Birthday thoughts for every day

Yesterday was my birthday.

As far as birthdays go, the day started out pretty uneventful.  No balloons, no party, no cake and ice cream. 

Seeing as I am one year away from entering a new decade, I don’t make a big deal out of my birthday any more and I just don’t need that kind of birthday hoopla.  For me, it’s just another day in the life, turning one year older and hopefully, wiser.

Now a real day for celebratory mode happened last month when Mother’s Day rolled around on the calendar.  Mother’s Day is special to me because I am the mom of three grown children,  a mom-in-law to three more special people, and I remember with love and fondness my own mother and mother-in-law who are no longer with us.

This year, Mother’s Day proved a true celebration because all three of my offspring and their spouses traveled all those many miles that keep us apart to come home to our house for that weekend. This blessed me immeasurably because it was their idea to all converge on the home place.

Mama’s Empty Nest was a full house once again.  Full of those I love.  Full of happiness.  Full of laughter.  Full of conversations.  Full of noise!  Full of fun and good food and the joy of being together as a family.

As each couple arrived, my joy-meter soared and it continued that way through the entire Mother’s Day weekend.  Eloquently written, meaningful cards and a perky springtime bouquet of flowers were bestowed upon me and while, the gifts are lovely, the family time spent together means so much more.  

Conversation…

laughter…

fun & games…

made a very special Mother’s Day weekend!

That weekend was just full of happy, happy, happy.  Chats on the couch, stories shared, and friendly competition while bonding over video games, which  previously laid unused and forgotten,  proved to be highlights of our weekend.  That and remote control helicopters flying around the family room!

Sunday brought a full pew end to end at church with all eight of us squeezed in together for worship.  We enjoyed a sumptuous brunch afterwards and one by one, each couple climbed back in their vehicles for their long drives back to their lives elsewhere. 

With that under my belt, you can understand why my birthday wasn’t a big deal.  My family had just been here a few weeks earlier.   So I expected a quiet, uneventful birthday and that’s what I received.

But oh,  there were still blessings poured into my quiet day.  My near-by sister treated me to lunch after church.  My far-away sister phoned me to sing Happy Birthday greetings.   

One my one, my children and spouses called to tell me they loved me and wish me a happy day.  My dear 96-year-old friend also telephoned me with birthday wishes. 

My personal Facebook page blew up with happy greetings and well wishes.  And hubby and I spent a nice peaceful day at home on a beautiful summer-like day just like I love – sunny but not hot with a cooling breeze wafting through.

So it really wasn’t uneventful after all because I felt loved and cared for, content and happy to spend a little time conversing with the ones I love and being remembered.  Isn’t that how every day should be spent?

And that made me think how many people exist that not only don’t get many birthday celebrations,  they don’t feel loved or that their lives even matter to anyone every day.   For whatever reason, their days are spent in loneliness or regret or illness or unhappiness.  And that reminded me how blessed I truly am and that I must do my part to bless and encourage others whose lives I might touch.

Today is June 3.  It’s one day after my birthday.  When I positioned myself at my desk this morning at work, I turned over the leaves on my daily desk calendar on which are printed many of the quotes and scriptures I love. 

As I did that, I stopped to read what was transcribed on the date of my birthday. This is the quotation I read from Stephen Grellet, Quaker missionary:  “I expect to pass through the world but once.  Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow human being, let me do it now.  Let me not defer not neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

Those words written long ago transformed themselves into a message just for me, a message deemed to be an excellent way to commence the first day of another year of life.  I pray I remember the message each and every day.

©2013 mamasemptynest.wordpress.com

 

One of the best gifts

Sister with her bride doll way back then

“You keep your past by having sisters.  As you get older, they’re the only ones who don’t get bored if you talk about your memories.”  ~Deborah Moggach

Today is my sister’s birthday.  She’s older than me, but not the oldest sibling.  We have another sister who is the oldest of the three of us. 

The birthday girl is in the middle.  When I was born, she was nine years old and our oldest sister was 12.

For most of my growing up years, this sister probably thought I was a pest.  My sisters and I all shared a bedroom, so it was difficult for my older siblings to escape from me.

I followed my sisters around, no doubt annoying them.  When they listened to music on our oldest sister’s record player, I wanted to listen too.  They just wanted me to go away.  I was way too curious about their stuff whether it was lipstick, jewelry, or what they kept in their purses.  They complained about me getting into their belongings.

When my middle sister started dating, I must have sensed it wasn’t a great idea that she date a particular beau.  I distinctly remember hiding the shoes she wanted to wear on date night.  In my five-year-old mind, if she couldn’t find her shoes, she couldn’t go.

