Bridge over troubled water

I drove the six hours to Bismarck, North Dakota this week.  The landscape was lush and unseasonably green, the summer that we never thought would come is stretching into fall. But an occasional yellow leaf reminds me- the seasons turn,  winter always comes, life goes on.

We want life to look like this.

Wide, well marked with easy curves. Yes, there is a horizon but it stretches comfortably in the distance.

Instead the journey of life dips and disappears and our stomach lurches with the rough ride.  We hit potholes that threaten our comfort and suspension. The curves come fast and we can find outselves smashed at the side of the road. Alone.

This week, the spirit of my much prayed for and eagerly anticipated sixth grandchild, Teresa Irene, returned to the full presence of her Heavenly Father.  I love the image of her holding hands with her grandfather who loved babies but has yet to meet any of his grandchildren.  For us left on earth, we still deal with the reality of her lifeless body delivered by a grieving mother into the hands of a distraught father.  The hospital has been wonderful, the community outpour of prayers and help has be comforting...

but this grandmother just wants to breathe life into that tiny, perfect body and into this sad and broken family.

Her life on this earth was short and distant and not in our hands.



This tiny bridge is not easily accessible. It's not on a wide path. I'm not even sure of its purpose.  But it caught my eye, it spoke to my soul's longing for beauty, it is there.  A tiny bridge to nowhere must have a function I don't know. Someone carefully constructed posts and railing and added sturdy metal roofing. They placed it in this quiet spot and they know why.

Ducks paddle on this calm water and find food for their ducklings.  Life  happens here in the quiet, off the busy road.

Teresa is our bridge- inaccesible to our hands but forever perfect and complete in our hearts. Her brief life reminds us of the brevity of our days and heaven awaiting us- she is our bridge to eternity.  But I don't want to leave this little, fragile structure out here in the elements; winter is coming. The ducks will fly and she'll be alone.  But this  earth is all merely a shell, a structure with a function I don't fully realize.  Teresa has shed her fragile  body and is rejoicing in timeless heaven where we are already together. I am left to remember her rosebud lips, to hug the sad children and parents, to pray for comfort and... to anticipate life on earth as it continues on, waiting for the renewal of an inevitable spring.

Happy Christmas, Bee

This is a totally, sappy post about grandchildren.  You've been warned....


I'm with my daughter, her husband and their two munchkins. And munchkins they are- both fairly short for their age and both walked early so they race around on stubby legs with too long pants tripping them up.  They are 18 months apart and someday will be best friends.  Even now, Noelle squeals when she sees her older brother after naps.  Actually, she squeals when she wants to eat, when she's "all done", when her brother takes his car/backpack/stroller/water bottle back.  She likes to squeal.  I'm their Bebe but Josiah calls me Bee.


It's beginning to feel like Christmas around here. We try to play Christmas music- anything besides the Veggie Tales book with " We wish you a merry Christmas" over and over.  "You want to read a story, Noelle?" as I slide the offending book under the couch.  The innocent little thing just plunks down on my lap.  My daughter and I think about holiday food and packages arrive regularly from Amazon.

And the Christmas tree towers over the munchkins- all seven feet of it.  Josiah loves the tree. He wants the lights on first thing in the morning and sometimes tells the tree goodnight.  And today, under the Christmas tree, we had one of those adorable, "why can't I film this or bottle it and savor forever" moments.

He had on the Bears Christmas stocking hat (a die hard if disgusted Chicago fan and fans-in-training live here) and he had that soft, captivating look on his face.



"I wuv the Cwismas twee," he sighed. "It's happy Cwismas."  And started singing "We wis oo a berry Cwismas..." Ok- a child you love can sing anything and you want a recording.   Then he looked at me and said, "I wuv oo, Bee."  Oh yes, this is the magic grandmother moment.  He holds out his arms and says, "Hug?"  Well of course,  I'm practically in tears- "anything you want, dear child."


Mama leaves and I have to capture this moment. Or at least re-stage it.  Get the hat, find the cute snowman, pose, capture.  All sweetness.  And the squealer lets me know she needs a picture.  A sequence of blurry pictures of a moving target follows.  In the only clear picture she looks like a fat black and white bumble bee.

