Dad

When I was a little girl, my dad seemed incredibly strong and brave.  He was a stocky guy, not very tall- but I was not very tall, so he was tall in my eyes.  Dad was intimidating.  He could be your playmate one minute and very angry the next.  If we arrived home to an unlocked house, he walked through the whole place before anyone else got out of the car.  As long as he had my back, I felt pretty safe.

My dad was the guy who gathered the kids on the cul-de-sac to play kickball or softball.  He coached soccer and tee-ball and was always generous with his teams.  He was among those who started the participation trophy thing by purchasing trophies for his teams.

He picked out my senior prom dress.  For some reason Mom was unavailable to shop with me.  I tried on a dress and really liked it but wanted her opinion.  He drove home to pick her up while I continued to look.  Later, my mom told me that Dad told her the whole way back that I should get that dress.

When I was in college, he had a heart-attack.  He was in his forties, and it was only within the last few years that I came to realize how rare it is for a man to survive a heart-attack in his forties.  At that point in time, Dad had worked for over two decades and had taken only two sick days.  I remember that when colleagues showed up to visit him in the hospital, he was convinced that they visited only to confirm that he was actually ill.  Dad's health continued to decline from that point.  Over the last several years, we have seen him become more and more frail which is hard to watch when you can remember the man who had a whole weight room in the garage and a chin-up bar in the yard. For years he has been a walking miracle.

My dad could hold a grudge like no other and could also be surprisingly forgiving.  He forgave the doctor whose negligence cost my sister her life. He was gracious with the doctor who had to deliver the awful news that he could not do the lifesaving surgery on my mom because the cancer had already spread, telling him, "you tried your best."

The last time I saw my dad was last Saturday.  He looked terrible.  On Wednesday he died in his sleep. It has taken until today for me to even put together a coherent thought.  I was always closer to my mom and kept my dad at arm's length.  Yet, losing him is so much harder than losing my mom.  Losing your first parent is awful, but there is something much worse when you don't have any parents left.  Without Dad's generosity, we would not have had a vacation for the last eight years.  He was always taking care of us, right up to the very end.

Dad had a great sense of humor.  He loved college sports and would miss church to watch the games. Actually, he would miss a lot of things to watch the games.  He carried strong opinions about politics which he shared whether you wanted them or not.

This is immensely painful, but I am so grateful that Dad died without pain.  He suffered so much in the last few months, and when he started refusing to see doctors, I think in part it was because he was just finished.  I think he tired of hospital stays and missing family gatherings.  Dad always wanted his family nearby. His lifelong dream was to win the lottery and move the entire family onto a compound.  I remember how he talked about having underground tunnels from one house to another, and I said I would not live there.  He couldn't believe that I didn't want my relatives to just pop up in my kitchen whenever - lol.

We have laughed today about all the driving with Dad stories.  Lately, he has needed a driver for all of his appointments, but it was rare for him to ride without complaining.  Tiffany talked about driving him home from vacation and hitting the treads on the road to keep you from going off.  He called that an off-road experience. I drove him to an appointment this summer and one the way home, he warned me that the speed limit was low on the street on which I was driving.  I drove the speed limit, and he told me to speed up.  I told him I was already driving the limit to which he responded, "I don't see any police."

Dad always wanted to know everything about everybody.  He kept up with all the things the grandkids were up to.

As families do we went ahead with Thanksgiving yesterday.  This is not typically a holiday I spend with my side of the family as it is the only one where Andy's family can all get together on the same day.  However, a move and a new marriage changed that for Andy's family this year.  We will celebrate with part of his family tomorrow.  We made arrangements for my dad today.  I don't know how any only child could ever do this.  Without my siblings I simply could not.  I also need Andy.

Andy is my rock.  When I got the news, I simply could not call anyone who needed to be called.  I could not take calls.  I wanted to just go away from it all, and he took care of all of that.

I have also realized just how much of my dad's personality has been passed down to me.  I am a worrier by nature, and I think that comes from him.  I like to be in control - yep, Dad was like that too.  I don't like crowds or traffic-hmm.  I love pictures of other people and can't have enough of them, but I hate to have my picture taken - yep, that's my dad too. I also inherited his work ethic.  I have worked many days that I should not have because I was too sick or a child was too sick.