Someone once wrote, “Sisters annoy, interfere, criticize.  Indulge in monumental sulks, in huffs, in snide remarks.  Borrow.  Break.  Monopolize the bathroom.  Are always underfoot…”

That probably would be a good definition of what my sister thought of me back then.  I think she did find me annoying, always underfoot, and generally a pain.  And then came the day when I basically ruined the one thing she cherished.

Sister received a bride doll at Christmas time one year.  It was the kind of doll you don’t play with, but instead lay on your bed as a sweet keepsake of childhood. 

She planned on keeping it pristine and beautiful, sealed away in its box, until the day my sister married her Prince Charming.  Then, the lovely bride doll would decorate her marriage bed (hey, this was the late 50’s, things were very different back then!).

That was her plan until I ‘played’ with her doll one day while sister wasn’t home.  Being so much younger than my sisters, I often wanted a playmate.  They weren’t willing to comply much of the time because music and boys captivated their interests.   

So that day, I wandered around the house looking for something different to play with.  When I opened the closet door in our bedroom, there she was – the bride doll in her box.

She was so beautiful in her white bridal gown and veil, but I decided to make her lovelier and play ‘beauty shop’ with her.  I took her veil off and proceeded to comb her dark curly hair. 

Ooops, Miss Bridal Beauty started losing a few strands of her hair in my comb!  The more I combed, the more her curls became non-existent and she ended up with a straight, wild array for a hairdo that was anything but becoming.

I moved on to her face.  She needed a better make-up job.  So I ‘borrowed’ my sister’s lipstick and smeared it on Bridal Beauty’s face.  Suddenly, I realized she didn’t really look better like I had envisioned she would.  I placed her back in the closet hoping sister wouldn’t notice.

As if!  Oh, the scorn of it all.  How dare I touch her treasured doll, let alone positively ruin it!  She huffed and puffed and cried and rightly so.  I really did feel terrible because of what I had done. 

I often thought my sister never forgave me for my naughty misdeed.  I know she never forgot because even as adults, she would occasionally mention the time ‘you ruined my bride doll.’

Years passed by.  My sister married and moved out of the house, just like my older sister had also done.  I grew up, married, and moved far away.   As adults, my sisters and I became very close even though we lived in different areas of the country. 

Through the years, we have always been there for one another in good times and bad.  The quote I cited above ends like this:  “…But if catastrophe should strike, sisters are there.  Defending you against all comers.”  ~Pam Brown 

So true.  And that adequately describes the bond my sisters and I have today.

Almost 15 years ago, my family (hubby, my children, and I) moved back to our homeland.   A few months later, my father and I took my cancer-stricken mother shopping one day just for a little diversion.  Christmas would come soon and it would be the last holiday we would spend with our mother.

As Mom and I looked around in one shop  (window shopping as my mom would say), I saw it – a gorgeous doll, garbed in wedding white complete with a bridal veil. 

I picked it up and told my mom, “I know what I’m getting Sister for Christmas, this bride doll.  It’s not exactly like the one I ruined, but maybe she’ll treasure it like she did that one all those years ago.”

My mom smiled and agreed it was a great gift.

That Christmas, I could hardly contain my excitement.  It felt like being a kid again to see what my sister’s reaction would be when she opened her special gift.  I didn’t know what to expect.  I just hoped she’d be pleased and put that hurt I had caused her away for good.  I just wanted to make amends and the doll was my atonement.

The new bride doll in 1998

Sister opened her brightly wrapped Christmas box and she was stunned.  She burst into tears at the sight of a beautiful bride doll and she immediately knew what this gift represented. 

Sisterly love.  The kind of love that sometimes hurts, but always still endures.  The kind of love that wants to make it all better.  The kind of love we sisters have for one another.

It was one of the best gifts I’ve ever given another person. 

And on this day, this best day of the year, I celebrate one of the best gifts I’ve ever received – my sister. 

Happy Birthday, dear sister!

©2013 mamasemptynest.wordpress.com

 

City boy turned country gardener

They say opposites attract.

He was a city boy.  Born in the city and grew up in the city.  I mean the inner city where row houses are the norm and there are no front porches, just a stoop.

He recalls tales of playing in the streets because he had no grass in his bricked back “yard.”   Those were the days when kids could roam around a city unafraid of kidnappers, child molesters, drug dealers, or anyone to do them harm.  He and his friends played at the nearby river or ran the halls of the Capitol building as he grew up in our state’s capital city.

