mama

Sunday Sentiment

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I am blessed beyond measure with a man who is still taking care of his children. They don’t need much tending, but he is the first person they call when anything good or bad or funny or sad happens. If they have a question or learn some new bit of information, his phone rings or his text pings. Always Dad, not Mama. And I am good with that. I don’t know who I might have been had my own father been similar.

We had a good visit with the children yesterday. We also had time with the tiny girls, aka wild ones. They play together and fight over toys and love each other. One is fair and blonde haired, the other dark and brown haired. Both with brown eyes. Stubborn like him and his children.

What will life bring for them? Will I see them as grown women? Will they still want me to paint their nails and pile up in the bed to watch a movie and go to sleep snuggled next to me?

I’m sure he will teach them how to drive the buggy and the tractor. They will learn all about the cows they both love. I hope their interest will continue as they grow. It will mean so much to him.

He is like me about the children and grands. We don’t agree with the saying about skipping the kids to have the grandchildren. We adore our own two so much and always had great fun raising them. He loves being a father and that makes being a Paw Paw even sweeter.

My mood is a bit bittersweet this morning, though. I still miss my parents and his. They did not get to live out their full life span. How different life might have been. How different this day might have been. Life doesn’t go on happily ever after for anyone. We just have to savor each hour as it comes and not waste the next wishing for the last.

Happy Father’s Day to my Rock. And to my son. And to my son-in-law. And thank you, Father, for upholding me through this sometimes bittersweet journey. Help me, Lord Jesus, to savor the now.

Unexpected Moments

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I had a visit with my aunts yesterday. My mind is flooded with memories. I don’t have clear 8mm movie memories. I have Polariod memories. Fuzzy snapshots of moments in time.  I am sitting in the back yard of the house I grew up in.  It was a field of corn plowed by my Daddy once upon a time.

I asked again about the table. My grandmother, Arie Eola Brown Hamm, had my grandfather, Charley Richard Hamm, build her a table large enough so that even me and John Bullet could sit with the family for dinner.

She loved for everyone to dress up for Christmas dinner. I have a photo of my gorgeous father in a suit and tie for one Christmas.  How beautiful life was then.

My mother recounted a note that Granny Arie was disappointed when Mother gave Daddy work clothes for Christmas instead of dress clothes.  Perhaps that is the complete synopsis of my completely ambiguous mind.

My beloved LuLu and I are planning on a 20/20 Vision for 2020.

I know what dreams Rock and I are having. We have a vision for the future. We are ready to step out into a new life together. He will understand when he reads this.  My focus and understanding of a particular part of my “style” has become clear only after our new dream appeared. And that new dream only appeared when I surrendered.  To Him, to Rock, and to the Future. And also surrendered the past.

Mama isn’t ever coming home.  I can stop waiting for her to return.

**wrote the above a while back. Don’t know why I didn’t post it.

But, today, I cried. After all this time, LuLu and I got around to a conversation that revealed she knew my Mama from working at the hospital.  This conversation came about in a winding way as conversations do between two women who love each other like we do. She is my sister. In spirit rather than flesh. May I say amid all the current conflict that our skin tones are different and we have never cared one whit about the difference. But, I cried today just discovering that my sister knew my Mother. So, Mama does still come home sometimes.