Five-Minute Friday: Family Heroes

[Today's one-word writing prompt: Hero]

A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich.

Raise your hand if you got that one.

OK. I got that out of my system.

I know with all of the snow and ice and crap that's been going on in Atlanta recently, you think I'm going to write about the cop who handed out coffee and granola bars to stranded motorists on the highway. Or the hotel worker who walked three miles in the snow to get a non-paying guest (i.e., lobby squatter) who had just had open heart surgery the medicine he needed. Or the man who walked five miles to be with his child who was stuck at school.

But I'm not! (Hey, wait a minute. Didn't I just?....)

After that obvious stuff passed, I was thinking about everyday heroes in my own family. So I just want to give a few shout-outs.

To my mother who didn't kill me when they took me to London when I was 11, and I made her skip something really lovely and educational to take me to Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum and House of Horrors. That's an afternoon of your life you will never get back. I'm sorry.

To my dad who melted Hershey chocolate for me after I had my tonsils out when I was 8. Is that cool or what?

To my niece who is a kick-ass single mom of two little minions, yet manages to cook more than I do (and better), have a wicked garden, and still have a raucous social life. At least it looks that way on Facebook.

To my husband who once had to hold a bowl for me to vomit into while I was ... um ... doing other things. TMI, I know. But you guys just have to know what I've put this man through.

There are plenty of others, but I'm out of time. That really isn't the image I wanted to leave you with. Sorry 'bout that.

Finish Well.

Five Minute Friday: The Best Laid Plans

[This week's one word writing prompt: Visit. And I know it's Saturday. I've gotten over it. So should you.]

This week I was reminded of a memory that's not one of my favorites.

When I was in middle school, my parents and I traveled to Richmond, VA, to visit my father's father who was dying. When Senior summons Junior and The Third because his doctor says he's not long for this world, you come.

We went to the Masonic Retirement Home to see him. Papa Stu was a Mason? How did I not know that? My parents told me that until he retired there, they weren't aware either. It's incredible how much you learn about someone right before they die. I suppose it's one of life's ironies.

It was good to see him. To say good-byes and reminisce as much as you can with someone whose memory and hearing are both failing. As I looked back and forth between my father and grandfather, I tried to envision Dad thirty or forty years hence.

Would I be bringing my children to a stiflingly hot retirement home room to visit? 
Would my mom be there, or would she have passed already? 
What would we learn about him in his final days that had remained hidden for most of his life?

But in another of life's ironies our visit was cut short. My mother's father passed away unexpectedly in Thomasville, NC.

I collapsed into tears.

Where was his final visit?
Where was his gathering of the children and grandchildren? 
Where was his chance to say good-bye?
What was his secret I never got to learn?

Papa Stu hung on until well into my college days. When he finally did succumb, I was abroad and didn't even know it had happened until weeks later.

But that's another story for another day.

Five Minute Friday: Kissing the Face of God

I am currently enamored with the Christmas song, "Mary Did You Know?" Here is a link to the song if you're not familiar. It's worth a listen.

What has captured my thoughts is the line, "And when you kiss your little baby, you've kissed the face of God."

What could that have felt like? To kiss the actual, physical face of God? And to have it disguised as a child?

Did she know? 

Could she comprehend? If not, when did the pieces fall into place? At that first miracle at the wedding in Cana? At what point did she really know what ... or whom ... she was dealing with?*

But what occurred to me the other day is that I kiss the face of God every day. Every time I kiss my children ... every time I kiss my husband ... every time I kiss the top of one of my children's friends heads ... I am also kissing God.

We are God's sons and daughters. Adopted, yes, but no less family. No less kin. No less image-bearers.

I wish I remembered that more when my kids are fighting. Or disobeying. Or procrastinating. Or pouting. Maybe that's my Christmas wish for myself this year. Don't see them as little bickering gremlins with a crappy attitude.

Look into their eyes, smile, and kiss the face of God.


[*Note: Bad grammar. I know. Get over it.]

Five Minute Friday: Good-bye Hair

{Today's 5 Minute Friday word prompt is "reflect."}

Last night, I spent quite a while looking back through photos of me over the last three years. Not because I entirely enjoy seeing myself in photos. I honestly despise a lot of them. My skin is blotchy, my weight see-saws between Hot Mama and "crap, another pair of pants I can't breathe in." And I have made a few (well....more than a few) really heinous fashion faux-pas over the years. I am frequently Ann Hathaway from The Devil Wears Prada before her Stanley Tucci makeover, sans the onion bagel.

But I was looking back through these pictures because I'm cutting my hair off today for the first time in about three years. Three years ago, my darling husband asked me to grow out my hair so he could see what it looked like long.  Because then it was really short.

So I did. I kinda wanted to see it, too.

So it grew.

And it grew.

And it grew.

Until now it is longer than my hair has ever been in my life. But you know what I discovered?

Long hair is a lot of work! At least mine is.

Five Minute Friday: INTO the Mouths of Babes

When my son Jordan was born, Herb looked at me and asked how Sarah Bernhardt and I ever had a child together. I thought maybe his mouth just looked big because the rest of him was so small. We took to calling him "Peanut" because he was tiny ... and refused to put on weight.

But the gi-normous mouth remained. It and the stuff he has put in it became the stuff of family legend.

Jordan — my "failure to thrive" baby — the one who would eat and not gain weight to the point where the doctor said instead of milk he thinks I produced cloudy water —is now an off-the-charts linebacker of a kid. He passed his older brother in height and weight about 2-3 years ago and hasn't stopped growing.

Let's look at his dietary history and see if we can figure out why...

Five Minute Friday: The Beautiful Ugly

This isn't our tree, but it's pretty darned close.

We have a cherry tree in our front yard. It's a very strange tree and is, frankly, kind of ugly. The people who lived here before us were avid gardeners, and they did some lovely things in our yard ... which we have promptly destroyed with four boys and two dogs ... or taken out to make room for baseball, swingsets, and a vegetable garden.

But this weird, ugly cherry tree remains. Apparently the previous owners tried to graft together two different types of trees. One is "upright" — meaning that the branches to up and out like most trees do — and one is "weeping" — meaning that the branches kind of droop. I don't know what was supposed to happen when you grafted together these two trees, but I'm pretty sure this ain't it.

We have half a tree that grows up, and half a tree that droops toward the ground.

The branches on one side are straight, and the branches on the other side are twisted.

Half the tree blooms white, and half the tree blooms pink. (That's a really weird sight to see.)

But then last year our little ugly cherry tree surprised us. It produced cherries.

Lest you say, "Well, duh. That's what cherry trees do," let me say that we have been in this house through 11 springs and summers, and it wasn't until last year that our weird schizophrenic tree produced cherries.

Why now? I don't know. But it show me in a very real, tangible way that something beautiful and sweet and unexpected can come out of a whole bunch of ugly.

[The term "The Beautiful Ugly" is from Ann Voskamp's book One Thousand Gifts.]