Where did that belly come from?

And right in the middle of the photos, off goes the cute hat; the snowman is launched and suddenly, I have a two year old with a tantrum.  Cars are tossed.  "No happy Christmas!" Stomp, stomp.  I should have turned on the video but I was trying not to laugh. What on earth happened?

No picture captures his disgust at whatever set him off....ha!

Who knows?  He's two and a half. She's fourteen months. I'm much older.  They won't remember anything from today. I'll always smile when I see these pictures- sure there was a tantrum but first there was a tender little boy with his brand-new wonder, the very spirit of Christmas.  And there was a lovely little, squirmy squealer with her infectious laugh.   It's a very Happy Christmas.

A First Birthday.... and a Day in the Country

I'm in Oxford.... Ohio, this week. Noelle Kathryn is one year old and I came to celebrate. And we discovered farm animals together. That's one of my first loves so it seems very appropriate.

I was raised on a dairy farm in Alaska and mostly remember Holsteins- the black and white milk cows but all farm animals smell like home- or money! as my dad used to say. Baby animals and the fragrant turning of the cool dirt means spring to me and pumpkins and petting farms say autumn all over the midwest.

So Happy  Birthday, our sweet autumn baby girl.  We're glad you're here and part of our family.

These grandchildren just get cuter and cuter. I'm a blessed woman.

"These are balloons, Noelle! Fun, aren't they!"

"Can I help!!!!" says big brother. "She's not even paying attention to the presents...."

"I LOVE these little people"

I also came to visit my favorite grandson. My "grandma name" is Bebe but he calls me "Bee". He can call me anything at all.  I'm putty in his hands.

And today we were off to the farm!

"Noelle, this is a goat."

"Goats are fun!" 

"Meet your first horse, Noelle. You laugh but he's trying to eat your skirt"

This sheep will stand still for photos, unlike a one year old!

Cuties in the corn bin. We found it in their pockets at home. :)

Total concentration

As a little girl, my daughter wanted to grow up and live on a farm.
She's older and wiser but don't they look great there? 

Ended the farm day on a hayride to the pumpkin patch. Tons of pumpkins and we were able to leave the field without buying one or having a meltdown scene. A perfect end to the day.

"Happy Birthday, baby girl!"

I love the memories of my farm childhood and I'm grateful my grandchildren can at least be exposed to American farms.  I want them to understand where our food comes from, the hard work it takes, the special families that do that work.   This was a good first step.

Going home after a wonderful day at a farm. 

Waiting for Noelle. It's all fine.

Well, pretty baby girl. Bebe is waiting for you today.  It's been a bit nerve-wracking. Jesus is teaching me to trust Him with all of my precious loved ones- even ones I don't know yet.

When your mama told me you were coming, I was just a little, well, freaked out.  You won't read this until you are old enough to know me so you'll already know that I can freak out pretty easy. Or maybe by the time you are old enough to read this, I will be so full of Jesus that I'll be cool, calm and collected. All the time.

By now you know that your mama didn't do so well when your brother was born. It was a mess. And Bebe was a BIG mess.  I LOVE my baby girl- that would be your mama and I LOVE your brother and I LOVE your daddy.  I didn't want anything bad to happen to any one of them.  And it could have been so much worse....  and that's what I remembered when I heard you were on the way.

So you are part of God's gift to me. The gift of embracing my fear. Of choosing to lean in close and figure out what fear means. Of sitting quietly and thinking back to when I was a little girl and bad stuff happened to me. Wow- sounds scary but it wasn't.  This has been a wonderful year. A year of learning how much God loves me. How much He wants to heal me way down deep. Of how much he protected me when I didn't know He was there.


So today your mom and dad took pillows and diapers and little, tiny pink clothes and a brand new car seat and headed off to the hospital for another surgery.  And I got to stay here and trust Jesus all over again.  It helped that I had Josiah to distract me.   He had his breakfast waffle and we watched his baby DVD. Hope you like them- he definitely knows which ones HE likes.





Then we put on our bike helmets and went for an explore on my bike. Bebe needed some exercise- a bit of nervous energy crackled in the house today.  We found a park where I took a bunch of blurry photos of your brother, mostly the back of his head, because he won't stand still.

