Thanksgiving...

Just the word sends a flood of memories over me.

My earliest memories take me back to Valley Forge Drive. That distinct smell of the heater coming on for the first time after Houston’s long hot summers, is forefront in my mind. I don’t know why, but I love that smell. Our home had central heat and I remember hearing the slight rumble of the pilot light igniting the heater. Our home was suddenly filled with that smell. I’m not sure what it was, maybe dust burning, or maybe simply waking up from it’s long summer hiatus. 

Every fall when I turn on my heat, that first time smell takes me back through all the years of my life. It fills me with warmth and comfort, like wrapping myself in my favorite, old, well-worn cashmere robe, I settle in to all that is familiar.

I think of my Mother and Minnie Mama in the kitchen on Thanksgiving mornings, each working side by side. What a gift that they were able to share this experience. Minnie Mama’s job was always the dressing. My grandmother was an East Texas farm girl and she could make dressing and gravy like no one in the world. Cornbread dressing, the kind where it’s crunchy on the outside, but soft and full of flavors on the inside, made Thanksgiving simply delicious.

My mother would stand by her side and watch Minnie Mama concoct her dressing. Putting in a pinch of this and a dab of that, there was no written recipe. It was all handed down from generation to generation.  Mother would watch Minnie Mama’s hands as she stirred, tasted, added a bit more salt, pepper, sage. My mother perfected that recipe by watching and learning from her mother. After Minnie Mama died, Mother picked up the mantle and her cornbread dressing became legendary with all her grandchildren. The legacy continues and it fills me with that warmth and comfort.

I wished I had paid more attention as a child, learning from my grandmother and then my mother. I didn’t realize that someday I would be the family matriarch. I long for those Thanksgiving mornings when I could call mother questioning her about how many eggs, how many onions, celery, bell peppers to sauté. I miss my mother and Minnie Mama at Thanksgiving, but my memories are as vivid as that heater smell. I am again wrapped in my well-worn, cherished memories of them, much like the comfort I feel in my well-worn robe. 

I was a freshman in collage. I had come home for Thanksgiving week and had my wisdom teeth removed early that week. My family celebrated Thanksgiving before this procedure, fearing I wouldn’t be able to eat after the surgery. Thanksgiving Day rolled around and I was good to go, but all that was left to eat were scraps from the leftover turkey and dressing. The Boswell’s, yep, that’s right the Boswell’s asked me to their Thanksgiving family dinner. Remember, Ann and I had become good friends in high school and I knew their family well, so they just pulled up a chair and I munched away.

This Thanksgiving seems to be key in my life. You see sitting across the table from me was Ann’s older brother. Steve and his wife and adorable daughter, Lynn were there. I vividly remember thinking, “Whoa, Bos had the most handsome brother ever!” He was a hunk and I was drooling, not only over the turkey, but mainly over this sophisticated older...so much older guy.  He was so exotic. Steve was studying at Duke at the time, so they had little opportunity to get to Houston, but, he was there that Thanksgiving of 1972 and I was goggly eyed.

I will confess that twenty years later when I was reintroduced to Steve, he had no recollection of me or of that dinner. Probably a good thing since I was simply a young collegiate and he a married man and a dad!

Thanksgiving of 2008 was a rough one. Steve was recovering days after his surgery to remove the tumor. We had gotten the tough news that the tumor was indeed a GBM a week before Thanksgiving, and we were numb. We spent that day with all of our family, as well as the extended Boswell family. 

The following day, Bonnie and Tom had us all out to their ranch in Kerrville. It was a crisp, crystal blue day. We went on long walks, we flew kites with the children. I remember Steve being so tired, stopping to rest often, but not allowing anyone but me to notice. 

I think we all felt that this would be our last Thanksgiving with Steve. I remember feeling so incredibly sad, so lost, so consumed with fear. I remember Steve and I holding on to one another constantly, we couldn’t get enough of each other. It was that smell of the heat coming on for the first time. It was that long comfortable robe that we wrapped ourselves in, cocoon like, trying to hang on to all that was familiar and loved.

Well, that wasn’t Steve’s last Thanksgiving. We were grateful and blessed to have four more Thanksgivings with him. What a gift!

Last Thanksgiving was crummy, one of those “firsts” that we all had to endure. We did get through the day and there was great comfort in the fact that we were together as a family. 

While Steve wasn’t with us that day, his spirit was. We didn’t have him to carve the turkey, or to take out the trash (his favorite task). We didn’t have him to laugh with, or to wrap his arms around me, but he was there walking by our sides every step of the way. 

