Missing Sweet Jean

Today is the birthday of my amazing mother-in-law.  We haven't been able to hear her infectious laugh or have long talks with her in her den in over four years, but we think about her every day.  I doubt many people are as lucky as I was when it comes to in-laws.  I hit the jackpot, to be sure!

Tim's mom, Jean, (mostly referred to as Nanny in our house) quit suffering right before Christmas in 2008, but there are little pieces of her everywhere.  I couldn't have loved her more if she were my own Mom, and I thank God for allowing us to be family.

I wrote this just after she died, and it seemed a fitting tribute for her birthday.

My Tribute to Nanny

In December the world changed.  We lost our “Nanny”, and everything seems different now.  There is a welcoming smile and a fun laugh and two twinkling eyes that are no longer present here, and so the world is missing something special. 

It is hard for me to believe that I have only known Tim’s mother for eleven years, for it seems that she has been part of my life always.  I remember the day I met her, but I don’t ever remember a time that I did not feel close to her.  Somehow, upon meeting Jean Graham, you knew that you were known, that you were welcomed and that you were loved.  I am forever changed by that knowledge, and I thank God that my children knew that, too. 

While we begin to figure out life without Nanny, I have spent hours and hours remembering my favorite things about her, my funniest recollections, and my favorite memories.  I remember exact moments – like the sound of her voice when we called to say that we were engaged or her entrance into the hospital room when Molly was born, coming out of her heavy sweater, handing over her purse, running to the bed and saying, “Give me that baby!”  But I remember predictable moments, too, that happened again and again.  I know the wide-eyed look, as she peered  over the back of her chair when we entered the back door, and I hear her saying, “Come in the house.”  I remember the look in her eyes and the feel of her hands as she settled herself, and told me just where to put the baby in her lap.  I remember the laugh, again and again, and I remember so many fun times around the table playing whichever game we happened to be playing at the time.  I remember her patience with my children – that she had as much time as needed to wait for them to figure out a card game or to trample dirt through the living room or to take half of the kitchen ware into the yard to make “pies” and “cakes.”  I will forever remember that everyone in town, it seems, called to check in with her daily, and I hope I can always hear in my mind the way she said, “MmmmmHello” as she answered the phone. 

What I will miss most, though, is harder to describe, and I suspect that many others will miss the same. What I will miss most is the unspoken understanding that I shared with her.  It is not easy to explain, but it was very easy to feel.  From the moment we met, I felt that we shared some special secret, some special way of knowing what the other was thinking.  I treasure the talks we shared, the looks we exchanged and the times we could not stop laughing about things that probably were not even that funny.  So often, I had the sense and the assurance that she knew what was going on with me, what I was thinking, what I was wishing.  I treasure the simple moments we shared in the living room – I was always on the couch and she was always in her  chair – and it was always easy. 

So that, I guess, was one of her greatest gifts to us all.  She made things easy.  It was easy to be known by her, it was easy to be loved by her, it was easy to be comforted by her, and it was easy to feel happy with her.  I am forever changed by her and by the love and the life that she and Granddaddy built together.  It has been easy to be their daughter-in-law and one of the great blessings of my life. There will never be a time that I don’t miss Nanny, but I am thankful for all of the pieces of her that I see in my children and for the times that Tim sounds just like her.   And every now and then I smile, hoping that she is laughing in the middle of the best game of “Hand and Foot” ever.  I love you, Nan

List 38 - Nike Shorts, Duffel Bags and What I wish I could tell my girls and all the rest of them . . .

We've entered a new era here in the Graham world.  It's not new to the rest of the world.  Young people have been going through it for ages.  I went through it.  You probably went through it.  We all know about it.  I would argue that it's getting worse by the day, but it is definitely not new.

We are deep into what we 'have to have' and what we 'just love so much' and 'what everybody gets' and so on and so on and so on.  I'm trying to be somewhat logical about it all.  I really am.  I'm trying to mother my children, want what's really best for them and leave them with some small sense that I am not actually the least withit human on the planet.  It's hard.

I'm trying to remember that feeling I had in the fourth grade one Saturday afternoon when I looked down at my feet and realized that I was looking at the coolest scene in the history of the world - I FINALLY had blue striped Adidas and the coolest footies with bright blue pom poms.  Just thinking about how amazing I was swells my head even to this day, but I digress . . .

Truth is, it is sickening to watch when our children stop thinking as individuals and begin 'liking' and 'loving' and 'wanting' and 'needing' in swarms of a hundred.  It's disheartening.  It's scary.  It leaves a Mama feeling like she didn't do a good enough job on the You Are Special push.

We've never been much on Christmas lists.  The kids might write a letter at school to practice handwriting, but we've never gone by a strict list of exactly what to provide for Christmas morning happiness.  I grew up that way, and I've loved continuing it.  Shopping for the kids has been creative and fun.  We've wondered and considered and loved the times when a complete surprise was a hit.

That's over now.  On one level, I understand.  I get it that my girls are older, that they have a more discerning palette about what they wear and they are making more decisions on their own.  But that's just it it - these exact lists about precisely what they want have left their own brains completely out of it!  I'm almost certain that I could have exchanged their requests with any of their friends and found the same things.

Creativity?  Fun?  Thinking for yourself?  Surprises?  Bah, humbug!  They all want the same thing.

