Going Home

I love taking trips, love staying in new places, love seeing new - and old rarely seen - things, love seeing people I haven't seen in a long time. When I leave home, I'm counting the days and hope they last, hope they don't pass too quickly, wish I had more days before I even get started.

But by the time the end comes, I'm counting the hours till time to go home, and I'm just ready to be there. That's where I've been since yesterday. Just ready to go, ready to have it over. My friends wanted to spend the last night together, go to a coffee shop to talk, then go home and sit up late and talk. I just wanted to get my suitcase ready and go to bed. I felt bad, but the last night is not a good last minute hurrah for me.
So here it is. Today is the day.
Home. I'll be home tonight. I'm coming back home.

The Language of Love Out of the Mouth of Babes (Written August 28, 2010)

My grandson Chase is four and at that wonderfully precious age in which he still believes everything I say and thinks I know everything, but sometimes the things he remembers amaze me.

At the dinner table the other day, he was asking 
questions about how Jesus could be everywhere 
and how Jesus could be God's Son - you know: the 
kind of question we try to answer and realize that 
even adult minds can't fathom the depth of these 
concepts. Maybe that's the trouble. Maybe we try 
to understand with the "wisdom" of  our adult 
minds. Never mind that the Bible tells us to "lean 
not to your own understanding," to come as a little 
child, and that our minds are not able to conceive 
His thoughts. So, we plunge right on in and talk 
ourselves into a hole deep enough that even we 
can't see our way out of...and then the child solves 
the whole problem for us with his simple faith and 
acceptance.
In the middle of my struggle, Chase says, "I know 
God is like an egg."
"What do you mean?" I ask. (I've used this analogy 
before, but what does Chase know about it?) 
"Well, there's three parts to an egg. The yellow part 
inside is really squishy, and the other part in there, 
and the white part outside is really, really hard. So, 
an egg has three parts, and God does, too. There's 
three parts to God!" Chase holds up three fingers 
with a grin that says this makes perfect sense to 
him.
"Where did you hear that?" I asked in surprise.
"YOU told me!" 

Chase loves super heroes, so this idea that God can 
be everywhere is very intriguing to him. It comes 
up often in conversations.
"But how can Jesus be everywhere if we can't see 
him?"
I use the air as an analogy (I should do really well 
on the Miller's Analogy Test after these weeks with 
Chase) to show how God's Spirit can be everywhere 
and not be seen. We can't see the air, but we can 
feel the wind, we can see the leaves moving as the 
air blows them, we can breathe it in and blow it 
out, and we can feel it if we swish our hands back 
and forth through it. We can't see it, but we can 
tell it's really there.
Two days later, Chase sneezes, then grins and says, 
"I just sneezed on Jesus."
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"You said He is everywhere like the air." 

We are lying in his bed after singing some "Jesus" 
songs. He says, "I love Jesus, too."
I told him that when I was a little girl, I used to 
pretend that Jesus was my friend and came to my 
house and went everywhere with me. I would sit 
next to an empty chair and pretend Jesus was 
sitting next to me.
"Why did you do that?," Chase asked. "You didn't 
have to pretend. Jesus really is everywhere you go, 
and He really is your friend."

The topic of Jesus dying on the cross always comes 
up, and it's so hard to explain to a child. Who 
killed him and why? Why did He have to die? 
What does it mean that He died for us? What does 
it mean that He paid for our sins? What are sins? 
When you want a child to love the Bible and grow 
to love the Lord, it's a difficult and somewhat 
scary thing to explain. But how do you separate 
Jesus from that one event when that's the reason 
He came to earth? So, it comes up, and you try to 
explain it as delicately as you can.
We are playing the game "Apples to Apples" in 
which you choose the card in your hand that best 
represents the idea on the judge's card. In this 
round, the judge's card is "dangerous." Chase has 5 
cards in his hand, and I'm helping him decide 
which one is the best example of dangerous. It's 
between 2 cards: "pounding nails" and "lightning". 
Chase says pounding nails is dangerous, and I 
agree, but I point out lightning and tell him that it 
can start fires or even kill a person. I say I think 
that is more dangerous than pounding nails.
"But," Chase says indignantly, stretching his arms 
out from his sides with his palms facing forward, 
"the Bible says they pounded nails in Jesus' hands, 
and he DIED, and THAT'S dangerous!"
Chase won that round.