This Thanksgiving, as we all come together, I know I will feel his presence again. It will take me back to Thanksgivings of the past. Much like the first burning smell of the heater or the security of my well-worn robe, I will remember back to all that is right and good and Steve will be right by my side.

I have much to be thankful for. May each of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

With love,

Janet

Psalm 106:1 “Praise the LORD. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.”

"In Flanders Field where poppies blow...

between the crosses, row on row...”  I heard this poem written by Colonel John McCrae discussed on NPR Veteran’s Day. It’s a well-known and beautiful poem written during WWI. 

Last Tuesday, when I heard the first line of this poem I was transformed to my young self, a small little girl of about 4 or 5 years old. I was instantly back in time. I was sitting on the hump of our family car’s backseat sandwiched between my two older sisters. My father was driving our family Oldsmobile, a sort of doo-doo brown sedan. My mother was in the passenger seat. Our Welsh Terrier, Tippy was perched by her back legs on the knee of my sister, her front paws and head resting lovingly on my dad’s shoulder.

We were on an annual family vacation, driving along some backroad, undoubtably lost, looking for our destination. My father was never big on stopping to ask for directions, instead, he would use this time with his captured audience, to recite his favorite poems.

“Flanders Field” was my mother’s favorite and the first poem she always requested. From there, one poem would float into another as miles and miles of countryside passed by us and my father’s youthful memories of beloved poems would surface to be recited.

My oldest sister, Barbara, seemed to have a greater love for his poetry than I. She, being ten years older than I would, along with mother, request one well-known poem after another. I quickly grew bored with these big, flowery old fashion words and my small mind would drift off, at least I thought it did. 

My father was a trial attorney. He also taught adult Sunday School classes, forever. I think he felt he had missed his calling and would have been more content in life teaching, than practicing law. All this being said, my dad was an emoter. He could orate like no one else,  and he loved any opportunity to do so.

So year after year, vacation after vacation I grew up with my father’s voice resonating through our family sedan. “By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, wherefore stopp’st thou me?” (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) “Life is real! Life is earnest!” (Longfellow) These verses are second nature to me now.

I am a bit surprised when my father’s voice travels through the years and I realize my small mind did, in fact, absorb the words, the meanings, the feelings beneath my father’s prose. I find myself now on road trips, driving past some lovely country setting and suddenly my mind lights on a verse from my father's repertoire. “Let me live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man...” (Sam Walter Foss) On vacation, sitting by a lake or ocean watching the sun set, I hear his words “Sunset and evening star; and one clear call for me...” (Tennyson) I smile and think of my father’s gift to his family.

I feel like we’ve lost something in this high tech age. Today, children sit in the backseats of cars with headphones and DVR’s, watching their movies of choice. Those priceless family moments seem to be a thing of the past today. Don’t get me wrong, if I had had the opportunity 30+ years ago to have my own children watch television, instead of repeatedly asking “Are we there yet?”  I would have been the first to plug in the movie.

What I have realized when these poems resurface in my mind, is not sadness that things have changed, instead, how important words are in molding and shaping children.

I understand when I hear my father quoting, “Blessings on thee little man, barefoot boy with cheeks of tan...” (John Greenleaf Whittier), that my words should be blessings to my grand children. I may not be reciting poetry, but I pray I am giving encouragement and praise. Telling them how much I love them, how proud I am of them, how amazing they are.

Last Friday, Harper was to take something important to school for Show and Tell. This item was to begin with the letter of the week, an “H”. Brooke asked Harps what she was going to take that morning before leaving for school. 

Harper looked around her room and her eyes fell upon a framed picture that sits by her bed. 

“I’m going to take this picture of Grandy and me!” 

Brooke said, “Well okay Harper, but what does that picture of Grandy and you have to do with the letter ‘H’?”

Without hesitation Harper said, “hhhHeaven! Grandy is in Heaven!”

Steve has now been away from us for over 16 months. A large part of this little 4 year old’s life has been spent without her Grandy. I have no doubt that Grandy’s sweet voice, his words of love, praise, encouragement still resonate in Harper’s mind. I am sure she can still hear Grandy’s sweet voice echoing through her. I know his words, his life, his actions have made a huge impression on our oldest grand children, as they speak often of their grandfather.  

Our words are our legacy. I hope I will be remembered as gifting my family with words that will increase the measure of their lives, as I had two of the best teachers walk before me. “And departed leave behind us footprints on the sands of time.” (Longfellow)

For what it’s worth,

Janet

Proverbs 25:11 “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.”

