Magic Dressup Trunk

Maddie, summer 2010

Nora, summer 2019

During Maddie's recent visit with us, we enjoyed so many special times. She spent time and had fun with all of us in this multigenerational household - oldest to youngest!  Maddie is now 13, but when she was a little younger than Nora is now at 5, she came to stay with us and loved dressing up using all her imagination and the dressup collection we kept in the front closet. When they pullled out the dressup trunk a couple of weeks ago, Maddie found an old skirt of mine that she remembered making into an outfit  and modeling for us. The two girls found a hat and ribbon and sunglasses to complete the ensemble and proudly displayed the results.

There is still magic in that trunk!

Change and Challenge

It has been 10 and 1/2  years since I accepted my own challenge to begin this blog. I did not know how, only why, I wanted to do this. In the first post, On January 12, 2009, I admitted "Blog? The word is strange to me. I know what it is. I read other blogs. But I do not know how to blog. The word as a verb instead of a noun is vaguely unsettling because it implies an action I do not yet know how to perform. But I will learn. I will. 

Forty one years ago tonight I was beginning the labor that would bring our first son into the light. On that cold Saturday morning, mighty work was required but then came the overwhelming joy. The work that can deliver words that have grown within me into the light of print and scrutiny may be absorbing and intense as well but with joy I ask for grace in the passing on of life and story.  

Again, I have needed to determine to learn, and to ask for grace in the passing on of life and story...

I see that it has been 2 months since I last posted - April 13, 2019. Later, during that night, I fell, fracturing a vertebra in my lumbar spine, launching me into a season of change. I wrote recently about this and Joe's recent vision loss in another blog: https://stonesandfeathers.wordpress.com/2019/06/02/return/

In all the challenge of wearing a thoracic brace for 3 months, beginning daily injections that must be on my calendar for 2 years, managing pain making my own health management a necessary priority while yet being available to Joe, and learning to accept help there has been a great deal for me to keep on changing and learning. And, as I wrote all those years ago, I will.

The Untried Melody
Howard Thurman

I will sing a new song.
I must learn the new song for the new needs
I must fashion new words born of all the new growth in my life---of my mind---of my spirit.
I must prepare for new melodies that have never been mine before,
That all that is within me may lift my voice unto God.

How I love the old familiarity of the wearied melody,
How I shrink from the harsh discords of the new untried harmonies.

Teach me, my Father, that I might learn with the abandonment and enthusiasm of Jesus, 
The fresh new accent, the untried melody,
to meet the need of the untried morrow.

Source: from "I Will Sing a New Song" in Meditations of the Heart

Our Vitex greens and blooms. Again.

"The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung." ~Walt Whitman

Family Fun

Jeremy, Maddie, and Jordann spent a week and a half with us.We said Goodbye with both smiles and tears and blessed their travel home. While they were with us, we enjoyed doing as much together as we could pack in the days!  The photos show how much!

                              Fishing in the little lake behind our house.

        

Catching up with talks and hugs!

Cousin Time!

Cooking and Eating!

Tea for Two and Friends

Revisiting Favorite Places.  Secret Places.

Making music and listening!

They made hummingbird nectar and put out 4 new hummingbird feeders!

Jordann's Canvas Art

There was more, of course - they went to the zoo, to a splash pad,  and picked strawberries. The girls and Jeremy drove down to Galveston and Surfside for a day. Maddie brought back tiny lavender lined shells to create a butterfly picture.Jordann and Nora worked jigsaw puzzles. They had movie and popcorn nights and a Dutch Baby one morning for breakfast! We did art projects  and picked roses. It was snowing when they left Nevada, and Spring had arrived in South Texas.

We made precious memories.  Joe and I reveled in being with our children and grandchildren.  I am thankful for Joe and for each of these, the generations who follow us. 

Friends and Valentines

This is a valentine that I keep in my kitchen year round. In fact, it has been around many years. It has sat in its frame in my last 3 homes, so that could be up to 25 years, but on the reverse side, there is only written "Happy Valentine's! Mignon" We began friendship in our second grade year, and it continues. Although we don't see each other often, that bond forged so early remains. Enduring friendships are rare and precious. Joe and I say that we are forever friends - a solid foundation for a solid marriage.