I know, I know, I need to chill out about it.  But it's not the wanting it that bothers me; it's their feeling that they MUST have it that leaves me feeling raw.  I'm delighted when they get a present they love.  I want them to feel as cool as I knew I was when I looked down and had those gorgeous Adidas staring back up at me.  I just wish they knew that the Nike shorts and the Vera Bradley duffel bags and the perfect phone case and on and on and on have absolutely nothing at all to do with what makes them completely amazing.  I just wish they knew.

I wish I could tell every young girl:

1. The Vera Bradley bag is cute and colorful, but the unforgettable thing is the look on your face when you board the bus for the church ski trip or come home excited after a fun spend the night party.
2. The iphone case looks great, but it doesn't compare to the sweet glimmer you get in your eye when you know you are being funny.
3. The Nike shorts are fine but what's awesome is how hard you worked to tackle something difficult and made it!
4. The perfect backpack has nothing to do with how gorgeous you are walking down the hall at school after you've just said something to make your friend's day.
5. The bright orange tennis shoes are awesome, but they are paled by the look on your face when you know, deep inside,  that you have just given everything you have to help your team.
6. The real reason that people are staring is not because you just spent two hours straightening your amazingly beautiful curly hair;  it's because you just sang like an angel.
7. The real people in the world aren't looking at your Uggs, for they are concentrating on your gorgeous smile.
8. What you use to pull back your hair doesn't matter in the least; we see the sheer beauty in your face when you are concentrating on building your brain or solving a problem.
9. When we look at a group of you, we don't concentrate on what you're wearing; we see each of your faces and pray for the day when each of you will KNOW that we love the ways that you all are different.
10. You're bigger and brighter and better than the best name brand item you own . . . you are precious and smart and talented and beautiful, and we can't wait for you to love what you bring into this starving world as much as we do!

How do summer camp and laundry go together? I'll explain . . .

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Lately I keep remembering a story from long ago.  I guess people’s tales from summer camp adventures is part of it.  I think my stage of parenting has me remembering, too.  Tim and I are constantly trying to ‘refigure’ what we are doing right and what needs amending.  I’m often wondering about ways that I could be more effective as a parent, about ways that I can be better at helping my kids take on something that will serve them well for the rest of their lives.  

I had awesome parents.  They were smart and interesting and fun.  They, too, were consistently wondering about ways to aide my sister and I in growing into the amazing individuals we have become.  (Smile).   

My mother, the teacher, and my father, the marriage and family therapist, thought hard about the right things to do.  Most of them worked out swimmingly.  Every now and then, though, there was a bit of a backfire.

This story is too good.  It’s too good not to be told:

At one point (just fine for my younger sister and twenty years too early for me) my parents decided that it would be beneficial for the two of us to take on more responsibility.  It was time for us to do more around the house; time to learn a life skill.  

Somewhere in late elementary school or early middle school, we were introduced to the lovely steps of laundering clothes.  Jodi and I went through a short training, our folks practiced with us, and then we were to do our own laundry.  Sounds do-able, huh?

It worked perfectly for Jodi, my younger sister by eighteen months.  Her clothes were done on a regular schedule (even though she had to use a little stool to reach all of the way into the washer).  She neatly kept a ‘white’ pile and a pile of ‘colored’ clothes.  She swiftly swooped in the second her wash cycle was finished to lovingly transfer her clothes to the dryer.  You must know, she folded them right from the dryer, into perfect, store-quality stacks.  It was a beautiful thing.  

My laundering system was not lovely.  There was no system.  I probably still owe her money from the times I tried to purchase her services as a washer woman.  When I was left to my own devices, however, it was not a pretty sight.  I waited until I was out of every bit of clothing that I could wear and I loaded my arms to their capacity to head to the laundry room.  Once there, I crammed the entire mass into the washer, with no concern whatsoever to the color or material.  I remember a few times that I had to be called to the laundry room because the washer couldn’t actually wash clothes when they were piled too tightly to allow the spinner to rotate.  Ughh . . . details.

Many of my favorite clothes quickly turned pink and the rest became Barbie clothes.  Apparently, I had missed the part of discussion about cottons, hot water, etc.  Things are not much better now, but I’ve managed to keep most of my family’s wardrobe the original size and color.

Jodi, ohhhh Jodi, she was the laundress extraordinaire.  She was meant for the task and she did it well.  

The fun part of the story came when she went away to summer camp a few months after our new routine.  She went to a camp near our home, and she was to stay two weeks.  Midway during the camp, families were allowed to come to camp for a visit.  

The parents of children who lived nearby would gather the soiled laundry from the first week, wash it quickly and then deliver it back to ready their children for the second week.  My parents and I could not wait to get to the camp and see Jodi on Parent’s Day.  We were excited to see her cabin, meet her new friends and hear about all of her adventures.  

I remember it well.  We arrived at the camp, families and campers strewn out all around, in the cabins and out.  It was a happy day.  We located Jodi’s cabin and met her counselors.  We talked about where we should go to dinner, and then my Mom asked Jodi to grab her laundry.  (Here’s where the plan goes awry.)

Jodi looked up proudly, smiled and stated, “Oh, my friend’s Mom took it home to wash it for me.”  