Today I am 60 years old...

I was 23 years old when my mother was 60. I think my grandmother, Minnie Mama, was always 60, as I remember her as forever being an old woman…and maybe I loved her more because she was the oldest person I knew.

Minnie Mama around 63 years old

So, what does being 60 years old today mean to me? Am I now very wise? Am I suddenly decrepitated and infirmed? Am I the new 4o? Am I better than ever? Am I reaching the last decades of my life, or do I have still have a few more ahead of me?

I’m not sure what it means to be 60 years old. Is being 60 any different than being 59? Probably not. What I do know is I am very content with being 60. I don’t wish I were 40 again, nor do I want to be 50, and I definitely am done with my 20’s and 30’s.

So here I am. Now what do I make of this milestone? 

My life hasn’t been a perfect storybook life. I can’t imagine the “Once upon a time there was a beautiful, talented, smart little girl who lived a privileged life...” story describing my life. Nor can I imagine the “Once upon a time there was a poor, pitiful little girl, born of lowly means” describing my childhood. 

In reality, I grew up in a lovely home with a mother, father, and two older sisters. We had our fair share of family struggles, and I hope I learned to thrive and endure because of the difficulties I experienced growing up in a family that was far from perfect. There were times my childhood was tough, but, don’t we all live through times that enable us to become more sensitive, more vulnerable, more compassionate because we have endured?

I was fortunate that my parents were able to pay for me to attend college. Those years were broadening, fun and they enriched my life. I am thankful for such an incredible college experience and will always cherish the friends and relationships I made during those years.

I married very young, at 20 years old. My children were born by the time I was  25 years old. Life in Midland, Texas was easy, fun and full of rich experiences and I developed lifelong friendships that I still enjoy. Brent and Brooke were the biggest and best part of my marriage of 18 years. When my marriage ended I was 38 years old, I thought life was over. I thought I would never experience anything more devastating than the agony of divorce.

It amazes me to think back on myself at 38 and imagine I was so sage, such an expert in life’s experiences. Oh, I was so young, my own children today are close to the age I was when I thought life was over. Little did I know, a new and wonderful life was just around the corner.

Steve asked me to marry him on my 40th birthday, the best birthday ever! Suddenly, it was as if I were starting life anew. While, not perfect, it was close to perfect and I found I had new things to learn, not only about life, but also about myself.

My Best Birthday Gift!

A 40th Birthday Roast

Steve and I went through some interesting years raising two active, well liked and very normal, exasperating teen-age children. Steve proved to be the perfect balance for each of us. He was fair, even tempered and loved us with all his heart. Life was good and I could breath and enjoy all that it had to offer.

My fifties arrived. Our children were now all adults. They began to marry and have children of their own. Steve had retired early and we traveled frequently, adventure awaited us. Life was full and promising, we were on a roll and enjoying all that it had to offer.

I celebrated my 54th birthday at a dinner party given by good friends. I will never forget driving to that birthday celebration with a pit in my stomach. Steve, was not himself. There was something terribly wrong and I can remember thinking, “I’m not ready to face whatever it is that lies before us.”

Steve and I had returned from a wonderful trip to Austria and Croatia mid October and I knew we were in trouble. Steve’s first symptoms of a brain tumor were his inability to read. For the first time, he had difficulty navigating through Europe. He was suddenly unable to stay interested in books, finding them difficult to hold his attention.  Arriving home, word finding became increasingly more difficult and my fears grew like dark clouds in a brewing storm. I remember sitting at my 54th birthday party, surrounded by our dearest friends and trying so hard to cover for the blips and misspoken words in Steve’s conversation. I hoped none of our good friends would notice that our storm was about to turn into a hurricane of gigantic proportions.

You all know the rest of the story.  A love story that will forever be the greatest. I was so incredibly wrong when I thought at 38 that I had experienced the worst life could hand me by living through a divorce. Divorce, is terrible, but the death of someone you love with all your heart and soul...there is no comparison.

I feel I have ripened through all of my life’s experiences. Richard Rohr writes that "Ripening, at its best, is a slow, patient learning, and sometimes even a happy letting-go—a seeming emptying out to create readiness for a new kind of fullness—which we are never totally sure about."  I hope I have learned to let go of what needs to be put aside, and make room for a new kind of fullness to come.