And he climbed UP a slide that had a puddle of water on it and got all wet. 



And then he swung out and fell off a platform in the big kid's playground equipment.  And got shredded wood junk up his runny nose and all over his wet clothes.  It was time to go home. And change his outfit- again.




He finished up his waffle, ate some toast with peanut butter, had half a banana and some yogurt.  Then he proceeded to run around like a crazy boy and laugh and throw stuffed animals.  Obviously he knows something is up. YOU are coming!  And his world will never be the same.

Mine won't either.  I love my kids but I'm crazy about Josiah and Mariam and now YOU.  My heart is tender toward you little peanuts in a whole new way. I was too busy with life when I was the young mama with my own babies- now I can just sit on the kitchen floor with an eighteen month old toddler clad just in his diaper and eat yogurt together and be fine.  Really fine- happy and content fine.  Excited to meet another little person who will call me Bebe fine. Grateful in my heart fine.

PS- and I'm not even afraid. Because my world won't be the same either.

PPS- Uh... let's not tell Mom about the fall. He's fine.

PPSS- I think I'll have a little peanut butter and Nutella while I wait. That's fine, too.

Just hanging out.
Waiting for Noelle! 

Back in the land of baby...where time stands still

I was in North Carolina- next week Josiah turned 1 ! How did that happen so fast?  Years ago as the new mom living in this same area of eastern Carolina, I thought time crawled by.  My first baby was born one day after we moved into our first house in the town of Jacksonville. I remember thinking my whole life would consist of crying, spit up and endless diapers.

 Now that baby boy's a dad.

My son bonds with his daughter

So now I'm a grandmother- soon, these cute little people will call me Bebe.  Everyone has a grandparent name now and I think it's cool.  I didn't grow up with any ethnic, interesting roots or none that anyone treasured enough to tell anyway. Grandmothers weren't Oh-ma or Ah-mah.  There weren't a host of Bubbes or Grand-meres or Nonnas. They were Grandmothers or Grandmas.  My own grandmother didn't like ma anything so Grandma was out.  Granny was especially taboo, for some reason. I don't think the Clamppetts had yet made their trek to Hollywood when she was musing gran-motherhood.


But suddenly women my generation are choosing or making up names and I am Bebe. Long story- it's loosely based on a favorite movie combined with a website questionnaire and the of course, there's the cute sound. Two long Es.  bEE-bEE.  Love it- I feel like I invented a new identity and that's something new for me.  How many times can you do that? Legally....

So Bebe was there playing hide and seek with Josiah, sharing her morning banana or maybe reading a page or two of a book before he's up and away again. And trying to take pictures. This entire blog should be done in blurry pictures. This kiddo rarely sat still!  Always on the move.  So here's some "on the move" pictures ....

Loving the corn hole game. 

I WILL get that bag out...

Although bending over and stickin your arm through the hole is pretty tough -
at any age!

And back in- again.

That face just says determined!

Check out the baby "Birkenstocks" - just like Daddy's.
(Thrift stores are addictive)

Off to a playground. Toss out all the blurry pics....

At this age, everything is a toy- this is a step.

Finally, he's still for a moment. Of course, he's on the ground. 

He insisted on trying to walk up the slide. He is persistent.
And look at the red in his hair in the sunlight!

Down, but never out. He just kept at it -over and over.
I can't wait to see what kind of a boy he will be.
Busy, strong and perseverant.

Not a bad combo.

I can flash forward and see him as a young man.
My sons were this age...just last week.

Is that the gift of age?
Looking ahead as easily as you look back?

There's something precious about my visits with these little people. Now I recognize how quickly the time will go.  I remember how easy it was to focus on my own children and think life wouldn't ever change- what? that somehow my life would be the one that made time stand still?  How foolish to miss my own shortsighted attitudes.

How do you pass wisdom on to the next generation?  Can you ever learn the hard lessons of life without experiencing them for yourself? Would I have?  Or do we just react to life as it comes, embrace the lessons or have the opportunity to repeat the mistakes until it sinks in?

Thank you, Lord that You give us time on this earth - to enjoy grandchildren, to create memories, to slow time down.

If only in our hearts.