“What?”, my mother asked.  “Why?”

“Well, she was so sweet . . . I explained to her that you didn’t do my laundry, and she felt sorry for me.  She said she’d do it.”

Suffice it to say that we didn’t spend too much time at the camp that day.  We didn’t hang around to meet the nice laundry lady, and Mom just hoped and prayed the woman never learned her name.  

All of this remembering has me wondering which of my plans will come back to haunt me!

Mother, Daughter, Love and Laughs

You all know I love my job.  To follow are a few reasons why . . .

It's special to spend time with good people - sometimes people you've known a long time - and capture some of their fun and love to preserve forever.  What a time I had with these two . . . an awesome Mama and her daughter home from college.  I've watched Madelyn grow up and photographing the beautiful young woman she has become was a delight.

I'll post a few of the beautiful photos and I'm making a point to include some of the craziness, the tenderness, the laughs and the touches, too.  Those are some of the best parts!  I love to look for the hand holding and one looking into the other's eyes and those devilish looks when they are having fun together.

I hope these photos will serve as a remembrance for both of them of the incredibly special bond they share.

Feeling thankful for good people, good times and the ever-practicing eye of a photographer . . .

(And . . . did I mention the little run-in with the goose family?) 

I think you can see from the following few photos that Madelyn and Mother Goose 

weren't happy to see each other!  You just must love location surprises!

The get-away shot had to be included!

Here's to Mamas and their babies and to enjoying the moment!

Check the gallery page on my website for the complete set of photographs:

http://deanagrahamphotography.com

I'll take 'learn some manners' for 100, Alex . . .

THIS IS A WARNING.  I AM ABOUT TO RANT.  PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT RANTING IS FORTHCOMING.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Sunday was Mother's Day, a special day.  Many of us had warm experiences, surrounded by loved ones.  We are fortunate, to be sure.  I had a wonderful day.

My kids and I surprised my grandmother (their great grandmother) by showing up at her church just before the service began.  Working to get everyone ready and make our way an hour away was certainly worth it.  When I saw the look on my grandmother's face, it was clear that her Mother's Day had been made!  We were joined by my Dad, my Step-mom and my uncle, and we filled the pew where my grandmother usually sits alone.  It was a special moment.

Our afternoon went along as you might imagine . . . a big dinner, put together with love, more relatives and the following few hours filled with talks and laughs and 'shows' by the children and stories about 'the old days.'  It was the type of afternoon we don't have much anymore; a time I won't forget.  I reveled in the visiting time with the family that filled the oft-quiet living room, and I treasure the giggles on my childrens' faces as they laughed with the family members who used to make me laugh as a child.

My kids presented (they don't give gifts - they present them) our home-made gifts to the delighted Mamas in the room, and we missed the ones that were not with us.  Everyone kicked off shoes, got comfortable and savored our time together.  There were all of the ingredients to the perfect family afternoon.  It was rainy and gray outside, but cozy and satisfying in our circle in my grandmother's den.  We were all happy to give up the Sunday afternoon nap to experience the rare time together.

I loaded our left-overs and my children into our van to leave, and they quieted themselves into car activities for the rainy ride home.  I was left in the front seat with memories and thoughts and thankfulness.  I remembered a lot on the drive home.  I thought back about similar days I lived in my childhood, other times I relished in the love and closeness of family.

I thought about why the day seemed so different than so many days of the present . . . and then it hit me.

To be sure, the day was different because our group doesn't get to assemble often, and we rarely take the time to really visit with each other.  We rarely remember to stop our present to make new memories, to allow our children the safe feeling of sitting amongst a group of loved ones, listening to the stories and the memories and the funny tales.  We rarely do that, but that wasn't what made it different.  That wasn't what made me take such notice.

As I drove home on that rainy Sunday, I realized the present day menace that was missing from the day.  I realized the palm-sized communication tool which was not present.  I realized one more BIG reason that the day was different.

Our warm celebration was different because there was not a cell phone present.  Not one time during our afternoon visit did anyone take their attention away from the important people in the room to give attention to their phone.  No one checked their email.  No one looked down to answer a text.  No one absent-mindedly played a game.  No hand slipped into a pocket to grab their black security blanket.  No one.

Can you believe it?  I am struck by the huge difference that made in our day.  Our attention was actually in the room, on the people with whom we celebrated.  We were really talking to the people in the room with us.  We were a circle of adults and children without anyone sneaking a glance into a lap to attend to someone, something far away.  Nothing was more important than where we were, what we were doing.  Our emails waited.   I missed a text.  Our kids didn't play any games.

We looked at each other.  We laughed.  We snuggled.  We hugged.  We told stories.  We listened to each other.  We were there, in the room.

And that, I realized on the drive back home to the present, was a huge difference in our day.

I don't presume to suggest that I don't count on my phone.  I do.  I check my email over and over during the day.  I text many times.  I end my night, on my phone, playing word games with friends I don't even see!  I take my phone everywhere.  It is my watch, my computer, my calendar.  I'm guilty of looking at it when I shouldn't.  I have snuck it out of my pocket during boring meetings - I have.

But I'm sad, friends, about what we've allowed to happen with these new 'necessities.'  We forgot our manners; we don't remember how to be polite.  More important than that, though, we are missing the people in our presence.