If asked today how I would describe my 60 years of life? I would say I have had a wonderful life. I am blessed daily by my family, who will always be the most integral part of my life. I am so fortunate to still have incredible friends from each decade of my life. These lifelong friends and I continue to share our journeys together. These friendships bring depth and meaning to my life and keep me grounded when I feel disconnected. My life would not be full, rich and incredible without these relationships that I so cherish. I will take the sadness my life has encountered, and, when balanced with with the excellence life has given me, my scale weighs heavy on the side of good.

I hope I have learned through my difficulties. I pray I have been able to pay it forward and help others who have lived, or are living through similar circumstances that I have endured. I desire to be a kinder, wiser, more patient person.

At 60, I know that I have much more to learn, I have much more ripening to do, much more life to experience and I welcome the challenges ahead of me. I like where I am in my life. If God wills, I think I am ready to face whatever the next decades have to bring me. 

I may not like my neck, I may not be thrilled that my body does not run as smoothly as it once did, I may find myself in a wave of pitifulness from time to time, but that's all part of ripening, right? 

Today, I am thankful and blessed that again, I will be celebrating another birthday in the company of wonderful friends. You see, there is always good in life!

For what it’s worth,

Janet

Ecclesiastes 7:14  “When life is good, enjoy it. But when life is hard, remember: God gives good times and hard times, and no one knows what tomorrow will bring.”

“Hallow-eeen, the witch is riding high…

Have you see-een her shadow in the sky? 
So beware, don't you dare scare a ghost, BOO!”

I’m not sure how old I was when I first learned this song. I’m not even sure if I learned it at River Oaks Baptist School or Briargrove Elementary School, or by a neighborhood friend.  What I do know is I have been singing it ever since I first learned the lyrics.

Brooke and Brent sang it with me every Halloween until Brooke learned a different variation from Stephanie Howard. I think she trusted Stephanie’s choice of words more than mine. Now Harper and Harris are the third generation to sing the Halloween Song.

This song may be the only thing that has remained unchanged in celebrating Halloween since I was a child.

If you were a child in the late 50’s and early 60’s, some of my memories might also ring true for you.  Sixty years ago, the common Halloween costumes were accessorized with those Lone Ranger style mask that covered your eyes and the top of your nose. They came in a variety of colors, sparkly for girls, mainly black for boys. Inevitably, the thin elastic string you placed over your head to hold the Domino Mask in place would break halfway through the night, resulting in the most exotic part of your costume resting in the bottom of your trick-or-treat bag. 

A second variation of the face mask and very popular in my day were the plastic face masks.  They incorporated any number of notable characters; Casper the Ghost, Bozo the clown, witches, Mickey Mouse or Goofy, to mention just a few. There was really no such thing as the horrifying masks of today, unless you count a green Frankenstein or blood-free Count Dracula.

The main problem with these masks were the eye holes usually hit around mid-cheek, so the wearer pretty much stumbled around in the dark, clinging to a non-vision impaired friend.  They would usually trip over some sidewalk, blood would surface and their trick-or-treating would end for the night…a tragic event to happen to anyone. An even worse problem with the plastic face molds was that trick-or-treating in Houston, Texas on October 31st was always hot, humid, sticky and miserable. You might as well have smothered yourself by pulling your mother's Playtex girdle over your head and cut out holes for your eyes, nose and mouth. Most kids who chose this costume ended up wearing their mask more like a hat rather than a face cover, not very effective when taking on a new persona.

I have looked through all my childhood photos and have concluded that I never had one single picture taken of me on Halloween as a child. I know, whaaa. Now I will never fully be able to embrace my childhood Halloween memories.

Most of the kids living on Valley Forge Drive chose to dress up as gypsies, kitty cats, witches, football players, cowboys, skeletons, or more commonly, ghosts and hobos.

These latter two costume choices seem very un-pc in today’s world. Think of the implications of a child dressed in a hooded white sheet with only the whites of their eyes showing. Dressing up like a homeless person today might not be considered as effective as the popular hobo outfit of the 60’s. 

Hobo wear consisted of your dad’s old dress shirt and tie, baggy rolled up jeans with patches sewn all over them, a charcoal blackened face, an old rolled up brown paper bag hanging from your mouth, which was supposed to look like a cigar, and a knapsack on a stick thrown across a shoulder. I think I was a hobo for at least five years, but who would know, as no one ever took a single solitary picture of me on Halloween. Whaaa.