I watched my grandchildren get ready for February 14 last week, remembered all the ways it is celebrated. and smile as I consider how the tradition changes, but also stays the same.  I got texts from my older granddaughters, and tiny candy boxes from Nora and Oliver. Joe and I had a Valentine lunch and planned to prune the roses. Kristen wound up doing that for us because Joe's eyes and my shoulder kept us from using our new garden gloves and pruning shears . That was a valentine labor of love!.

Keeping and Letting Go

When I was a little girl, I had this miniature rocking chair plus a few other pieces of doll house furniture. It is strange to me, but I do not remember having a doll house although I remember in detail most of these pieces of tiny furniture. I loved this little yellow and red rocking chair and the tiny grand piano. Both sit on one of my bookshelves, in front of a row of books.

There was a family - a mother, a father, and a baby. There was a refrigerator with a door that really opened, and a table and chairs. And there was a pink plastic bathtub and pedestal sink. Some of these survived until I did have a dollhouse, a Victorian house I had made by paraplegic craftsmen at a hospital in Jakarta, Indonesia. In our time there, I added a few handmade wooden pieces, a 4 poster bed and other small things. As my granddaughters were added to our family in later years, they loved the dollhouse and our odd assortment of furnishings. We added bottle tops for vases and coasters for rugs. Over time, the doll house began to fall apart and when we parted with a great many other things in order to make our move with Ben and Kristen and Nora, the doll house wound up being rescued by our oldest son, Sean, along with the remainders of furniture.
https://tinyurl.com/FarewellHouse


Long before that happened, I had picked the little rocker and the piano to sit where I could see them. I don't know why I chose these 2 pieces. But when I let my story telling heart imagine, I think of all the ways rocking chairs have been important to me - savoring the stories of being rocked and sung to when I was a baby, then doing just that with my own babies.

I think too how much I love my real piano and the way I feel when I am able to sit at its keys and pour my feelings into music.

The things we keep, and the ways we let them go speak volumes. This story is one of my ways of letting go.

55 Years!

Our 55th, as in every anniversary, passed during Christmastide.

We were married three days after Christmas in 1963 after dating for 11 months. Choosing each other then was only the beginning, a glimmer of what grew to become intentional, tenacious choosing as years unfolded. Unlike many weddings now, we had no wedding planner, no announcing for saving a date, no plans for a honeymoon. We chose the date because we decided we wanted to begin our life together then instead of waiting until after I finished my degree in nursing at Oklahoma Baptist University 5 months later. We decided this in October, a little over 2 months away from our wedding. Joe was recently discharged from the army, had a job with Petty Geophysical on a field crew that was at the time located in southwestern Oklahoma. I was finishing a degree;I was in Oklahoma City. He had made many trips to Oklahoma City in his Karman Ghia so we knew it was not a great commute. The plan was for him to find another job in Oklahoma City and move there.  The announcement of our engagement appeared in the Jacksonville paper on my birthday, November 14.

The timing was historical. On the day he was to arrive in the City, as I walked through the nurses' residence on my way back from John Wesley Hospital which was adjacent, I found a cluster of students in the large room at the front where the only television in the building was located. Unusual, because most of us had classes or shifts to work at the hospital. As I paused, I learned that our nation's president, John F. Kennedy, had been assassinated while in Dallas, TX. Many in the room, including me, were in tears. So November 22, 1963 became forever a date to be remembered. But I also remember it because Joe was on the way. We would find a place where he could live, he would find a job, we would be married very soon.  Most brides have many things on their list to  check off in the weeks before their marriage. I was no exception, but my list included exams for that semester and completing the construction of my wedding gown. I had made one trip with Mother to Tyler to try on wedding dresses, but buying one was out of the question. So I sketched one I had admired, with Mother's help selected some patterns, fabric, lace, and put my sewing machine to work.  

When Joe and I went to Texas for Thanksgiving weekend,  my mother and I cut out patterns from the lace, appliqued them to the slim skirt of the dress and circular train, and stitched on what seemed like hundreds of seed pearls.

Details of my wedding day drift through and settle. The arrival of my best friend and maid of honor, Jo Rita, along with Mary June and Sue and my sister Janice. Laughter. Last minute alterations and adjustments to my dress because I lost so much weight. Sugaring inexpensive Christmas bells for a topper to the cake my mother's friend had made. Having a hamburger for a quick supper. Wearing a plaid shirtwaist dress and realizing it was time to put on the dress! Hearing that Joe and his best man, our friend, Eddie Ballard had gone to Tyler to a movie the night before. They saw Spencer's Mountain with Maureen O'Hara.  No bachelor party, no bridesmaid weekend somewhere. No elaborate reception and dinner. The wedding rings we had ordered from a local jeweler were lost in the mail! Judy and Arnold (Joe's brother) let us borrow theirs! It was a Saturday night. When the organ chimed 7 times, my nervous Daddy and I started down the aisle toward my choice, my love. 

