Thankful for Home, 27 November 2014

Today will be the largest dinner I've hosted yet: Including my sons and little nephews, we'll have 18 for Thanksgiving!  Two of the nephews don't have enough teeth for turkey, but I'm still roasting 33 pounds for the rest of us (12.5 lbs went through the oven yesterday; the other 20.5 get going in an hour).

This year has the extra-special added element of an overseas visit from my sister Kay's family, who we haven't seen for two years.  And the extra-extra special part of their visit is that now they have Baby C...who I've been longing to meet since his birth 10 months ago!  Kisses over video chat just aren't the same thing as mooshing on plump cheeks in person.  Today will be the first time all five cousins--my two boys, Claire's two boys, and Kay's--will be together.  This Auntie is beside herself anticipating all those fuzzy heads whooping, crawling, or drooling all over her house.  It will also be such a joy to see my Dad with his grandsons inevitably piled all over him.

But on that note, there is also inevitable sadness because my Mom isn't here to see and know her grandchildren.  G is the only one who remembers her--and it's hazy at that, since he was only three and a half years old when she died--and she never got to meet the youngest three boys.  Holidays are full of mixed emotions anyway, especially for this tradition-oriented family.  We did things basically the same way every year, from the location to the food, and it's been a slow grief process to gradually form new traditions.

Some of our traditions have remained, however--like having our big dinner at noon and enjoying leftovers and pie for supper--and since this is Kay's first American Thanksgiving in six years, we're leaning on our traditional growing-up foods, too: Turkey with from-scratch bread stuffing, Boston brown bread, steamed green beans with slivered almonds and sour cream, red garnet yams with butter, mashed potatoes and gravy, jellied cranberry sauce (no whole cranberries allowed; my mom tried to introduce that but there weren't enough takers), and six different pies.

Not that different from many other Americans' Day of Thanks fare, but these particular dishes taste like home to us siblings...and I am so thankful for home--for the loving home I grew up in, for the welcoming home I have now, and for the eternal Home my mom has already gotten to.  In some ways, no matter what the joy or sadness, with my Heavenly Father at my side I'm always home.  Wherever you are today, may you feel welcomed home too.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.

Sitting Close to Mom, 11 May 2014

Apparently, 1:00 in the afternoon on Mothers' Day is rush hour at the cemetery.  In the past thirty minutes, five families—not counting me—have come to lay flowers and balloons at the gravestones of their loved ones, their mothers and grandmothers.  Oddly enough, disproportionate to the county demographic, four of the families have been Asian, and I realized today that up until this afternoon I've only heard one other Asian woman cry.  Sonya, my dear Korean friend from church who has cried with me as we've mourned our respective losses, also happens to be the one who loaned me the beach chair I've planted myself in next to my mom's grave marker.

Today, I'm spending Mothers' Day with my mom.  Okay, technically I'm spending Mothers' Day in a chair on a grassy knoll next to a piece of rock with her name on it, under which sits an unremarkable can of precious dust, but I feel closer to her here.  Her remains (how clinical that sounds!) are buried in a little cemetery not one mile from where I grew up;  a plot of grass surrounded by non-irrigated fields browned by the sun, shaded by a cluster of old pines and flanked by a range of brown and blue mountains in the near distance.  [Eew, gross!  Did you have to hack up a spit-wad, O giggling teen visitor?  I was just starting to feel poetic.]

Mom used to love wandering through cemeteries.  I think she liked the quiet—and a mother of six certainly would—and she was fascinated by the history behind old grave stones.  She liked to wander around and see what the earliest dates were.  Honestly, it seemed kinda weird to me, although the history part of it was cool.  We weren't a family with traditions of visiting family plots, though.  I think I've been to my paternal grandfather's site once, as a child, and I'm not even sure which cemetery it's in.  I've seen the site of my maternal great-grandparents a few times, but only while attending the burials of other ancient relatives.  So it definitely feels a little out of character to have driven two hours from my home just to sit in a beach chair next to a rock.