My dad was so generous. Without him we would not have taken a vacation in the last eight years.  He always wanted to include everyone.  I have hoped for years that I would someday be able to out-give my dad. That someday never came.

I know I am rambling, so I will stop here and share some pictures.  I will share my dad's obituary in a later post.

Feeling Inspired

A friend recently asked me to a home sales party. I did not go but decided to check out the catalog to see if I could help my friend out with her party.  Little did I know that I would be completely inspired by the company.  They have beautiful products including jewelry, scarves, purses, and stationary...all favorite pick me ups for me.

The company itself inspired me even more.  This company is all about empowering women from those who sell the products to the artists who make them.  The artisans are mostly women living in societies where they are marginalized.  The catalog descriptions for the various items all include the back story.  There are the Cambodian women who have been victims of having acid attacks leaving them disfigured and without hope of acceptance in their culture.  There are the women who just want to be able to send their children to school and/or to feed their children.  They are being empowered to learn a trade that enables them to make a living.  While I love the idea of donating to such causes, the products are so pretty that to be able to wear and share them offers even more opportunity for women both here and abroad to earn an income that helps their families.

I love the FAQ section of the site where the founders of the company say that Christ calls us to love the widows and orphans. He does not say love just the widows and orphans who are Christians - He simply commands us to take care of the widows and orphans.  This company is doing that.  I feel inspired enough that I might consider a Christmas party as there are great Christmas gift options.  I may even consider becoming a consultant.  Whether I do either or not, some of these pieces will for sure be on my Christmas wish list, and I want to share this business with other women who may want to make a difference while also getting a piece of fun for themselves or the other lovely women in their lives.

Check it out: My Trades of Hope

I ordered a necklace and earring set, and I will update this post in a week or so when I receive it to comment on the quality.

As promised, here is a pic.  I am pleased with my purchase.  It is lightweight which is a big deal to me as I can't wear anything heavy around my neck, and I do not like heavy earrings.  The earrings don't show up well in the photo, but they consist of medallions matching those on the necklace dangling from french hooks.  I do like the combination of metals of different colors that can be worn with many things.

This photo shows some of the detail.  These medallions clearly took some time to produce.

Ancestry

One eighth grade project for history requires the kids to trace their family history at least to their great grandparents.  Zach and Savannah completed this project, and I thought we saved them, but they did not surface during the course of doing this project with Wyatt.  I also had a hard time reaching my dad to get names and dates.  Wyatt was required to include birth, death, and marriage dates as much as possible.

I decided to try the census database on our public library's site to see if I could figure out some of those missing pieces.  I am not really into ancestry, mostly because I don't have time for it, but the census database is fascinating.  You have to keep digging to get the information.  I was able to get to my great-great grandparents on my dad's side of the family.  The women were harder.  My great-grandmas were named Ada, Kate, Iva, and Grace.  I know the maiden names for two of them but am uncertain how to spell it for one of the two. If the birth states of their parents are correct, then I don't think Grace's family reported to the census when she was a child.   As you can imagine, it may be impossible to find Kate, and Ada comes up pretty commonly too.  I hit dead ends with them.

However, the cool thing was digging through Andy's family history.  He had a grandfather who died when his dad was a child and was not talked about very much.  This grandfather was just a mystery.  I found him, his birth state, his career and found that information on his parents as well.  Andy's great grandparents were quite educated.

The marriage dates were harder, but I got a few of them from obituaries and things still accessible online.  Military records were harder to come by, but they would be interesting too.  I did update everything in the family Bible so that we will have most of the information for Julia's project next year.  By the time Wyatt had to turn in his project, I had only gotten as far as my grandparents.  Julia will be able to complete the history to her great-great grandparents.