The phrase in our wedding vows "I take you..." means I choose you. The choice has been made every day since. 

I still do!

The Day After Christmas 2018

The acceleration of flurry, anticipation and glee combined with celebration preparations on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day presents us with a choice:  irritation and frustration, which are certain joy killers, or hold the activity of family gathering and gifting with gratitude, bending into it and letting go to simplify where needed.  With intention, I choose the latter, savoring the occasion of being together, being sure to include loved ones who aren't with us with calls and texts, and making the time early or late for some reading and reflection to be sure that I am holding even closer the presence of God with me, with us. Immanuel. 

Since I celebrate the 12 days of Christmas and Christmastide, today and the days that follow are times of reading, music, quiet reflecting - soaking in the mystery of God becoming one of us. When we lit all the Advent candles last night, 4 year old Nora helped, then sang the blessing she sings for us at mealtime "Oh, the Lord is good to us..." afterward snuffing out each candle we talked about the Light that never goes out. 

All Wrapped Up in Christmas

Bringing out the Christmas decorations and getting them all put into place can be hard work!  Nora, all worn out from her excitement and helping, fell asleep on the couch, all wrapped up in a Christmas wreath I sewed up nearly fifty years ago!  It is a circle braided from stuffed fabric- green velvet from scraps of a dress I wore to a banquet in high school, white brocade from my high school graduation, and red corduroy from a jumper I wore when I was pregnant with Sean. Mother made the clothes, I made the wreath. I enjoyed sewing the pieces together and thinking about the times I wore those dresses, but seeing her like this filled my heart with even greater joy. I confess to my eyes filling and spilling a bit as well. It's beginning to look alot like Christmas! 

Growing

Fall and winter bring new growing seasons for south Texas. Nora and I planted a few broccoli plants. This is her first harvest, which she ate with her dinner that night. We grew this one in a container on the porch, but more from seeds will grow in our garden. Kristen harvested sweet potatoes and look at this one! This big sweet potato made 2 large casseroles for 2 different family Thanksgiving tables!

78 Celebrations

                                                    Mary Ann Teal   November 14 1946

Today I celebrate my 78th birthday so I began listening to Christmas music, a habit that I call a gift to myself started many years ago. It is a clear, cold November day, unlike the day I was born,  stormy morning described to me by my mother.  I began the day as I do every morning now - thanking God for the gift of this day and for the sure knowledge of His presence with me in all the days past and the certainty that He will be with me in the days ahead.  As the day unfolds, I think of past birthdays. I have had birthdays in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Oregon, and California as well as Indonesia and Singapore. There have been cakes and special meals and sweet gifts. But best of all has been having loved ones with me. I am grateful!

Another Birthday

Another family birthday arrives this week. I found this homemade invitation to Jeremy's 1976 birthday party when I was sorting a box in my closet recently. His birthday is October 19. I picture the day he was born, remembering that 2 year old Sean and I sat outside and played in the autumn leaves watching for Joe to get home from work so that Sean could go to my sister's home and Joe and I could go on to Methodist Hospital in San Antonio where Jeremy made his 3 week early arrival at 11:41 p.m., just 19 minutes before his grandmother Opal's birthday on the 20th. All the love and pride we felt that night has multiplied through the years!  Happy Birthday, Jeremy Teal Parker!

On his way to his second birthday, Oliver has discovered trucks and heavy equipment!  All these are powered by imagination and perserverance.  Add a rainy day and the stories multiply. He tossed his umbrella and had the best time moving wet dirt in the rose bed. I only wish I had been ready with my camera when he was coaxed inside with mud in more places!  As I watched him, I remembered his Daddy and uncles doing the same things and looking quite alot like him.

August Night

This is a guest post. My 12 year old granddaughter Maddie wrote the poem and composed the photograph when I was visiting in Reno a month ago. On the night before I left we sat outside talking while we watched moonrise and starshine. I will be sure to keep these memories, too.

10!

My granddaughters are growing up! The most recent family birthday starred Jordann, celebrating her tenth with an ice cream cake. When she and her sister and Dad went camping this summer, she started a rock collection which she plans to polish in the rock tumbler she got for her birthday. When I visited them in Reno recently, she was getting off to a good start in fifth grade. She is beautiful, inside and out!