[The other visitors have all gone and a resident killdeer couple has made peace with my presence and stopped scolding me with their plaintive calls.  I see a squirrel sunning himself on the bordering chain-link fence; a blue scrub-jay hops around under a tree while a green hummingbird hovers in front of it.  I can tune out the occasional whoosh of passing cars on the country highway, and the gentle breeze breathes peace.]

But this rock has my mom's name carved into it: Constance.  A beautiful name, full of swirls and curves, with such a soothing meaning, “constant.”  One thing's for sure: Mom was constant.  When she committed to something, she saw it through—and saw it through excellently.

• She saw six children through homeschooling from Kindergarten through high school graduation, and she was able to watch the first four graduate with degrees from universities.

• She started dating my dad at 16, married him at 19, and nourished and cherished their beautiful marriage through thin and thick, sickness and health, until her passing out of the arms of her husband into the arms of her Savior, just eight days after her 33rd wedding anniversary.

• She and my dad bought five acres of empty, wild oat-strewn land three hours from their city home, not knowing when or if they would ever build.  The next year, they decided to go for it and put their house up for sale.  They had five little children (one a newborn) and my dad didn't have a job to relocate to, but no matter!  Mom and Dad felt God wanted them to move, so they did.  Mom watched God provide for them as they designed a new home, transitioned my dad into the—surprise!—new job he'd gotten, while she homeschooled three of the five kids and carried a sixth in her womb.  Over the next two decades, she spearheaded landscaping, gardening, sheep-raising, treehouse building, orchard planting, wallpapering, home library collecting, fruit canning (and even a foray into meat canning and food stockpiling before the threatening approach of Y2K), the occasional needlepoint, and so many other projects.

• She played organ, her instrument of choice, for countless church services, playing with tenderness and passion.  Receiving her Master's degree in music at the age of 45 (a year before I got my Bachelor's in music), she took great joy and care in choosing music and playing it with love and skill.  She had many disparaging things to say about electric organs, reed organs, and organs played all “mushy” with tremolo.  She liked crisp, clean, open, beautiful sound.  One of her greatest joys was trying out pipe organs in historical churches.

• While my youngest four siblings were still in high school, Mom and Dad bought a mountain lot and designed and built a beautiful rustic-looking home as a rental investment.  For months, Mom scoured city thrift stores and yard sales for furniture and decor to fill each of the mountain home's eight or so rooms.  Books, paintings on rough-hewn boards, distressed-wood chairs and dressers, quaint bed posts, fishing poles, even a little pump organ--every detail needed to outfit the rental home with care and style.  Oh, and did I mention that these were the first years she was undergoing intensive care for her newly-diagnosed polymyositis?  Talk about dedication.

Her canned peaches were always colorful and the right sweetness to tart ratio.  Her landscaping design was always a wonderful balance between the manicured and the barely-tamed.  Her interior decorating was always homey and welcoming.  Her music was always well thought-out.  Her children were well-educated and her husband well-loved and her whole life well-lived.  Yes, my mom was constant.

And I constantly miss her.

So being at this middle-of-nowhere cemetery surrounded by granite signs of people's losses, I sit, feeling close to Mom.  And isn't it the height of irony and beauty that the scolding killdeer has made her nest on a grave marker?  Level with the ground, in an unremarkable can empty of decoration, she sits on four speckled eggs, waiting for life to hatch out.  I’m sitting near a grave right now, too.  How long am I going to sit next to the dead, waiting for new life and joy to “hatch” in my life?  I don't know.

But I do know that today I needed to sit.  To warm myself with memories of Mom and care for my fragile heart by letting the calm of the countryside caress me.  I can be like the killdeer.  I can sit, and I can tend the nest of my heart, and I can wait for joy and breaths hungry for life to hatch.

It's coming.

Letter to Mom, 05 January 2014

Dear Mom,

It sure would be nice to be able to talk to you on the phone today!  I really identify with you when I'm involved in leading a worship service.  I think I learned a whole lot about working in a church from observing your many years as a church pianist and organist.

