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McCall’s Magazine Cover

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Last week, on my birthday, I was scrolling Facebook.  I follow a page called “Phantom Stranger’s Wild Wild West”.  The page posted a photo of Natalie Wood in her role on “The Searchers”.  It was then I learned her birthday was also July 20th. 

I was immediately reminded of a “birthday gift” I received several years after my mother passed away.

I have never worked on my birthday. I have always taken the day off.  One of those days, I went to an “antique” mall and was browsing through the booths.  My eye was caught by the magazine cover in the picture I have included with this letter. 

Several things were significant enough to me for me to have no doubt in my mind it was my mother reaching out to me from the spirit world or the Holy Spirit providing very specific comfort.  Not trying to be spooky or flaky.  I just can’t overlook these things as coincidence.  First, my mother’s favorite color was orange.  That in itself is unusual.  She is the only person I ever heard say orange was their favorite color.  She loved Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner.  I think McCall’s was one of the the only magazines for which she ever subscribed.  And most significant.  This issue is July 1965. The month and year I was born.  I wish I could remember how old I was when I found it.  Maybe 40 or so? I bought it and framed it and had it on the wall for a few years. 

So then again last week, I felt Mother wishing me happy birthday through a Facebook post on some random page I follow. Natalie. July 20th. 

I don’t care if anyone thinks I am stringing too much together.  Making too much of it.  Even my mother would have looked askance at me for this, I think.  But she knows more now, living on the other side with the Lord. 

Anything I can latch on to that helps keep her memory renewed in my heart and allows me to forward her legacy of love on to her descendants is worth anyone thinking I am flaky. 

Thank you, Mama! I love you, too!

Reckless Abandon

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A few years ago, I painted the ice box and upright deep freezer fronts with chalkboard paint.  I had written some words and phrases on the ice box with chalk markers and later when I washed them off, they left traces of the lines.  My older duchess was here recently and wanted to draw with the chalk. I gave her the little container of chalk and went on with the dish washing.  I looked around a few minutes later and she had drawn a cloud and a rainbow.  Then she had traced over the letters she could still see faintly showing.  “Love with reckless abandon” and the heart outline I had washed off for them to be able to use it for their play had been retraced. 

She wanted to know what it said. (She’s four.)  I told her and then she wanted to know what it meant. 

I tried to explain. 

Later, I thought about loving with reckless abandon.  To me, it is how it felt when I was her age and even until I was about ten.  When I loved, it was without reservation.  It was without condition or hesitation or fear of rejection or concern about reciprocation.  Love just was and everyone felt it as intensely as I did.  Or so I thought. I am speaking of more than romantic love.  I am also speaking of love between two individuals as friends or family members.  I was in my twenties before I truly realized that the experience of love I have is not universal.  I was so terribly naïve.  I thought love could work itself through anything.  It cannot work one way, though. 

As we age, cynicism tends to set in.  Or simply protective layers develop without our realizing.  Many people never learn how to love.  Some only love themselves.  Many people never feel the exuberance of real, deep, true love.  As I age, I think “many” should probably read “most”.  Perhaps early on they had it, but life was too painful to continue to try to sustain the seeking of reciprocation.  The heart and mind push away the painful memory and they forget it exists.  

Maybe that is why grandchildren are so important to our hearts.  When we are young and our children are young, there is a feeling of safety with the love between us.  The knowing that at the end of the day, the snuggles and hugs are without reservation.  The love in our hearts has a reckless abandon that only confidence of unconditional reciprocation brings. That same feeling returned with the duchesses’ arrival into the world. 

Love, passion, anger.  Strong emotions we are taught to control and suppress.  They are reckless.  They are dangerous.  They bring with them pain.  Pain is proof of being alive.  I continue to strive for the fullness of exuberance and love.  May I have the courage to face the pain of it all and love with reckless abandon.  As I age, I want the scales of protection to fall away.  I want the tender places to be open again.  With maturity, I hope to manage the pain with grace and mercy and not with closing off. 

I want to love Him and him with reckless abandon and exuberance and passion.  I want to grow into the person the Lord wants me to be.  I want to grow into the woman my husband needs me to be. I want to grow into the mother and grandmother my children need as the years continue.  We still have a lot of living to do and I want it to be as wonderful as the first 37 years.  Even better. Happy Anniversary, Rock.  I love you! Recklessly.