and Australia pledged $10 BILLION dollars in aid.  ALL of the oil-rich Islamic countries combined pledged less than $1 billion.  The reason?  Allah was judging the Moslems in Sri Lanka for ignoring his laws.  Seriously?  Christians have made the same claim about natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, but I don’t know of anyone who used that as an excuse not to help the victims.

And the list could go on and on.  I have had students who are Muslim (females only—no males) and I liked them.  But to trust a religion that teaches its adherents to kill or subjugate and tax nonbelievers?  Thanks, but I will keep my mistrust firmly in place. 

There are some things that just get me in trouble.

1.       My big mouth.  Now, I must say that most of the time I keep it under control.  But there is that occasion when I have been pushed as far as I’m going to be pushed and before I know it, out it comes.  I’ve insulted pastors; I’ve hung up on company vice-presidents; I have created untenable situations for bosses who have had to clean up my mess.  Yeah, big, smart-ass mouth.

2.      “I don’t expect any more of you than I expect of myself.”  That gets me in lots of trouble, probably because I am so demanding of me.  I want things done, and I want them done right.  Which leads me to number 3.

3.      Perfectionism.  Yes, I am a perfectionist.  (If you question that, see #2.)  “Good enough” isn’t.  I want it professionally done, whether I am an actual professional at it or not.  Sometimes I settle for “good enough” only because I have no other choice.  And I certainly don’t expect any less from anyone else I work with on a project.  (Again, refer to #2)  And so, the combination gets me in LOTS of trouble.

4.      Procrastination.  Another major issue.  I can put stuff off to the last possible moment—and sometimes a little past last possible—because I am so convinced it won’t be perfect, and because it has to be perfect, I have to wait until it can be perfect, and then….well, you get the idea.

5.      A skewed concept of success.  I ran across a quote a few years ago.  “Success means we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and abilities were used in a way that served others.”  [Marianne Williamson]  Normally, as long as I remember that, I’m good.  But sometimes I forget.  I think my success, as a mother, a friend, an employee, are dependent on results.  And that’s not always a bad thing until those results are out of my control.  I have no control over how my child acts when he’s out of my presence.  I can’t tell my friends how to live their lives.  And my employer?  Oh, please!! Whatever makes me think I’m ever going to have any control there!!  The point is, forgetting what success really is always gets me in trouble.  Using my talents and abilities to serve others will always make me successful…and keep me OUT of trouble!!

It’s Christmas morning.  The boys are asleep.  We are WELL past the days of being up at the butt-crack of dawn.  Of course, when they were little, we had a rule that no one could wake up Mom and Dad until the sun was up.  AND coffee had better be ready.  Yeah, the first kitchen appliance my kids learned to operate was the coffee maker!!  They even learned how to fix our coffee so when we got up we could come straight to the couch without that long 20 foot side trip to the kitchen!!  After all, there was important present opening to get to!!

Good memories.  The weeks before Christmas were spent shopping and baking.  We made Christmas cake (a maraschino cherry fruitcake that was excellent!), homemade fudge (pounds and pounds of it!), and date nut icebox roll cookies.  Boy, you can tell how old that recipe was!!  Icebox??  Are you kidding?  The thing is, they were the ONLY cookies I could EVER get to come out right!!

Jeremiah and I went out to breakfast yesterday before we headed to the church for the annual Christmas Eve marathon.  Don’t misunderstand.  This was not a chance to get exercise and fresh air.  For the last 13 years or so, Christmas Eve has meant arriving at the church three hours before the first Christmas Eve service to have a final rehearsal and get ready.  Then, two services back-to-back followed by cleaning up and putting away.  This year the services were at 2 and 4, so we were there at 10 am and didn’t leave before 6 pm. 

Anyway, Jeremiah said, “Sometimes I wish we were more of a normal family.”  I looked at him and replied, “What does that mean?  What does a normal family look like?”  He said, “It’s one that gets to sit in the congregation and listen.”  And I finished his sentence, “Together?”  “Yes,” he said, “together.”

You really have to have spent time in ministry to understand that.  I haven’t taken communion with my kids often because I was always at the organ or piano playing music.  When they were little, I would come down out of the choir loft during the sermon so we could sit together, but that was it.  Jerry wasn’t one to be in church every Sunday, so my kids spent a lot of time in the pews alone.  We were never a “normal family,” just showing up on Sunday morning and leaving the minute church was over.

As soon as they were old enough, I involved them as much as possible in what I was doing.  All three of them were in children’s choir.  As youth, they were involved in numerous ways in services.  They’ve sung and acted and generally did whatever was required.  Asa and Jeremiah both continued to fill in for children’s choir right through high school!!  They also rang bells and sang in the chancel choir.  They’ve been in ensembles.  Grant and Jeremiah have both played guitar solos in church.   Jeremiah has been singing solos in church since he was six—and his first solo was in Latin!!  It was a way to keep them active, but it was also a way to keep them close.  You see, sometimes I wish we could be a normal family, too.

That’s not going to happen, though.  God has gifted and called and placed.  With all the attendant frustration of being in ministry, it is where I belong, and, as the head of my household, it is where my children belong, too.  They were all there yesterday—Jeremiah in the choir loft with me (he did a great job on Comfort Ye My People by the way!) and Grant, Asa, Ashleigh, and Scarlett in the congregation (thanks, y’all.  It made my Christmas.).  We’ll have Christmas together today, and sit and laugh around the dinner table.    Not quite a normal family, but then, again, what is normal?  We love and respect each other.  We make room to disagree.  We laugh so much more than we fight.  We are happy…and, I believe we are content.

Merry Christmas, my darlings!!  I love each one of you more than words can say.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow.  It is the beginning of the “Holiday Season,” but for me this has always been the Family Season.  I love the lights, the decorations, the FOOD, but most of all I love the coming together of family. 

This Family Season is especially bittersweet.  We have welcomed a new member, the beautiful Miss Scarlett.  This child stole my heart the moment I set eyes on her.  I couldn’t wait to hold her, and every time I do, I am amazed at how my arms never tire when she is in them.  I wait for every burp and grunt, every hint of a smile, every glimmer of recognition.  I’ve probably taken more pictures of her than I did of her daddy and uncles—combined!!  Her cry is the ringtone on my phone.  I quite simply adore her.

We have also said good-bye.  I am surprised every day at how much I miss Mama.  Not only that, I miss Daddy and the good days with my husband.  I feel very alone.  No one ever loves you like your parents or your first love.  A part of my Family Season will always be decorated in blue.

I am learning to share my Family Season.  After all, Miss Scarlett has other grandparents who really do love her as much as I do.  Her parents are working very hard to make sure we all spend time with her.  My children have other friends they want to spend time with.  In their own way they have expanded the Family to include those chosen by love, not just by blood.  We have always tried to include the lonely in our celebration.  So we will have our Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday when we can all be together.  I don’t know yet just who will be around my table.  Maybe just family; maybe others.  It will be a time of laughter and joy.  It will be a time to remember.  It will be a time to create new memories.  It will be a time to be Family.