For example, I rarely recall seeing you flustered.  Focused, yes, and sometimes a little tense while getting ready in the morning, but you maintained an inner calm and composure.  Watching you taught me about preparing my outer appearance, too.  You always took the time to style your hair (thankfully I don't need curlers), carefully apply your eye makeup, and dress in attractive but unassuming clothing.  Sometimes I watched you get ready, and my favorite part was waiting to see which earrings you'd choose.  This morning, I thought carefully about my earrings, makeup, hair, and outfit too!  :-)

Watching you showed me what being friendly to the other church attenders can look like.  You'd smile widely whenever anyone approached you--and you had delightful ways of responding to people's various comments.  I got to use your "make a joke when someone pays you a compliment you're not sure how to absorb" method this morning.  After the service, an older gentlemen came up to me and said it felt like I'd been part of the church for years.  I smiled widely and said, "Are you saying I aged during the service?"  We got a good chuckle out of that.

You had gracious smiles during each Sunday service, even if you didn't always agree with what someone said or did.  I remember this sort of close-lipped smile you'd get; it wasn't unpleasant-looking or dismissive--it said, "I don't agree with that but I'm not going to say so right now."  I have my own version of that smile, often accompanied by me saying, "Oh, okay," or, "I'm glad you told me that."

You wanted things to be done excellently on Sundays (and always, really), on the part of the leaders and the congregation, both.  Any time there's a "clapping" song in which there's some discrepancy with people clapping on or off the beat, I remember a time you were seated off the stage with us, and apparently, the majority of the people were clapping on the wrong beats.  You boldly clapped loudly throughout the whole song on the "right" beats...with a smile!

When this morning's service finished, the first thing I thought about when I got into my car was, "What am I going to make for lunch?  I'm tired."  How you and Dad put wholesome, large meals on the table every Sunday afternoon is beyond me.  (Thankfully, Jay took the boys to get soups from a deli today, so I was off the hook!)  Sometimes, especially after you got polymiositis, you were too tired to even eat when you got home, so you'd go straight up to bed for a nap.  While I am thankfully in good health, I did still need a nap today--but I took it after lunch.

Thank you for all this--and so much more--that you taught me by example.  I'm sure you'd be proud of the way I'm using my musical and interpersonal skills during this season of my life.  I sure wish you were here to see it; but then again, if you were here, you'd be busy in your church on Sunday mornings and wouldn't ever get to see me in action!  And maybe you can see me now...from the Heavenly organ bench you sit on.  I love you.

Love,
Rachel

Getting My Mind into the Gutter, 19 August 2013

Today, the two most unusual things I did were attending a free cardio workout at--wait for it--the public library, and installing rain gutters inside my house.

Being that I'm new to Pinterest, before last week I'd never heard of using rain gutters as bookshelves.  (What, did you think my ceilings leaked or something?)  Apparently, quite a number of people--including at least four of my friends (who should invite me over to their homes more often so that I can observe their creative organization) and my grandpa, of all people--have installed these cool shelves.  But how many people do you know of who get sweaty at their local library?

Maybe there's a Pinterest board for county libraries around the nation who offer fitness classes, but I haven't spent time looking for it.  At any rate, I never expected to encounter an activity that involved blaring music, sweaty people, and a complete lack of reading at our local library.  Truthfully, I don't think many of the library patrons expected it either.  Have you ever browsed audio books or walked out library doors while beet-red and soaked with sweat?

Maybe don't answer that.  Suffice it to say, I got quite a few glances from fellow library-goers who didn't seem to have read the class notice on the front doors.  There were a couple young guys sitting at a table near the stacks I was looking at afterward, and given that they didn't converse with each other exclusively in English, I can only wonder what they might have been saying.  Or maybe my mind's in the gutter.

Speaking of gutters, back to the other unusual thing about my day.  First, a snapshot of how my kids' bedroom looks most of the time.

See those books all over the floor?  And see that cabinet on the left?  Well, the books are supposed to go in that cabinet.  But do they?  Clearly not.  It takes some amount of skill to neatly put books away spine-first, and that is a skill my children do not possess.