I may play on the census database some more and record the careers and birthplaces for everyone.  I need to organize my recordings of these things.  I am grateful that Wyatt and Julia feel grafted in enough to call this history their history because it is.  I noticed on the family tree posters on display at school, some of the kids stopped at the adoptions in their family history claiming they could not go further back. If you are looking for DNA, that's true, but I disagree on that for the purposes of family history.  It's all connected whether a family grew by birth or by adoption.  For students in a Christian school, I find it particularly interesting that family history stops with adoption.  Jesus was Joseph's adopted son, and his genealogy is listed in the lineage of Joseph in the Bible.  I realize that Mary's is also listed, and both lines can be traced to David fulfilling the prophecy.  If Jesus genealogy can be traced through Joseph, then I think it is good and right to trace our adopted children through the history of their adopted family.

I did finally reach my dad and got an earful of stories about his dad.  I tried to write them down as much as possible.  That man lived quite a life.

Wyatt learned some things from the project too.  He had to share a family story that went back at least to his grandparents.  He learned some things from doing that, and he got a perfect score on the project :)

People sometimes ask who you want to meet in Heaven.  Usually I am most intrigued by the relatives who came before me.  I think it will be cool to one day see how they react to these kids of mine.  I am sure it's quite possible that my ancestors saw who my children would be before I did.

A Beautiful Day

We visited a fantastic zoo today.  The weather was stellar, and the animal viewing was terrific.  We enjoyed some active animals.

We took our smaller vehicle, and I rode in the back with Wyatt and Julia because I am smaller than Zach (who turns 21 tomorrow, by the way).  Nobody makes me laugh more than Julia, and we laughed most of the way there.

My sloth loving boy.  I know we did not see all of the zoo.  I am not sure if they have sloths or not.

The animals were active and showed off so much personality.  I know this is a lot of pictures for a blog post, but I liked so many of them.

I am not usually enamored with owls, but this one was gorgeous.  I could not get a picture to do it justice.

The gorillas were so much fun and so full of personality.

This was an active little guy.  A volunteer told us that he is two years old and that later in the day, they bring out two other babies, one of whom is just a year old.  We did return to the exhibit, but the gorillas were all napping.

I was impressed by this gibbon's tight rope walk.  He obliged my missed opportunity for a picture and did it a second time.

How cute are they??? Posers

This bear was just beautiful.

We planned this trip weeks ago specifically to see the cheetah encounter.  We were in our seats waiting a half an hour before it started, and it did not disappoint.

Sir Francis Bacon, a red boar--Julia loved him and wants one.

Kallie is a flirt with quite a few fun faces.

The cheetah who ran for us is named Savannah.  She is strong, powerful, fast, and pretty.

The lighting is not the best, but I love the expression.

Where've I been?

The last few weeks have been typical fall weeks for us.  We've been to several football games, some in awesome evening weather, and some in scorching Saturday afternoon sun.

Andy and I enjoyed a beautiful marriage retreat with couples from our Weekend Group at church.  It's always a great way to connect with some fun people and strengthen our marriage.

We have helped serve a meal to 540 college students at CSF on Savannah's school campus.  I actually just washed dishes which is much more in my comfort zone than serving a meal.

I have been sick for more than four weeks.  It started with a cold - a knock you off your feet, nasty cold.  It was the sickest I've felt in years.  I could not miss work.  We were teaching all day long every day that first week, and my voice was a mess -- you know the kind where it is actually painful for others to listen to you.  My throat hurt so bad the first two days that I thought I might have strep.

I waited it out.  It went to my chest and just would not let go, so I finally saw a doctor just over a week ago.  I am finishing up medicine for pleurisy and a sinus infection.  The pleurisy is the worst.  Just when I think it is gone, it comes back with a vengeance.  Every time I sneezed yesterday, it felt like my right lung would explode.  Today is better.  I am not sure if that is because I am actually improving or if it is because I am taking Aspirin round the clock.

My workouts have been suspended.  I have felt less ill this week, but the fatigue that did not come with the illness initially has hit.  I was barely out of bed over the weekend and have not been out of it much this week either.  I have not missed a day of work for this illness, so I give it what I've got there and then come home and let my family and house suffer for it.

I think it's almost over.  I sure hope so.  Yes, I was sick through all those football games and that retreat and that meal for CSF.  Nobody else got sick, so I am pretty sure I have not been contagious.  This week I almost reached my breaking point with this.

Words of advice from Grandma

As anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows, my audience is my children.  They don't read it, but someday, they might.  I am posting today the words of wisdom that my mom passed down to me.