I don't like it.

Sunday I had a taste of what life used to be like, and I remembered how good it felt.

Think back.  It was nice.  Imagine sitting with friends or family and having them there, in the conversation.  Imagine being with people who are actually there with you, looking into your eyes and not sneaking glances downward at their phone.

I'll stop here.  I won't go on and on.  I won't rattle off the stories about the impoliteness (at the very least) that I've witnessed in the last few years.  I want to, but I won't.

But I know one thing - I want to show my children something different.  I want them to be in the midst of adults who see them, who look into their eyes and who do not divert attention to someone more important in another town.  Who is more important?  Why can't it wait?

Sunday was special.  I want more of it.  I want you to get some, too.

I want my kids to have memories like mine.  I don't want them to remember looking at the top of or heads as we look at our phones.





And now, we have a winner to announce!  Yesterday's photo tripped up a lot of folks.  I'm impressed with your guesses!

This was the mystery photo . . .

And this is what it was . . . 

We only had four correct guesses!  Thanks for playing, friends.  The winner, drawn at random from random.org, is Rodrick B.  Way to go!  Let me know when you all are ready for your photo session on me!  

Blue eyes, sweet smiles and giggles at the park . . .

It is so much fun to photograph children; even more fun to photograph them having fun.  I love the natural flow of a session where the child is engaged in his surroundings, busy loving life.  

That was the case on this special day.  Check out those amazing eyes!  

My little buddy, Brady, had fun leading Mom around and laughing joyfully with each new discovery.

I love thinking about  Brady being able to look back on these photos and see this connection with his Mama.  And I love that precious, sneaky grin and those mischievous eyes!

Ahhh.  The places you'll go, little man, the places you'll go . . . 

and a happy Mother's Day to a fabulous mama!

Parenting perfection . . .

Every now and then, things are just wonderful.  You know what I mean.  The sun is shining (it always is when you have this feeling), the little folks in your home are not killing each other at that exact moment and for no particular reason, you just think you're a swell parent.   Usually (as in any other arena when you begin to think too highly of yourself) one, two or three children burst your bubble and send you plummeting back to earth - but for that moment, that one shining moment, your home could be on a television show.

I remember one day a few years ago when I began to have those magic thoughts inside (Deana, Deana, Deana, you are really a great one.  You are THE mother today; these children are so, so lucky.)  I should know by this point that the immediate second that I think anything like that, I should STOP - I will soon be shown it untrue.  But, alas, we go with it.  For one fleeting particle of time, we relish the thought that we might be doing some wonderful things and our children just might not parade their childhood years in front of God and everybody on the Oprah equivalent of their day.

On this particular day, my children each had a friend or two over.  I had cleaned off (well, used a one-armed swipe to slide the stuff into a large bag) the kitchen island.  I had introduced those poor souls (who had never known the thrill of victory) to the sheer joys of shaving cream.  I was changing their lives, one pile of cheap sudsy cream at a time.   The babes giggled as they created masterpieces of mountains and flowers, they tossed blobs of the slimy mess onto each other, and I - oh great I in my laid-backness just giggled happily.  It was an illustration for all of you, from me, the great one.

With a smooth segue from shaving cream to pizza fixings, we cheerfully cleansed the artful island to make room for our next adventure in fun moments.  Out came all of the ingredients of a tasty pizza - whatever you could dream of - all in little bitty bowls to make it even more precious.  The children were delighted.  One little dab of shaving cream on each bitty turned up nose and a plop of pizza sauce upon every chubby cheek.  Each child stood happily on a chair, enabling them to reach all of the needed parts of their own pizza extraordinaire.  It was surely a moment they would never forget.  It was beautiful.  I pitied the poor parental fools who weren't like me, who didn't understand the secret of these moments.  I was sorrowful for their boring souls - those regular parents, the ones who didn't come up with these unforgettable afternoons.

Some of the memories have left me now, but I am certain that some cheerful children's music played at just the right volume in the background; learning songs created just for the moment, I am sure. Other children in other places must have been thrown idly in front of their televisions, sad and bored, but oh no - not at my house.  I was in the middle of parenting bliss and victory.  I was good.  I was managing many.  They were happy.  They were engaged.  They were creating.

And there I was, thinking about how darn easy it all was, how sad I was for those around me who just couldn't figure it all out.  Poor things.

(Here is where I would make the loud car-brake sound if I knew how to spell it.)

Here are but a few of the things that happened in the next milli-second, the one following my thinking I was such a divine instrument of parenting perfectness . . .

• one child slipped off of the chair and began crying
• someone's shaving cream from their shirt got a little bit mixed up in the pizza sauce
• there were not enough pepperonis to go around
• a couple of the children did not realize that the same hand motions used in manipulating shaving cream were not the same motions needed in pizza assembling
• one child tired of the pizzas and grabbed the can of shaving cream
• two children began to argue, thus sending a few of the toppings into the air
• another child slipped off of a chair
• there wasn't really a great way to mark each child's creation to be identified after the baking
• a couple of the little darlings weren't really hungry
• and then - worst of all - one of my darlings looked up at me, with big beautiful brown eyes and asked the unthinkable - "Mama, what are we doing next?"