So last week I started a hunt for a solution.  My thought was to have shelves in which the books could face forward, making it a snap to put them away and making it easier to find specific stories, to boot.  My first thought was to buy the kids something like this:

But Jay didn't think this was the best $200 use of their bedroom floor space, so I next dove into the world of Pinterest.  I found some beautiful, relatively-simple, floating wood bookshelves that had straightforward instructions.  My dad--a highly-accomplished woodcrafter--looked at the design, gave me some tips for improvement, explained what "counter-sinking" is, suggested what wood I use, and promised to loan me his hand-held electric sander.  

Paint or stain?  This was the last detail to decide and I posited the question to my wealth of Facebook friends.  "Vinyl rain gutters," was the most common answer.  Huh?

Back to Pinterest!  There was no lack of pins on the topic, so after sifting through photos and how-tos, I concluded that the gutters were, in fact, the best option for us.  (Sorry to disappoint you, Dad.  But rain gutters don't need sanding, painting, C-clamps, or counter-sinking, so...yeah.)

After four trips to hardware stores, $60 of materials, five wrongly-drilled holes, more beeps from a stud-finder than I care to remember, a few tense moments between wife/husband and parent/children, and a whole lot of elbow grease, this is what we accomplished!

View from the bedroom door

View toward the bedroom door

Not pictured here are the two additional shelves we put up by the boys' bunkbed; each kid got a 5-foot shelf above his mattress.  If I had waited to post about this until another day, I could have photographed those shelves too, but by the time I was taking pictures of the finished project tonight, the boys were sprawled on their beds in pajamas.  They were looking at books!

In the event you feel inspired to do something like this in your house, here's what we did.  (These instructions are based on using on-top brackets; I wanted to use underneath ones, but the gutter brand I chose didn't have them.)  Someone from Pinterest or a legit home-decorating blog would have step-by-step photos of this process, but I'll throw in some pics of materials and several handy tips for you.

• For six 5-foot shelves, I bought three 10-foot lengths of vinyl gutters at our local home improvement store.
• Tip: Try and sweet-talk a store associate into sawing the lengths in half for you.

Pretty, right?

• I also bought left- and right-endcap pairs for each shelf, plus two brackets per shelf.
• Tip: Before you sweet-talk the store associate into sawing the gutters and before you leave the store with a bag of brackets, make sure the brackets you're buying match the shape of the gutters.  Who knew there isn't a vinyl rain gutter standard?



Don't forget to get left and right endcaps.



I don't know why they picture this bracket on its side.

• Decide on the height of the lowest shelf and mark the wall studs nearest each end of where the gutter will go.

• Tip: Try to keep your children's beepy use of the stud-finder to a minimum.
• Slide the brackets onto the gutter (no endcaps yet, assuming they'll snap on easily-enough post-gutter installation), positioning them at the studs you've chosen.  Set a level inside the trough and mark the brackets' screw holes on the wall with a pencil.
• Tip: Having a second adult to help with holding one end of the gutter while you're leveling would be helpful, but if no other adults are available, a 6-year old does a fairly good job.
• Put the gutter down and drill a smallish hole into the studs at the places you've marked.
• Tip: If you aren't sure which size drill bit to use, ask a second, helpful adult.
• Hold the gutter back up, matching the brackets' holes to the ones you've just drilled, call your 6-year old back over to help hold up one end, and screw one bracket into the wall.
• Tip: If you aren't strong enough to get the screw all the way in, that's okay; just get it in as far as you can and wait for a stronger, second adult to get home from work.
• Screw the second bracket into the other stud.
• Put on the endcaps (6-year olds are good at that).
• Mark another stud or two between the two brackets you installed.
• Slide the gutter into its final left-right position (if it shifted during bracket screw-in).
• Drill a hole and then add a screw directly through the back wall of the gutter into a stud you marked.
• Tip: Because of stud spacing and the length of our gutters, we had a bracket at one end, a bracket about 6 inches in from the other end, and one screw in a stud between.  After being filled with books, it has held up to the weight just fine--at least for the three hours it's been on the wall.
• Grab your tallest book and figure out how much space you want between the higher shelves (accounting for room to pull the book in and out).
• Repeat!