Grover

Reading to my children, and now, to my grandchildren is one of my greatest pleasures for several reasons. I love that this can be a time to snuggle up and get lost in a story together. The opportunity for interaction and conversation is another benefit. And I know that reading together contributes to lifelong pleasure in reading for them. But one of the most fun book times through the years has been watching Joe read the book pictured here to first our little ones, and more recently, our 5 granddaughters. Joe recently lost a great deal of vision, but I know that he knows this book by heart so today I am going to find our copy and watch our grandson  Oliver and Joe enjoy it together. Grover is an old friend, just like so many of the children's books waiting on our bookshelves.

High Flight

There are some well advised warnings lately that concern heavy use of technology and its consequences. I am in agreement with using our laptops, tablets, and cellular phones responsibly. I cringe when I see a whole family at a restaurant meal with phones up instead of talking to each other. But I am so thankful for the technology that lets me easily stay in touch with my son and granddaughters who live too far away to visit often. I talk and text with them - not as good as face to face, but truly a good thing. This week I texted photos of some clothes I was planning to get for the girls and was able to get an opinion - most likely more quickly than I would have if we had been out shopping here in Texas.  Jeremy is a pilot who travels all over the world. I am thankful for our phone visits!  

Maddie, Jeremy, Jordann

Jeremy Teal Parker

I read this poem a long time ago, and found it again this week. It reminded me of the way Jeremy describes flying.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air… .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

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John McGee, Jr. age 19 - a young Canadian pilot who wrote this in WWII

I see that it has been exactly 2 months since my last post for this blog. I confess I have wondered if it is time for me to hang up my blogs. But writing is healing for me, and stories still need to be told even when they are painful! I believe we model for our sons and grandchildren ways that we handle difficulty. After all, it is not about the heaviness of the load, but the way that you bear it!  Joe's vision is improved but still fluctuating after laser surgery; he is still unable to drive and vision related  pursuits he enjoys like reading and watching television are unsatisfactory.    A month ago I spent a week in the hospital due to pneumonia secondary to flu. Since then we have made and kept over 20 medical appointments! Friends and family have called, prayed, shared food and flowers. God is with us every moment. We have learned in new ways the blessing of asking for help, and allowing it!  

The week after I was released from the hospital, we had a surprise impromptu Parker family reunion!  Twenty three people, most of whom we have not seen in several years, gathered to not only bring a meal but clean up every single thing after we had visited all afternoon. There is great joy in keeping family connections. I love looking at photos and seeing all the smiles and shining eyes!  I stood near my kitchen table where 5 girl cousins and Ben were laughing and trading stories. 2 of these "girls" were flower girls in our wedding!  Sean and his family had just left to go home, and Jeremy (in Nevada) received a phone call from them. As they put the phone on speaker and continued their laughter, I thought this was a dear moment I could never have dreamed when we planned that  Christmas wedding 3 days after Christmas in 1963!  

Three of Joe's brothers (here with other groomsmen) have passed from earthly life. His brother Pasco (3rd from Joe in the photo) and his wife, Iris, my sister in law Judy, nieces, a grand nephew, and Iris' sister and her husband plus our sons and their families who live near us made the group that Saturday. 

Journey

I miss the storytelling when I go weeks without working on this blog. There have been very few times that has happened. The reasons are almost always the same: family circumstance and illness.

This time is no exception. In addition to problems occurring during travel with our son and granddaughters, 2 weeks ago Joe woke up unable to see anything at all. Since he only has one eye, when that eye is affected, the result is grim. We have excellent medical resources here and he is being treated by a retina specialist. He has 2 kinds of glaucoma which has resulted in dangerously high intraocular pressure and severe pain plus vision loss.  Last week he had laser surgery on the eye. There is some improvement but his vision is still very poor. Our hopes and prayers are that there will be continued healing and improved vision. We are no strangers to eye disease. Our youngest son was diagnosed with Cone Rod Dystrophy when he was  10, resulting in severe vision loss. His experience and spirit have been important to Joe as he deals with this latest issue of his own. I had cornea transplants. The first one was 12 years ago next month. The other eye received a transplant 2 months later. None of these issues appear related. Although none of them have been something we would have chosen, I realize that our combined experiences have given us a strength and connections with medical experts that is a phenomenal resource as we wait for the results for Joe.

Enough for today. It is not always true that one picture is worth a thousand words.