WHAT?  Next?  Next, everyone under the age of forty will be air-lifted from the kitchen through a hole I will now blow myself and flown to another continent! And we will never ever use shaving cream again or make pizza again or maybe never eat again - that's what's happening next!  Got it?

Hmmmm.  Maybe that wasn't one of those moments of parenting utopia I had thought two and a half minutes before.  

But, even though I know better, they still happen . . . had one the other day.

And, I believe tomorrow I'll tell you all about it.  

List Twelve - a few more things about Mary George

 

What a week this has been - you have been amazing companions on this journey, and I am thankful for your support and interest.  It is fun to consider that Mom can make this much splash after twenty one years!  As I've said this week, one of Mom's best gifts was her ability to teach us all through story; so I guess it is no surprise that her voice is still alive.

I've heard from so many folks this week, from distant family members to old friends to Mom's former students.  You've remembered the stories with me, and that means so much.  I hope Mom knows about all of our remembering and laughing - I bet she does.

I couldn't tell it all in just five posts - that's not possible.  There is much to tell; there are wonderful stories and hard times, unforgettable moments and moments of sadness.  Mom's life was like ours, a terrific mixture of so much.  She struggled and laughed and worked and cried and loved and learned like us all.  That's a picture too large to paint with just the words on a blog, but it has been a wonderful gift to attempt to describe her, to give you the essence of who she was.

 

There are still many stories left to tell, and I believe I will tell them.  I'll keep searching and remembering, and from time to time, I'll let Mom speak again on this blog.  I'm convinced she still has much to tell and to teach.  Fridays are 'list days' on Press Pause, so today's list will be a few things that I didn't get to tell you about my mother.