Speaking of brown paper bags, who says we didn’t recycle in the 60’s?  I mean, there was the hobo cigar, there was the decorated brown paper grocery bag that was carried to shove as much candy in as possible (until you graduated to the pillowcase, which was the best candy toter ever thought of). Even when it wasn’t Halloween we recycled those grocery bags, who didn’t cover their school text books with those bags? Whose mom didn’t use those grocery sacks to absorb the grease from their homemade fried chicken, or the morning’s bacon drippings, or all the other deep fried “healthy” food that went into our bodies? I’m off topic, I know.

As we grew, so did our neighborhood Halloween boundaries. The younger years were spent with parents walking down the sidewalks while we ran from door-to-door. Boring. Finally, the day came, I might have been all of 8 years old, when I was allowed to run the streets with  friends. Our boundaries and curfews slowly expanded with each year, and by the time we were all too old to trick-or-treat our territory was broad and our pillowcases overflowing. Halloween was so cool!

Quality of candy was essential and time wasted going to a house with crummy candy was maddening. My mother was a very frugal person. That being said, our house was one of the few houses that was shunned for bad candy. I was embarrassed every year. My Mother would pass out lollipops with the soft squishy u-shaped handle, the hard sticks were much preferred, but, much more pricey. She would also buy Necco wafers. These were the cheaper version of Sweet Tarts, only they forgot to add the sweet and the tart. Eating Necco wafers was consistent with sucking on tiny pieces of colored chalk. 

Cindy Knocke, a dear friend of mine, told me that, being the good Catholic girl that she was,  she would pretend the Necco's were communion wafers, and would administer them to her friends with great reverence. Boy they were a nasty candy, but my mother continued to hand them out, and disappointment followed any trick-or-treater that left my house. I was mortified.

Consistently, there was at least one very cool Halloween house within several blocks of mine. This house was constantly at the top of our go-to list. I was always so remorseful that it would never have entered my family’s mind to have our home be the desired hot spot of the neighborhood. 

These exotic families (the families never seemed to go to this effort more than once in a lifetime) would turn their garage into the creepiest spook house ever. Oh, they were the best! The mom was always dressed as a wicked witch, slowly stirring up a  large black, steamy caldron of dry ice (so exceptionally eccentric), evilly ladling out cold apple juice, so impressive, so Halloween. Entering the pitch black garage, we were told to feel the peeled grapes in ice water…plucked eyeballs! Cooked noodles sitting in strawberry jam…brains! Oh, the wonder of it all was overwhelming. The candy you left with was always the very best…M & M’s, Super Bubble, Tootsie Roll Pops (on a hard stick). Leaving, the best spook house ever, the metal trash cans sitting just outside the garage would start clanging and out would jump an older sibling dressed in a white sheet eerily yelling “Booooo!” We would run, shrieking down the driveway, dissolve in laughter, roll around the front lawn until we realized we were wasting valuable time and off we would go to stuff our pillowcases to capacity.

Grown-ups never dreamed of dressing up. There were no Halloween parties, no school carnivals. I never remember carving a pumpkin until I had children of my own. The only Halloween decorations we had, we made in school. Kleenex ghost that hung by their necks on string, black and orange construction paper link chains and jack-o’-lanterns cut from the same orange and black construction paper.

I look at Halloween today and it is amazing how it has evolved. Store decorations start popping up in late August. Homes with lawns covered in blow-up witches, ghosts, pumpkins.  Adults and children alike begin planning their costumes the day after Halloween in order to be prepared for the upcoming year. Parties and school carnivals gear up with bells and whistles in to order sidestep the danger of trick-or-treating. Everyone dresses up in their costume no less than 3-4 times a season.  One must do this in order to cover all the festivities that this holiday brings.

While I long for those innocent days of running wildly through the streets collecting candy with my friends, they somehow seem to pale with the excitement and hype of Halloween today.

I guess you love most what you experienced as a child. Those were moments memories were made of and can never be duplicated.  I know I would love nothing more than just one more time, to see my mother standing in the doorway of our Valley Forge home, holding a big bowl of Necco candy wafers. I know I would run up to her and, as taught I would only take a single roll of that horrid candy wafer. I would say thank you, as taught,  and skip off to the Sander’s house, then the Hick’s, then the Patterson’s…but not before I turned around and hugged my sweet mother with all my might, I would thank her for being my mommy and for loving me with all her heart.

For what it’s worth,
Janet

Ecclesiastes 3:1 “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

Disclaimer:  These photos were images taken from Google, as I have no Halloween pictures from my childhood.  I know, whaaa.

The Best of Halloween today…meet Princess Auora & Prince Phillip