One night we read a book about going to the 
doctor, and it showed simple illustrations of the 
different organ systems in the body. We talked 
about how we breathe air into our lungs and how 
the heart pumps blood all over our bodies so that 
all the different parts of the body can get oxygen. 
I pointed out on his chest where his lungs and 
heart are.
I have also told Chase that he has a special place 
in my heart that no one else has, that he is the 
only one who can fill it. 
A couple of nights ago after reading three books 
and singing several songs, Chase said, "I love 
you so much," and hugged me. That was enough. 
He could have stopped right there, and I would 
have basked in the light of that simple gesture 
for days, but he had more to say. He sat up with 
a very serious face.
"Gramma Debbie, if you get killed, all the blood 
will go out of my heart. If you die, this side 
(pointing to one side of his chest) will be empty, 
and this side will be full, and my heart won't be 
full anymore, and I'll miss you really bad."
Then he put his head down on my chest and 
snuggled close and hugged me, and I held him 
close, not daring to move or say a word or even 
breathe, because I was afraid the dam would 
break. The tears streaming down my face and 
the huge lump in my throat told me there was 
already a crack in the wall.

How many people go through their entire lives 
without ever being loved like this?

Go get a tissue. That's all I've got for now.

Language
(I actually wrote this on August 21, 2010 when my grandson Chase from Arizona was spending 3 weeks with us.)

Chase loved Puff. We drew a picture of Puff and hung it on the wall.

Chase knew this book and song by heart by the end of his visit with Gramma Debbie

Tonight I read Puff the Magic Dragon to my 4-year-old grandson for the third night in a row, and I couldn't help but think of Joshua.

Joshua was a child I worked with who could not speak at 3 1/2 years old. He uttered sounds, but you couldn't understand him, and what little he did say was in one- or two-word sentences. His parents were uneducated; his father dropped out of school as soon as he could get away with it. He had had reading difficulties his whole life. The mother had not graduated either, but I'm not entirely sure that lack of education was the sole culprit. The parents were so consumed with themselves that the child was left to fend for himself with little to no verbal interaction except for the times he was yelled at by the father or cried to by the mother. Even educated people can be consumed with themselves, so I think this self-absorption was more the problem than lack of education. The father was a truck driver and was gone as much as he could be. The mother smoked and watched videos or played video games all day. There was not a book in the house. Literally. Toys were broken or pieces were lost as soon as they were bought. There was no value placed on anything except for cigarettes, TVs, DVD players, and video game equipment.

Joshua's grandmother asked me to work with him, and I fell in love with him the first day. He was so eager to learn and just as eager to please. He soaked up everything we did. We made tea together, and, after the first time, he wanted to do it himself. He would pour the tea from the teapot and carry the cups to the table. We would drink our tea while I read to him or talked to him or had him imitate sounds and mouth shapes I made. I had him look in the mirror to see the shape of his mouth and placement of his tongue. Little by little he began to talk. I would break words into parts for him and have him repeat each syllable after me until he could say them clearly. Then I would help him put the syllables together into a word.

I made some very interesting observations as he began to put words together. He was only 3 1/2 and did not yet recognize the letters of the alphabet, much less know their sounds, but he would transpose sounds of letters within words. The best example would be the word "turkey". It was November, and we were talking about Thanksgiving. I tried to help him say turkey by having him say one syllable at a time. I said, "Say 'turrr...'," and he repeated, "turrr...". Then I would say, "Now say 'key'," and he would repeat, "key." Then I would ask him to put it together to say "turrr-key". Even at this point, he would usually say, "turrr-key", but as soon as I said, "Now say 'turkey'," he would respond with "kut-tee" every time. It never failed. He did finally learn to say turkey. I don't know when it actually happened, but it was months or even a year or more before he got it right.

Another observation was Joshua's obsessive-compulsive behavior. He thrived in an organized, disciplined structure. He loved to see his things carefully organized on his shelves in my playroom. Everything he picked up was put into some kind of order. It was clear that he was trying to bring some order to his chaotic little world. In his home, there was no order whatsoever. He didn't even know who would be his mama from one day to the next. He never knew who would be there with him or if they would stay for long. With worries like these taking up most of his mind, no wonder the child neglected the development of speech. I knew he felt safe and secure at my house.  He knew we would be there in that house whenever he came, and he knew his things would be in "his" room on his shelves. He called me "my Debbie" and said that he had two houses - mine and the one he lived in with his daddy - and sometimes his mama. He could relax at my house and take time to learn, and he discovered he loved learning.