1. Mom's interesting name was actually quiet common when she was a child in South Georgia.  It was a custom to be called by a combination of your mother and father's first names.  She WAS NOT the only Mary George in her little town of Douglas, Georgia.  She told me once that she and the others with the same name instituted the Mary George Club, and it came as no surprise that she was the president of the club!  
2. Mom tried everything in her growing up years.  My grandfather used to tell me that Mom took lessons on everything, looking for her niche.  She tried it all, from horseback riding to trumpet playing and everything in between!  She was interested in politics from her beginning and specialized in 'oratory.'  During the Sibley Commission that toured the state of Georgia (aiming to keep schools segregated, but offering both sides to speak their minds), Mom was a speaker on behalf of integrating the public schools.  That was the start of life to be filled with speaking out for equal rights for everyone, an ideal she held always.  Mom was not afraid to speak her mind, and she continued to feel that it was her duty to use her talents, her voice and her story-telling to help make things right.
3. There are many times I've been proud of my mother; one of those occasions was when she quit her teaching job of years in Jackson County, Georgia when there was a large book-banning policy implemented.  In my opinion, the letter she wrote in defense of her decisions and the need to have systems in place to allow qualified professionals the autonomy to make decisions on behalf of their students, was among her best writing.  She felt it was wrong for anyone to let fear keep them from speaking out for the right thing.  
4. I didn't get to tell you about the time that Mom tried to display her penchant for the dramatic in a play production at LaGrange College - she described it so well, using her voice to foreshadow her impending doom . . . she took to the stage, reciting her lines and she felt that a dramatic leap towards stage front would mark her place in the play.  I will interject here that dance was not among Mom's best talents.  She ran towards the audience, neared the stage edge and did her best, most athletic and beautiful leap with all that she had.  Unfortunately, she soared into the air and then off the stage, into the laps of the unassuming folks in the front row.  I wish you could hear her tell about the number of people who tried to help to force her legs back together.  It was her best 'split' ever, and she finally had to be awkwardly belted into a wheel chair, and rolled away to the infirmary, one leg still forcefully pointing towards the heavens!  Like other moments, she would always laugh the loudest as she recounted her doomed performance!
5. I did not get to tell you about how her two favorite classes to teach were the very highest level students and the very lowest level ones or about how she set up systems to bring the two together.  I'd like for you to hear the parents of her students describing how they, too, read the assigned books and had their children (Mom's students) explain what Ms. Murphy had revealed in the class discussion that day.  
6. I didn't have the time to tell you about the nights she spent at her sewing machine, making costumes for our ballets, the likes of which you cannot imagine.  When Mom heard about what needed to be made, she didn't spend any time explaining what she didn't know how to do - she just got busy, inventing, creating, learning how to do what was required.   She often seemed like a bit of a magician, just like she described her grandmother Jones.  She could take ten random items and use them to create a costume that was then used by the Atlanta Ballet in The Nutcracker!
7. You read about her sense of adventure and her need to search for the answers; but I didn't get to tell you about the time she tip-toed alone through a pasture in the hills of England, suddenly to realize that she was being chased by a humongous black bull!  And I didn't get to share about a crazy search she set out on in Saint Simon's Island, where she poked through weeds and debris, searching for answers to historical questions - she loved to tell about how she quietly plodded along, nearing a dilapidated old slave cabin, concentrating on what she was searching for, when suddenly she startled a large, antlered deer who chased her back to her car at the edge of the brush.  Guess what?  She waited for a bit to catch her breath and for the deer to find another interest and then she got back to the adventure at hand and went back on her hunt!
8. You might not know about Mom's move to Saint Simon's Island; a move that marked a re-starting of her life.  She rediscovered herself there, spent time with folks she loved and began to make her mark on a new group of people.  I always felt that buying her new house there, the house that was just hers, was a wonderful beginning for her.  She had dreamed of living on the island, and she loved her time there.  During her first summer, Mom decided to use her preparation time completing a research paper, an exercise that she would share with her new students to walk them along the steps of constructing the perfect paper.  She opted to research the history of the area where she lived, to look deeper into the lives and stories of the people who had resided there years before.  She loved the investigation and found herself contacting descendants of early islanders and digging up old stories that needed to be told.  At one point, a friend read her 'paper' and exclaimed that she thought that Mom just might know more about that area of the island than anyone else ever had.  The friend took Mom's work to acclaimed writer, Eugenia Price, who agreed.  Mom struck up a relationship with Ms. Price and many other area authors, and they put her in contact with Mildred Huie, a well-loved artist and historian of the area.  Mildred asked Mom to write the last book of a series she had begun years before with a friend who had passed away.  The duo had written books on each of the main plantations of the island and had only the Kelvin Grove area to write.  It was the perfect match!  Mom and Mildred combined their efforts and published a book about Kelvin Grove, the East Beach and King and Prince area of the island.  It was an amazing experience for Mom and for all of us.  I still have some copies from the last publishing of the book - if you'd like one, let me know.  I'd be happy to send you one, compliments of Mom.
9. And I didn't tell you about the other sides of her life; those other sides we all have.  I didn't describe her struggles, the times she didn't feel she measured up.  She was human, like the rest of us, and she had the same dark times that the rest of us do.  She suffered with depression during parts of her adult life and she and I spent years arguing with one another, screaming out our anger at each other and saying things I know we both regretted later.   She came out on the other side of her bitterness and sadness felt during her middle years and, together, the two of us came out of our arguing and got to be real friends in her last years.  We had always had fun together; but in the last few years of her life, we were able to truly enjoy each other, to notice the good in each other and to ignore the ways that we had hurt each other in the times we did not get along.  I thank God for that.  I remember looking out the plane window on the trip to England in l99l and realizing that my Mom and I truly appreciated each other, that we were adults who respected the other, who adored each other.  I am eternally grateful.
10. Mom died on a trip to England in 1991.  I accompanied her on the trip, along with fifteen or so of her past students.  Mom had spent the previous summer in the Cambridge College summer program and had been invited back to serve as a tutor in the program.  Many of her former students, hearing that Mom would be there, registered for the program to share the experience with Mom, and we all traveled there for the summer.  Mom had some health problems and had been urged by her doctor not to make the trip.  Her doctors were puzzled about what was wrong with her, and they wanted the summer to try to make a diagnosis.  Mom wouldn't hear of cancelling the trip.  We wondered, all of us, in the months leading up to our departure, why she was so insistent that the trip take place.  We urged her to change her mind and assured her that we could do the entire experience the following year.  She was insistent that we go along with our plans.                                                                                                                                     We set out for England, for our summer adventure, with that marvelous group of young people.  We laughed often with Mom, about how giddy she seemed about the whole thing.  To her, experiencing her promised land with one of her daughters and all of those precious students was a life-changing event.  She reveled in every day, every adventure and every moment that she sparked the imagination of one of her students.  It was an unbelievably special time.  During the week, we lived in a dorm on the campus, pretending that we were in college in England!  Each weekend we took trips by train or car to areas that Mom had investigated and wanted us to see.  She took us to each of the areas in T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets (except for the one in the states) and we followed behind her, laughing when she did something crazy and listening intently when she read to us the words she loved so much.                                         Mid-way through the trip, Mom and I and two others headed out to spend the weekend in a cottage tucked away in the Cotswalds, a particular cabin she knew to be important in the literary genius of Britain.                                                                                                              On Mom's last day on this earth, we experienced magic unlike any other on the trip.  Mom co-piloted directions as I drove us to Little Gidding, a community of Anglican prayer which sheltered the king during the war, fifteen miles from Cambridge.  Looking back through the very book that Mom read from on the day - the book that still has the pressed rose given to her by a student on our day at East Coker, another of the four quartets in Eliot's final published poem - I can see clearly now how the many pieces of Mom's life culminated there, in that place, on that day.                                                                                                                     Though my mother lived and thrived in many places on this earth, that day we stood in a place that contained so much of what she believed about her earthly life and Mom told us the stories and read the words that she felt best described life's meaning.  She was connected to that space in a way I cannot understand, in a way I cannot explain, and I have no doubt that there was a reason we visited there on that day.  As I write this, I feel thankful to be telling another part of her story.  It is sad, to be sure, but today I feel a vast sense of awe about it all.  Today I am thankful.  I'm holding Mom's tattered copy of Eliot's book, and I am glad I'm telling this story.  It's one of the stories of Mom and one of the stories about me and one of the stories of all of the other people who have read the same words, prayed the same prayers.                                     On my mother's last afternoon, she led her three fledgling ducklings into the chapel at Little Gidding and to a grave stone just down the lane,  a space where she had never worshiped and a place where she had always worshiped, and she read us these words . . .                                

You are here to kneel where prayer has been valid.  And prayer is more than an order of words, the conscious occupation of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.  And what the dead had no speech for, when living, they can tell you, being dead:  the communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living. . .        