If you are of Pinterest ilk, have the space, or just feel more creative than I did, you could buy connecting gutter pieces and wrap the shelves around corners, which looks pretty cool (but watch out; it's all the little pieces that add up the $$).

And there you have the story of the two most unusual aspects of my day.  I can't vouch for how my muscles are going to feel when I wake up tomorrow, but I sure look forward to walking into the kids' bedroom...without stepping on a single book.

The Eighth, Year Three, 08 April 2013

Today marks year three of Mom's Heavenly homegoing.  I miss her.  Like crazy.  Within just the past few months, I've started dreaming about her on occasion, and we sit together and she hugs me.  It feels so good.

The past two years, as many of us as were available got together to spend the day with each other.  This year, The Eighth came on a Monday, which makes it awkward for out-of-towners to travel around.  So I marked the day in a number of ways.

Yesterday afternoon, G, Z, and I drove to pick up my one-year-old nephew, Baby K, from Claire and Bernie (my sister and bro-in-law), who were badly in need of some adult time.  It was our first time having a slumber party with Baby K, and we had a blast!  It was fun to watch him play with the many Duplos we have, all of which were gifts from my parents.  I enjoyed thinking about how even though my mom isn't here to watch Baby K play, he is still getting to participate in gifts she gave her grandsons.

Early this morning--5:30--I woke up with The Eighth heavy on my heart.  Instead of fitfully trying to sleep longer, I got up and looked at photos of my mom.

This is one of my very favorite pictures of Mom and me.  (You can tell I'm a girl by the ruffles on my shirt.  Hair doesn't run in our family.)  She taught us that the best part of baking was licking the beaters.  Salmonella shmalmonella!

Z got up a little later and cuddled with me under the quilt Mom made for me after Jay and I were married.  She made the same pattern for every single one of us, but we each got to shop with her and pick our own fabrics.  I love the memory of being with Mom at my local fabric store.

Kind of ironic in retrospect that Mom's not in the picture!  From left to right: Claire and Bernie, me and Jay, Carl, Dad, Kay, Essie, and Em.  (Dad's quilt was made from scraps of ours.)

After I fed little boys breakfast and sent G off to school, Claire arrived at our house and she and I jetted out for a pedicure while Z and B.K. played with Grammy G (it's an alphabet soup of names, really).  When we got back, the four of us had lunch together and spent some time outside; Claire and Z played baseball and I sat with B.K. on the grass while he spun wheels on some trucks.

After rests all-round, Claire and B.K. went home and I made dinner.  Mundane, perhaps, but even the simple act of feeding my family is a connection I have with Mom.  She was my first cooking teacher.  (And aside from experience, my only teacher, actually!)

Jay took the kids to play at a park after we ate, and I "puttered," as Mom would say, around the house, doing little chores.  Then, I sat down at the piano.  Mom's piano.  And I played for an hour.  Brahms, Schubert, Bach, Clementi, Chopin--all music Mom taught me to love.  Growing up, I listened to her play the piano; I listened to the records and CDs she put on; my fingers learned to feel keys and follow music under her instruction.  Mom was not my only piano teacher (in truth, I whined too much under her tutelage), but she was my first.  My first piano duets were with her.  The first songs I sang were accompanied by her.

I had hoped to sing/play with her for years to come, but I am so grateful for the memories I have and the lessons she taught me--

Love God, love your husband, love your children, love your family, love your neighbor, love music.

Thank you, Mom, and I love you.  Save me a spot by the piano bench in your Heavenly mansion!

Doin' Good, 10 March 2013

Today before church, at three separate moments, people asked how I was doing and I answered cheerfully, "Good!"  They looked visibly surprised, tilting their heads slightly and raising their eyebrows.  Ha.  It seems people have gotten used to me answering "Okay," or "Today's a hard day," or "That's a complicated question."  And for good reason!