Stitches

Every year in late winter, trail riders make their way on horseback and in wagons through outlying areas of Houston to gather for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. As the dates approach, western hats and gear appear everywhere, even if those wearing them are not on the way to the rodeo. Nora has her boots and vest and hat, but it is not easy to find gear for a tiny baby boy who has not been walking very long, so I decided to I would make Oliver a vest, complete with a badge for the newest sheriff in town.  When I was helping him try it on, I thought about all the stitches that sewing machine and I have made together. I bought it around 1961, when I was still a student at Oklahoma Baptist University. In 1963 I used that machine to make my wedding gown!

I don't spend as much time sewing these days, but my faithful stitcher is ready to work when I am. It has been my helper in mending, making most of my own clothes at one time, sewing baby boy overalls when our sons were little, making shirts and curtains, pillows, and table linens. I have a picture of me on the morning we left to go to the hospital in downtown San Antonio. That cold January morning, I was wearing a gray knit coat with a paisley lining that I made. I remember that one well, because my bulging belly would not allow the lapels of the coat to meet and button!

Nora brings me everything that needs "fixing" and asks me to sew it up for her. I am glad the Singer and I continue to be stitchworthy. It has proved worth far more than I paid for it. And I was shocked when I saw that on Ebay, it is now worth more than that original $150, which at the time seemed such an extravagance. I think it was a good buy!

I am thankful for my Grandmother and for my Mother, who sewed for me and showed me the value in that creative skill.

Planting

This scene (and so the picture) is an image I never want to forget. It is also full of reminders of these days in our life as a family. It is a record of a day in early March, 2018 - a day of sunshine and planting and doing things together. You can tell that Joe and Nora are planting seeds and seedlings. I also see trust and tenderness between an 80 year old grandfather and an almost 4 year old little girl. What the photo does not reflect that my heart does is the back story.  Nora and I read Jan Karon's book The Trellis and the Seed,  a beautifully illustrated children's book by one of my favorite authors - one I have given to all my grandchildren, usually with a package of Moonflower seeds tucked inside. I told Nora we would look to see if there were Moonflower seeds in our box of garden seeds. Joe said he had Moonflower seeds sprouting already under his growlight! Then Nora's mom found a bag of seeds collected from last years Moonflowers. So the planting is a picture of extended family and cooperation.

Now there are sprouts. We check every day for leafing and climbing. We will all watch for the first fragrant white blooms that grace us only at night, fading just as the Morning Glories begin to open!

OBU Graduation Day 1964

Joe has been going through a great many old photos and recently chose this one to scan and post on his FaceBook page captioned "1964. . . . . Mary Ann graduated from Oklahoma Baptist University, BS in Nursing. Student Nurse of the Year in Oklahoma."  Yes, there I am, 2nd from left, grinning. I am one of the few who seem to be looking at the camera. I think that is because they are all looking toward their own families who are capturing the moment. Joe was there - we married a few months before. My parents did not come because my sister was graduating from high school that May as well. I look at the picture and call almost all the names without hesitation. Barbara Nichols, on the end at the right, is the only one I am still in touch with after 54 years although I have not seen her since graduation.I know that at least 2 of the 10 women pictured have passed away.  

I still have my diploma and worked at a number of different jobs after this date, moving many times for Joe's job.But I have used knowledge and experience gained from my time at Oklahoma Baptist University every day of my life. I am not sure that I was overwhelmed with  gratitude that day (unless from relief that I had completed what I undertook) - but I am at this moment. In my 78th year I am keenly aware of the sacrifices of my parents, the amazing opportunities my education provided, the impact of friendships -  and deeply thankful for it all. 

For the Love of Oliver

Photograph by Joe D. Parker

 Oliver Hilton Parker is sunshine on this foggy day!  He has changed from baby boy to toddler as he begins to walk and explore. He is the first of our grandchildren to be a boy, and also the first to live with Joe and me. He is named for his great grandfather, Joe's Daddy - Oliver Byron Parker and his other grandfather, Kelly Hilton Edwards.. He and his Papa Joe have a special bond, a mutual admiration society. Each seems to know what the other is thinking and saying without any talking!

 I smile when I watch them together - the 80 year old grandfather and the almost 15 months boy.  They clearly adore each other Of course, Joe is crazy about all his granddaughters too. And without exception, Oliver's sister and all his girl cousins, his parents and all his other grandparents, aunts and uncles think he is special too.