. . . and that is where we start.  We die with the dying:  See, they depart, and we go with them.  We are born with the dead:  See, they return, and bring us with them.  The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree are of equal duration.  

. . . We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.  Through the unknown, remembered gate when the last of earth left to discover is that which was the beginning; at the source of the longest river the voice of the hidden waterfall.  

. . . And all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well when the tongues of flame are in-folded into the crowned knot of fire and the fire and the rose are one.  

We left Little Gidding on our way to the Cotwalds and detoured a bit for a visit to Coventry, a place my Mom and I had always wanted to visit.  Much of the efforts of Mom's life were for peace, for her great hope that this world's different people would one day live together in a loving way.  Coventry was the perfect illustration of those beliefs, a town with an active cathedral which has become known the world-over for it's peace and reconciliation efforts.

On the night of 14 November 1940, the city of Coventry was devastated by bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe.  The Cathedral burned with the city, having been hit by several incendiary devices.

The decision to rebuild the cathedral was taken the morning after its destruction.  Rebuilding would not be an act of defiance, but rather a sign of faith, trust and hope for the future of the world. 

Shortly after the destruction, the cathedral stonemason, Jock Forbes, noticed that two of the charred medieval roof timbers had fallen in the shape of a cross.  He set them up in the ruins where they were later placed on an altar of rubble with the moving words 'Father Forgive' inscribed on the Sanctuary wall.

In this space of horrid destruction, the scene is now one of complete peace.  The altar area of that bombed cathedral still stands and you move through that area to enter the new worship area.  It is moving beyond words.   That Friday afternoon we arrived there, laughing and enjoying our time together.  Our jovial celebration quickly turned to a silent time of prayer when we entered that amazing place.  We no longer talked and each of us quietly spoke inside ourselves.  I remember watching Mom as she made her way to that great sanctuary of reconcile, that moving testament to forgiveness.  She walked slowly, and I actually felt all the times of her life when she had preached and spoke and written the ways of peace - I could see her teaching her students lessons far past any that they would face on an AP test, I could imagine her marching for the rights of her sisters and brothers of a different color, I could even hear her telling my sister and me her quiet disappointment when she heard others, in public or in her own family, speak of other of God's children in a derogatory way.  I could see in her eyes, in her slow movements, the many pieces, the struggles and the victories that had pieced together to create her life.  It was another gift of quiet magic in that day.

No one can look at that crooked "Father Forgive" sign, site of all of those prayers, and ever be the same.  I won't forget it and I won't forget being fortunate enough to be there with my Mom.  

My Mom left this world soon after that.  We had a delightful dinner, where we talked and laughed and marveled at what we had seen just in that short afternoon.  We knew then that we would never forget that time.  We didn't know everything then, but we knew we were living moments that would be at the forefront of the rest of our being.

My Mom died in a head-on collision on a small, country road in the literary haven that she so loved.  After stopping to get our final mile of directions to the cottage, I apparently re-entered that road on the wrong side of the road (the right side) and the last I remember of our time together was laughing.  I had entered a pub in the middle of Hereford County to ask for directions.  The pub was loud and bustling and the moment I opened my southern-born mouth, the whole place stopped what they were doing and looked my way.  They gave me the simple directions and I went back to the car, all of us laughing about my breaking into that average evening at the country pub.

I am thankful for the sound that I still hear - the sound of my Mom laughing.  I don't know why we had to have the accident.  I don't know why my mother decided not to put on her seatbelt.  I don't know why that was the only time in my adult life that I saw her oversight and didn't ask her to buckle up, though I do remember thinking that the day was just too wonderful.  I didn't want to break in with any reality - didn't want to take even a moment to rain on her parade.  And so I didn't and my Mom was the only person lost in the accident.

I will not claim that it has been easy, because it hasn't been.  I spent years in a guilty haze, a place I know now that I'm a mother myself, that my mother would not have wanted me to be.  I thank God and my amazing family and friends and a few years of life-changing therapy that I came out on the other side.

I would give anything to see my mother again, to watch her looking at my children and laughing with Tim.  I would like to talk to her about my new creative life.  I would like to laugh with her about all of the ways that I just know that Molly is so very like Mary George Dean of Douglas, Ga.  I would love to be witness to Mom and Emma as they worked on a project together, sharing their love of wondering and creating.  I would relish in watching my Mom and Harry laughing and dancing, as he attempted to teach her how to do the latest moves.  And I can actually envision Tim and Mom, lingering around the dinner table, beating each other with smart, sarcastic retorts or in a gentle and quiet conversation about their most intimate beliefs.

Those moments would be wonderful, they would, but they are not part of this life.  That is not to say that Mom is absent here.  She is in my house when someone in my family says something that could only have originated with her or when I study hard to figure out the meaning of a story or when Emma stares off in thought and looks exactly like my Mom and her 'people.'  She is here and I know she laughs with us.  She is still alive in the stories, and she helps me remember why telling them is so vital to our existence.

I plan to keep looking for the stories and I appreciate those of you who come along on the journey.  This week has meant more to me than I could have imagined on Sunday night, just five days ago.  I had no idea what I was attempting, but I am thankful that we've done it.  I've spent the week with Mom, and I thank God for that.