I was a country girl.  Born and raised outside a small town in a very rural setting.  I lived in a two-story white country home with a huge front porch, complete with porch swing, and played in my multi-acre yard.  My neighbor friends and I would stay outside until after dark with no fear of people; just meeting up with a skunk was our biggest concern.

I met this city boy in college and we clicked instantly.  I soon fell in love with that tall, quiet, almost shy young man with the nickname “Smiley,” and amazingly enough, he fell in love with me.

After three years of dating, he proposed, we married, and he whisked me off to military life.  Following our stint as a military family, we settled down to life in the suburbs where my husband traded his officer’s khakis for a suit and tie every day.  We became parents to three terrific kids and my husband proved to be an awesome father.

During those years, city boy became a suburbanite, learned to take care of a small lawn, mowed, and planted shrubs and flowers.  He seemed to relish in that activity when he found time from his busy career.

Life changed drastically 14 years ago.  Jointly, we made the decision to move back to our home state, to my rural neck of the woods actually, as we were tired of suburban life and living on the other side of the country from our families.

My city boy turned full time country.  We had our new home built on 2 ¼ acres of what once was farmland.   Suddenly, my city boy was riding a John Deere lawn tractor to mow the grass.  He not only was planting shrubs and perennial flower gardens, he was planting trees, digging drainage ditches, and building things.  And he seemed quite happy to do so.

Then one day, he announced he was going to plant a garden – a vegetable garden.   And he unearthed a small plot of ground.  We enjoyed leaf lettuce, tomatoes, green beans and green bell peppers that year.

City boy turned country gardener.  Each year, the garden plot enlarged and he tried new plants, including berries.   My hubby pores over gardening magazines and seed catalogs and he thoroughly relishes digging in the dirt.

Thanks to his hard work, we enjoy our own red raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries.  His garden delivers fresh veggies every summer – cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, leaf lettuce, snow peas, green beans, green peppers, carrots, radishes, even brussel sprouts.  We’ve had sweet potatoes and watermelon and this year, he’s added asparagus, garlic, cantaloupe, and zucchini.

Yes, my city guy’s turned country and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Today in my book called Opportunity, we will celebrate his birthday and I will give thanks for my city/country husband.

Happy Birthday with love to my favorite gardener.   I’m so glad God planted you here with me!

“There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling.”  ~Mirabel Osler

Copyright ©2012 mamasemptynest.wordpress.com

Beautiful June day

My dad playing ladder golf on his 90th birthday.

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is a gorgeous day here at Mama’s Empty Nest.

I’m sitting outside on my back yard deck in the cool low 70’s temperature of the afternoon.  The sun is shining and warms my face.

When I look up from my laptop, the view that greets me is baby blue sky dotted with the fluffiness of cottony clouds and different hues of green in the trees and expanse of yard behind our house.

Next door is a corn field, newly planted by the farmer, and sprouting stalks already.  I close my eyes and inhale the scent of blooming peonies and cut grass and I think about my father.

It is a beautiful June day and I am blessed.   Not only have I just celebrated our middle daughter’s wedding but I celebrated yet another year of life since my birthday was the day after the nuptials.

I spent those two days surrounded by family and friends making memories that will last a lifetime.  And for this birthday, I received a special gift – a son-in-law.

My father as a young man around 1940.

Today in my book called Opportunity, I whisper to the God I love, the One who sustains me, the Heavenly Father who provides, the Friend who never leaves and is always with me.

I tell Him how grateful I am for this beautiful day, this life He has given me, these treasures of family and friends and I thank Him.

But today is another special day, it is June 7 -  the anniversary of my own earthly father’s birth.  If he were still alive, my dad would be 93 on this day.

As I think of him today, I give thanks that God blessed me with such a fine example of a man to be my daddy.  He was kind, he was loving, he was generous, he was respected by all who knew him.  He was a man of integrity and fine character and he taught me so much.

Even though I miss him still, so much so that I cry, I see his influence all around me.  I see it in the good common sense he taught me that I put into practice; I think of him as I balance our check book, a skill he taught to me at an early age.

He comes to my mind when the fragrance of  freshly cut grass reaches my nose.  And I see him reflected in my son’s face, who I think resembles my dad when he was a young man.

And in my mind’s eye, I see my dad, sitting on the porch, straw hat in hand, resting a bit after mowing the four acres of his homestead and enjoying a beautiful June day just like today.