Tonight as I read to Chase, I thought about all the words he had learned from that one book. He stopped me at each new word and continued to question me until he was sure he knew what it meant and how to use it himself. He loved the sound of the word "frolic" and said he loved to "frolic". We stopped and read a book about seasons so he could understand "autumn". We talked about what clothes you would wear and how hot or cold it would be in each season. Having lived most of his life in Arizona, he had no idea of what the word "mist" meant, and, since it was summer when he was visiting me in Georgia, and we were having thunderstorms with fat heavy raindrops and afternoon showers with light sprinkling rain, I had no examples to give him at the time. I made a mental note to steam up the bathroom so he could experience mist. When Puff "ceased his mighty roar", Chase laughed and said he could tell his Mama he would cease when she told him to stop doing something. He asked what the "sea" was, and, since we had been to the beach on Tybee Island, I was able to give him a clear picture of a large body of water. When I explained that a rascal was someone who loved to play and laugh and play jokes on people, he laughed and said, "like me!" Then he immediately started one of his nonsensical "knock-knock" jokes that he makes up as he goes along and finds so hilarious. We have been reading this book every night for the past 3 nights, so earlier today, I lit a candle and showed him how the wax melted and how it could be used to seal papers because it is sticky.

You get the idea. From that one book, Chase has expanded his vocabulary and experiences tenfold. We have had 3 nights of lengthy conversations, not to mention related things we've talked about during the day.

I spent about 4 years reading to Joshua trying to help him catch up, and he did. He was in the top reading group in kindergarten (reading groups in kindergarten - that's another whole topic). But will he ever have the vocabulary Chase has? Will he score high enough on vocabulary sections of tests like the SAT in order to compete with students who were read to as infants and lived in language-rich homes?

I don't have the answers to those questions yet. Only time will tell. After all the work we've done, Joshua is back in a home where reading, discipline, and organization are not valued. I hope some of what he learned from his grandmother and me took root and will help him rise above what he's offered now to become who he was meant to be. Somehow, I think it will. I think so because he loved what we offered him.

As for Chase...I think I'll go steam up the bathroom for that mist. Then we'll make tea.

A New Kind of Christmas

December 2012

We're not having Christmas at our house this year. And not because we're traveling to Arizona to spend Christmas with Cody and his family. No, they moved back a year and a half ago, and we started the tradition of going to their house bright and early to watch the kids open their gifts. Then we had Christmas dinner here.

It just hit me that I haven't had Christmas on Christmas Day with Ryan in three years. Year before last, Lindy and I were going to Arizona to spend Christmas with Cody's family, so we had Christmas with Ryan and Heather before we left. Last year, Ryan and Heather went to NYC for Christmas, so, again, we had Christmas early with them. Cody and Kourtney had moved home that summer, so we were all together that night. It was a good night.

This summer, Kourtney's mother moved here from Vermont, and Cody and Kourtney moved into a larger house. Kourtney is excited because she has room for everybody - our family, her family, and the grandmothers, so we are all going there Christmas morning to open gifts and then to spend the day and have a late afternoon Christmas dinner. Her house is perfect for it. Plenty of room for the kids to play and for the adults to sit and talk. I'm excited for her, and it's going to be great to have everybody together for Christmas.

But suddenly I'm feeling the void of nobody coming here for Christmas. I don't know that they'll even see my tree with all the presents under it which they aren't yet because I haven't had the motivation to finish my decorating or wrapping. I keep thinking what's the point? Kourtney has family in town, so I probably won't have the grandkids spend the night at all over the holidays. I was looking forward to having them and had planned all kinds of Christmas fun projects with them. I just hadn't thought ahead enough to realize they wouldn't be here.

I'm not upset that I can't have them. I see them all the time during the year, and Kourtney's family doesn't, so when they are here, I back out for a while to give them time to enjoy the kids. That's their time which I understand, being a Gramma myself. I just didn't think about it meaning I wouldn't have them at my house at all during the holidays. I understand, but that doesn't mean I don't feel a little sad.