I don't know why things happen the way they do instead of the way they don't - I just know that we are supposed to keep telling the stories and that is what I intend to do.  I plan to tell you about my unbelievable father, too, and I promise I'll do that while he is here to read it.

My Mom, Post 4 - Please officer . . .

If you knew Mom you might be thinking that some of her humor has been left out of these posts.  Have a seat.  I've got some today.

Mom was funny.  Sometimes she meant to be funny and sometimes she didn't.  One of the things I loved the most about her was that she had an uncanny ability to laugh at herself.  In fact, I think laughing at herself was one of her best story topics!  She would admit to things that some of the rest of us just might leave untold.  To her, they were good fodder for her tales.

She laughed a lot about crazy things she had said, and a few years before she died, an old friend shared with her about something she had said in elementary school.  At a reunion, the old friend told Mom that he had always thought she was the bravest person he had ever known.  Of course she loved hearing that but she wasn't quite sure what bravery he had seen.  He described what he remembered . .
 
Way back in the second or third grade, they were studying about hygiene in class.  The teacher had spent a long time one class period discussing the need for bathing regularly and all that was involved in keeping one's self clean and healthy.  He said the next day the teacher explained that she was going to do something very important; she was going to find out, for sure, who had truly learned from her lessons.  She walked around the quiet room, up and down each row and stood, looking down at each student.  And then she looked into their eyes and asked them, "Did you take a bath last night?" 

The students were nervous as she walked among them and sounded scared as they reported, one by one, that "yes, they had taken a bath."  Mom's friend told her he couldn't remember when he had taken his last bath, but he looked up and proudly said, "yes, ma'am"!  And then it was Mary George's turn.  This is how Mom's friend described it to her - "That teacher came to you and looked at you all smiley, like she was already so proud of you, and then you went and did the bravest thing I'd ever seen - you looked right up into her eyes and told her you just hadn't been able to take a bath the night before and you were real sorry but you knew for sure you'd take one tonight."  Mom loved that story!

The story you must hear, though, is not quite as G-rated.   If you know this one, you must be wondering if I was going to tell it.  If you don't, you're in for a treat.  Today's post might not be the most tasteful, but it is just too good to gloss over.  You must hear this.  After my parents divorced in the early eighties, Mom began attending get-togethers with a group called Parents without Partners (PWP as we affectionately grew to call it).  That turned out to be such a positive experience, and the friends she made in this group were among her best.  She made unbelievable memories and shared good times (and bad) with an amazing group of people.  There was one gang of women who were exceptionally close and they began to spend more and more time together.  Mom and her friends eventually became known as "The War Council" as they always seemed to be scheming about one thing or another.

The man who gave The War Council their name became a great friend of Mom's, too, and the two of them had some awesome adventures together.  The best, though, was near the beginning of their friendship.  From time to time, PWP would have dances or special parties and they were lots of fun.  Jodi and I were happy to see Mom enjoying things and loved to hear her tales of each event.  At one particular dance, Mom's friend felt like he had had a bit too much to drink and he asked Mom if she would drive.  She explained that she was happy to drive but she wasn't too good at a stick shift.  I need to interject here - Mom saying she was not too good with a stick shift is a bit of an understatement.  She was BAD with a stick shift and wasn't terribly good at driving of any kind.  In her youth, she once borrowed her father's car to drive her cousins around on her aunt and uncle's farm.  She told the younger kids to watch as she planned to maneuver the car expertly between two poles.  The car was wider than the poles, unfortunately, but that wasn't the most unfortunate part.  The worst part was that she proceeded to continue driving the car through the poles, denting both sides,  until she had gotten to the other side, rather than backing out of the damage.  I digress.

Back to the trip home from the dance.  Mom assured her friend that she could do it if he could just help her as they went.  They got into the car, and the bouncing, jerking, convulsing began.  I only wish you could hear Mom's friend tell the story.  Each time I heard him explain it, the jerky movements of the car got worse!  He said he'd never sat through anything quite that bad.   It was not a pretty ride.  He began to believe that his driving the car would be much, much safer.

And then it happened, a blue light began twirling behind them.   Mom panicked, but her friend panicked more.  He explained later that he was terrified that Mom would say something crazy.  As she worked to fitfully get the car to the side of the road, he reminded her not to say too much.  "I'll handle the whole thing.  You just give him your license and stay real quiet.  It won't be a problem."

The officer came to the car and bent down to look.  Mom looked up at him.  Mom's friend stared straight ahead, praying she wouldn't mess up.  The cop asked Mom if she had any idea why he had pulled her over - no, she didn't know of any reason he would have pulled her over.  The officer went into great detail about how she was swerving from side to side and jerking to and fro.  He asked her if she had had anything to drink and she said no.  He looked at her license and did whatever it is that they do when they go back and forth from car to car.  Mom got really nervous.  It would be just horrible if she got in trouble with the law - how would she explain something like this?  She tried to stay quiet.  Really, she did.  But she just couldn't.

When the policeman leaned back down to look into the car, Mom nervously shouted, "Please officer - oh, please - don't give me an I.U.D.!"

After that, after they all stopped laughing, things were all right.  The officer did not give her an IUD or a DUI, but he did decide he'd feel better if he followed her home.  And in the telling and re-telling, Mom laughed the hardest of all.