On dating

Date many people.  You won't know what you want in someone you will marry unless you have dated several people before you meet the right one.  

This advice came back to me many months ago when reading about someone who grew up in a home that promoted courtship.  She was fully invested in this idea until she saw others who pursued it divorcing.  This lady remembered that her grandmother had questioned her about courting, saying how could she possibly know the right guy if she hadn't dated anyone else?  Her grandmother's dating days were in a community where all the parents refused to let their children go out on a date with the same person twice in a row.  So, it worked like this - if Sam wanted to take Amelia to the dance, but they just went out last weekend, then Jeff would take Amelia out for ice cream during the week.  This reminded me of my mom's advice.

Her other dating advice was that you don't date someone you would not marry.  Her advice was that you should know what characteristics were important for someone you would marry.  The list does not have to be long.  My list consisted of three criteria: I wanted someone who loved God, loved his family, and had a college degree.  That last one may sound shallow, but I felt that I would struggle with someone who did not have a degree when I did, or maybe I was afraid he would struggle with that.

While I agree with the dating advice, I realized just recently that I have not really passed it on to my children.  Dating is so different now.  I know, among their peers, they spend quite a bit of time getting to know each other before they move into dating, so maybe that works too.  I guess we will see.

On naming children

My mom is practically famous for her rules regarding children's names.

• no nicknames -name them what you intend to call them
• no naming them after anyone - don't force a child to live up or live down the reputation of someone else, and avoid the confusion of juniors, II's, III's etc.
• no initials that spell anything
• no double consonants at the end and beginning of a name (ie. no Brett Todd)
• no fancy/crazy spellings - spell the names as tradition dictates
• no gender neutral names

For the most part, I followed my mom's naming advice.  Savannah does share a middle name with my great-grandma, but I never knew her very well and just liked the name.  Zach's middle name is a family name rather than an individual name.  I actually like Mom's naming advice.  She had personal experience and good reason for almost all of it.  Her initials spelled "eat", and she hated that.  She always went by her middle name - constant frustration that she actually spent some money to change.  Her brother was named after her dad, and his son is named after him, and his grandson is the fourth in that name lineage.  Mom also had the double consonant thing in her name too which she felt made speaking her name difficult as one name doesn't truly stop before the other begins.

Of course it can be a gamble for girls who take their husband's name when they marry - could totally mess up the system which is why both my girls have middle names that start with consonants so they can't spell anything -- okay I did not choose Julia's middle name, but it still starts with a consonant :)

My mom had no problem with sibling patterns. All the girls in my family have names that start with T, and the boys names start with J.  I had no problem with breaking that tradition with my own kids.  I never wanted to be bound by a single letter when choosing a name.  I wanted to name the kids the names I liked best, period.

When you know your kids

Somewhere along the journey of my life I heard wise counsel about that freshman year away from home on a college campus.  It may have been advice given to me when I was a freshman, or I may have heard it somewhere else.  I gave it to both my college bound kids their freshman year.  Don't come home before Labor Day weekend.  I have heard that a trip home before that first long weekend usually becomes the beginning of a suitcase student who never fully lives on campus but is not really living at home either.

We dropped Savannah off just over two weeks ago, and because she has no car on campus, she knew it would be Labor Day weekend before we would pick her up.  She let us know fairly early on that at least one of the programs in which she is involved  made plans for her on Labor Day weekend as they tried to keep students from returning home.  I pointed out that she does not have to come home for the whole weekend.  We could pick her up for the day or for an overnight.  She said that we could come see her.  Savannah pointed out that most of her friends are from out of state, and they can't just go home, so she doesn't feel like she should either.  She has plans - breakout games, a football game, a movie date, and who knows what else.  

How did my introverted daughter get to a place where she has friends who comment that she knows someone everywhere they go on a big campus? She admits that these people her friends are commenting on are all people she recently met.  How did she come to a place where she would be excited about living with a complete stranger? How did this introverted girl become comfortable with walking onto a big campus and trying the many ministry opportunities seeking the best fit to plug in?

This story begins with a journey in parenting...

I believe that most, if not all, parents parent from their own life experiences.  Andy and I had different experiences growing up, and both wanted to compensate in some way for those experiences.