So, I realize we are entering into another new phase of our lives. This is the beginning of even more changes at a time in my life when I thought most of the big changes were pretty much over. My kids are grown and having families of their own, and their wives have families of their own, too. So everybody gets spread a little thinner, it seems. Our family traditions will be exchanged with new traditions the kids build with their wives and children and blended with the traditions of their extended families. Things won't look the same anymore. My tree may not be the one we gather around anymore. My kitchen may not smell like turkey and dressing and broccoli casserole anymore. We may not have our traditional breakfast casserole anymore. And, unfortunately, that saddens me. And you're not supposed to feel sad at Christmas.

So, what do I do with this change? I could whine and complain and make the kids feel guilty and defensive, but what good does that do? That does nothing to spread Christmas joy. And that's what I want. Christmas joy. And I want everybody else to have it, too. So, I have to find ways to find joy in my new kind of Christmas. A quieter, less busy house. Time. What can I do with those? I need a plan. I need to be proactive or I'll end up doing nothing and wallowing in my sadness, and, after last week's shootings in Newtown, CT, I've felt enough of that for a lifetime, it seems.

You know, it's good that I thought of those families. I still have all of my kids and grandkids. I haven't lost anybody forever. There's not a void that will never again be filled in my life the way there is in the hearts of those parents in Newtown. They have a much harder task ahead of them in finding a new way to live their entire lives. I just need to find new ways to enjoy the Christmas holidays.

I complain that I don't have time for painting and drawing, for reading, for writing, for journaling, for photography, for all those quiet, non-busy activities that give me time for reflection and introspection and relaxation. All those things the holidays are not usually known for. Lindy and I have done precious little alone together since our grandkids moved back to town. This is the perfect time for us to do some fun things, romantic things, quiet and comfortable things together.

Ok, here's my plan:
1. Spend time with Lindy. Use those movie passes that expire the end of December. See "Lincoln" and some of the new movies that will come out for Christmas. Look for other local holiday activities to do together. Snuggle on the couch and watch our Christmas gift to each other - the new Smart TV.
2. Visit family. What happened to those old days when the whole family loaded up on Sunday afternoon and went for a "Sunday ride"? Visit Mama and Mrs. Moore. They would be thrilled (and I'm growing to understand that more every year.)
3. Write. I have wanted to blog regularly and haven't found the time. Guess what? Now I have it. And I guess I just started. Poetry - Finish that poem I started for Aiden, frame it, and hang it next to Chase's in their room.
4. Journal. Which will overlap with blogging, actually.
5. Paint and draw!! I haven't painted since summer. I have so many ideas of things I want to paint or draw, so many started projects. Pick TWO and finish them. Don't get bogged down and overwhelmed by trying to do all of them right now. Relax and enjoy it! Let it be the therapy it is designed to be.
6. Collage! I love collaging. Start collaging all those pictures that have been collecting for years. Scrapbook some, too, if I feel like it, but don't worry about making it look like Bethanie Henry's scrapbooks.
7. Photograph! Put down the phone camera and get out the Canon and take some good professional pictures. What better season that now to do that?
8. Do as many of those Christmas crafts as I want to. Even if it's New Year's Day. Even if I don't use them this year, I can use them next year. Or I can give them away. It's the creative fun and therapy that is what counts.
9. Read. I've got such a stack of unfinished books and ebooks that I have plenty to choose from. Or dig out my old book of Christmas mini-novels and read those again. I never get tired of that book.
10. Work on that book of photos and poems I'm supposed to be writing.
11. Curl up on the couch and watch movies.

I won't promise that I won't feel sad or lonely at times during these quiet holidays, but I will promise that I'm going to try really hard not to make other people miserable by whining about the changes life throws at us or by demanding that things stay the same. (What happened to the Debbie who LOVED changed, who hated the boredom of sameness???? I guess that was when I took it for granted that my family would always be with me during those changes.) I'm going to ask myself often, "What's more important - traditional breakfast casserole or having a wonderful loving family which includes a husband who is the love of my life, two sons who have always made my heart soar with love, pride, and laughter, a daughter-in-law and a future daughter-in-law who love my sons with all their hearts and whom I love with all of mine, THE two most loving and dream-fulfilling grandsons in the world and the promise of more little arms to wrap around my neck when Ryan and Heather marry, our 85 year old mothers still with us and living active, independent lives, and the added value of the extended family my sons' families bring to our tables?

And besides all of that - an even more importantly - I have the joy and peace of knowing that these holidays celebrate the birth of a baby in a manger long ago, a tiny baby who was born to be my Savior. Man! Just think of the changes that took place in Joseph and Mary's lives!!

When I look at it that way, I realize how extremely blessed I really am.