Copyright ©2012 mamasemptynest.wordpress.com

Lessons Mom taught me

My mother as a young woman

Here at Mama’s Empty Nest we’re preparing for our middle daughter’s wedding next week.  I’m sure my readers may be growing tired of reading about it,  but with all three of our adult children saying “I Do’s” this year, weddings have consumed my life in this season.

And while in the throes of going bridal, there’s been a little empty spot in my heart and my bride-to-be daughter’s.

Both of her grandmas will be missing on daughter’s special day.   My mother-in-law passed away almost 14 years ago and we lost my mother to cancer six months after that.

Today would have been my mother’s 93rd birthday.   I’m re-posting a blog I wrote a year ago about my mom, my children’s beloved maternal grandmother, in honor of her birthday.

I imagine my mother was an ultimate surprise when she was born to my grandparents after 19 years of marriage and no children.   She surely was the apple of their eye as their only child.

She certainly was the apple of mine.  Washington Irving said it well when he wrote:

“A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.”

I loved and admired my mother so much, it’s difficult to express in words.  I watched her with awe and respect, especially in her last year of life as she bravely and without complaint battled the cancer that was taking her body captive.

Mom was one of the strongest, most determined people I’ve ever met; she had a feisty spirit and she was fun (ask any of her grandchildren!). She loved God, her family, and her home.  She was happiest when she was whipping up goodies in the kitchen and watching her loved ones enjoy her home cooking.

Crafts, sewing projects, quilting, crocheting – all right up her alley.  Any ideas to enhance her home or anything she could make with her own hands to give as a gift caught her attention  – just one of the ways she demonstrated her love.  She especially enjoyed planting flowers in her garden and watching her six grandchildren flower as well.

When I was a squirrelly teenager, my mother suffered through menopause.  The combination wasn’t exactly compatible so we butted heads often.  Sometimes, she just made me so mad, I would stomp up the stairs to my room and cry my eyes out.  And I know I made her just as angry.  But not once, did we ever stop loving one another.

As an adult, I realized first-hand the stresses my mom endured.  And I sadly recall wounding my mom so badly one time during my teenage years.  After yet another ridiculous battle of words I waged with her, I had shouted, “You don’t love me and you never did!”

I’ve never forgotten the look of horror on her face as she recoiled from my venomous words.  She seemed to wilt as she slowly sat down and tears quietly streamed down her cheeks.

I don’t believe I have ever regretted words more than those ugly ones I flung at her that day.   The power to reduce my mother to tears did not give me satisfaction, instead it made me realize what a spoiled brat I was being and I never hurled hurtful words like that to my mother again!

But through those trying years, Mom never stopped encouraging me, giving me good advice when I needed it, and loving me.  She urged me to be the first person in our family to attend college.

Without admonition, she expected me to try my hardest at whatever I endeavored.  I remember many late summer nights, swaying gently back and forth side by side on the front porch swing, having conversations with Mom about boyfriends, what college life would be like, and dreaming about my future.

Later, I would make my mother cry again.  When I married my true love and we loaded our belongings into a U-Haul trailer to move half-way across the country, my mother wept.  And every time we visited my parents from our home away from home, she would once again cry each time we said goodbye.

My Mom was always my rock.  She was the one I turned to for help, to vent, to rail against the injustices of my world because I knew she was always on my side.  And she always knew what to say to pick me up, dust me off, and send me back on my way.

She provided the strong arms of comfort into which I collapsed with hysterical tears in an airport ladies room after sending my military husband off to a foreign land for a year’s tour of duty.   Pregnant with our first child and saying goodbye to my husband, who would miss the birth of that child, was the most heart-wrenching task I had ever endured.

And it was Mom, who held me tight, rocked me in her arms even while she cried with me, and whispered in my ear, “You’ve got to think about this new little life you’re carrying inside of you.  You’ve got to be strong for the baby.”

I didn’t want to be strong.   But I learned to be.  And that’s one of the lessons I learned from my mother who portrayed strength every day, even as she lay dying all those years later.

Today in my book of Opportunity, I miss my mother terribly. But I can almost hear her whisper, “You’ve got to think about your family, your children.   You’ve got to be strong for them now.” And so I muster up the fortitude to carry me through this exciting yet exhausting year of marrying off my offspring and to endure watching them totally fly out of this empty nest.

Thanks, Mom for teaching me about the commitment of motherhood and the love of family.  I hope I’ve instilled those same lessons in your granddaughters.

Happy Birthday, Mom.  Give Jesus a hug for me.

“I miss thee, my Mother!  Thy image is still

The deepest impressed on my heart.” ~Eliza Cook

Copyright ©2012 mamasemptynest.wordpress.com