Andy moved into a small town in late elementary school, and he had moved a few times before that.  He ended up graduating from high school in that town.  I moved around quite a bit until I was eight years old.  I had a split kindergarten year in two different towns.  I moved again in the middle of third grade.  While that move in third grade turned out to be permanent, I moved into a city that was constantly bussing students across town and changing school zones.  They continue this to this day.  For me that meant that by the time I was in sixth grade, I was entering my fourth school since moving into the house that I lived in until I moved out on my own.  I was a painfully shy child, and never comfortable in a new environment.  As it would turn out, four years of high school was the longest I ever spent in one school.  

When that dreadful school decision visited Andy and me, I had two priorities.  I wanted my children to have a Christ-centered education, and I wanted to commit to keeping them in one school, period.

I am the oldest of six, and I remember a time when my mom had kids in five different schools.  As a working mom who had to be at work before the kids even left for school, I could not do that.  This commitment proved to be very important for Savannah.  Andy wanted a school big enough to support a football team.  He had badly wanted to play football in high school, but his school had no team.  He also wanted a strong education as he felt his schooling left him unprepared for the demands of engineering school.  He wanted a school with enough diversity to provide extra-curricular activities for our two very different kids.  We made our choice even though it involved driving across town when I felt we had two perfectly fine schools much closer to home.  

It was not until she was in elementary school that I realized that Savannah was an introvert.  She seemed pretty outgoing until the middle of kindergarten.   I had a hunch that if Savannah grew up around the same kids in a comfortable environment, she would gain confidence.  She might be an introvert, but she would not necessarily have to be a shy introvert.  I think that proved to be true.  

In high school we strongly encouraged Savannah to try to get into a program that would give her three weeks experience on a college campus.  She did that, and it was a game changer.  She returned to us with a very noticeable confidence that I did not even realize she lacked before that program.  She adored her roommate who had been a complete stranger, and she made lots of friends in a short time.  This is a girl whom I was convinced would live at home for college when she finished middle school.  Savannah was such a homebody.

Andy knows his kids well.  He saw it long before I did.  Last year he booted Zach out of his bedroom and gave that room to Savannah - putting Zach in our basement which I contend is not really suitable for living.  Andy reasoned that when Savannah left home, we weren't getting her back.  Sure, she will return for summers and holidays, but she will move out after college.  Andy was hanging on last year.  

Savannah confirmed Andy's suspicions when she announced that she plans to seek employment out of state when she finishes college.  

We made many parenting mistakes.  I still lose sleep wondering if my mistakes have caused the hardship one my children faces.  We sometimes just don't know what to do.  I am in that position with a child right now.  It cost us a lot.  I am sure our family would be bigger if we had made a different school decision. We missed out on many things I would have liked to have done.  However, that consistent nurturing environment paid off big for Savannah - in many ways.  She was well prepared academically.  She took advantage of every opportunity offered to her educationally.  Savannah grew in the confidence she needed to pursue her dreams.  Not everything is perfect.  Savannah decided her freshman year that she wanted a college education without student loans, and I confess that it does grieve me a bit that she is carrying the exact same amount in student loans for her freshman year that Zach did despite having a full-tuition scholarship.  Her hard work made a difference for Andy and me as we don't have the parent loans for her that we do for Zach (Zach's loans freak me out).  However, this campus (her first choice) would not have even been an option if not for that scholarship.  Savannah knows that the glory does not belong to her or to us,  and she appreciates the blessings she receives.

I admit that I am a little disappointed that Savannah and I won't follow our family tradition and close out the pool by visiting as many times as we can this last weekend it is open,  but my disappointment is overshadowed by far by the joy of hearing from her and learning that she's making lots of friends, and she always seems to have something to do, and she seems to be balancing that by staying true to herself and getting the alone time that she needs too.

Oh yeah, and we will see her this weekend.  It may be brief because her calendar seems pretty full, and I have to get in that precious pool time, but she needs clothes.  It's getting cooler in the mornings, and she's realizing that she could use some more dress clothes, so we will deliver :) I would actually wait until next weekend to do that, but Andy and I have too much on our plates then.