But today I really am doin' good (or "doing well," for those of you who appreciate non-colloquially-correct grammar).  The sun is shining, my wedding-to-funeral ratio for this calendar year is 2-1, and I've spent some wonderful time this week out in nature.

The first nature trek was another snow day, but this time my dad joined us.  When I was young, my family would do at least one snow day every winter, and my dad's the one who taught us how to dress and play to avoid cold, wet, and misery.  This past Friday was the first time I'd been to the snow with my dad for about a decade, and it was my kids' very first time going with him!

We had a blast playing, and my heart filled up with happyjuice seeing the snow-laden foliage, hearing the patter of falling snow off trees, and feeling the soft scrunch of drifts under my boots.

Plus, my kids are adorable in snow hats.  (So is my dad, in his own manly way.)

Hey, how come I don't get to ride?

Will G fly off the edge of the cliff?  No, Grandpa will catch him.  And hit him with a giant snowball at the same time.

The drive itself to and from the mountains was absolutely gorgeous, now that the grasses are green and orchards are beginning to bloom.  We got home at around 4 in the afternoon, long enough for me to throw dinner together, throw snow clothes in the laundry, and let Grandpa and the kids recover from the exertion of throwing snowballs.  My dad drove back to his house after dinner, and I'm pretty sure he slept loooong and hard that night.

The next day, Saturday, Jay and the kids and I had a leisurely morning capped off by Jay taking the boys out to do lunch and some errands, leaving me--drum roll please--all alone!!!

I considered pulling weeds, shoe shopping, writing letters, and sleeping, but in the end decided on taking a drive into the hills by myself and having a prayer/nature walk.  I checked on a map some side-roads I'd noticed on our way to the snow, and discovered there was an intriguing little road in the hills leading to a reservoir.

A sack lunch went into my backpack, an uplifting playlist came out of my iPod, and I was off.  

Just beginning the rise up from the valley, a line of cows graze along creek bluffs.

The stream and the glowing grass both sparkle.

After a glorious hour of driving (the last 5 miles of which were on a barely-paved one-lane road), I pulled off the road and walked the rest of the way to the reservoir, snapping pictures and praying as I went.  Perhaps beauty in nature doesn't affect everyone this way, but my heart feels so much closer to God, so much more receptive to the reality of His love and care, when I am surrounded by beautiful things He's created.

A barely-paved road of adventure...

...shared only by this group of cyclists and the rare SUV.  The valley floor is visible at the horizon.

This outcropping of rocks near my parking spot made a perfect high point for finding cell signal.

They were fun to climb!

View of the road from the top of the outcropping.

Birds must love having a roof like this!

When I pulled off the road, I actually didn't know how far it was to the reservoir; I hadn't looked that closely at the map.  But I quit driving because my eye was on the gas tank indicator, and I didn't feel like adding the "adventure" of running out of gas to my day.  So I decided to walk for as long as I wanted to, enjoying the views around me without being preoccupied by any particular destination.

A trickle of a stream runs through the bottom of this little gorge.

The micro-landscapes are amazing too!  These lichens and mosses are growing on a huge granite boulder.

Wild blackberries swallow everything in their path.

A gate: To keep cows inside or cyclists out?

After about 30 minutes of walking and taking pictures, a pickup hauling a dripping boat drove passed me, suggesting to me that I was not far from the reservoir.  Sure enough, ten more minutes of walking brought me suddenly into wide-open, windy spaces, with the lake's little white-capped waves lapping at the shore.

I'm guessing the brownish color is due to a stirring-up by recent storms.

A great view for cleaning fish, if you're into that kind of thing!

Even though the walk back was a return by the same road, the scenery looked a little different going the other direction.  And it took my breath away to find gaps in the trees that revealed valley views I'd had my back to before.

Can you make out that very faint, thin blue line at the top of the valley's green horizon? Those are the hills all the way on the other side of the valley.  Thrilling!

It's been fun to share these photographs from my adventure with you!  I'm sure those of you who are still locked in snowscapes will appreciate the greens; and maybe this can be a reminder for the rest of us to get outside and enjoy them.  :-)