In the days just over a week ago when they knew their baby would soon be born,  I told my son that giving birth was hard work, yes, but that it was the most exquisite thing that ever happened to me. The beauty of welcoming a grandchild is another layer of that kind of breathtaking awe and wonder.  Part of this is being privileged to see that amazing awareness and tenderness in my son and his wife as they experience all it means to be a parent. Part is the hope, knowing, newness, and wonder in my granddaughter's eyes. Thank you, Ben and Kristen, and Nora!

"To have grandchildren is not only to be given something but to be given something back.

You are given back something of your children's childhood all those years ago. You are given back something of what it was like to be a young parent. You are given back something of your own childhood even, as on creaking knees you get down on the floor to play tiddlywinks, or sing about Old MacDonald and his farm, or watch Saturday morning cartoons till you're cross-eyed.

It is not only your own genes that are part of your grandchildren but the genes of all sorts of people they never knew but who, through them, will play some part in times and places they never dreamed of. And of course along with your genes, they will also carry their memories of you into those times and places too—the afternoon you lay in the hammock with them watching the breezes blow, the face you made when one of them stuck out a tongue dyed Popsicle blue at you, the time you got a splinter out for one of them with the tweezers of your Swiss army knife. On some distant day they will hold grandchildren of their own with the same hands you once held them by as you searched the beach at low tide for Spanish gold.

In the meantime, they are the freshest and fairest you have. After you're gone, it is mainly because of them that the earth will not be as if you never walked on it.

Frederick Buechner  on Grandchildren.    originally published in Beyond Words

Nora Opal

On March 19, 2014, we welcomed our granddaughter, Nora Opal into our arms.  She was already in our hearts. The only thrill more wonderful than cradling her and feeling her melt into my arms is watching my son as he holds and adores her.  I love seeing them:  mother, baby, and father, God's good gifts for each other  - precious new family.  We celebrate!

Covering

The 3 inch wide kntted lace which I began when I was pregnant many years ago and picked up to work on again for that son's first child is finished.  I attached it to layers of crepe back satin, solid cream on one side, and a richly colored butterfly and roses print on the other. I knitted the lace, blocked it, cut and stitched the satin, went around the edge with pearl cotton in a blanket stitch, and finally, whip-stitched the lace to those stitches. It has been a labor of love, giving me the opportunity to focus on this baby, every stitch a prayer for her safe passage into this world and her journey in the years to come.  I have folded the coverlet and will pass it into the hands of my son and his wife today. Nora has been in our hearts for all these months, within days she will be in our arms.  Welcome, sweet little girl. You are covered with more than satin and lace. You are covered with Grace.

Record Keeping

 I am entering a time when I want to clean my house and tend my garden (literally and figuratively), gather my family in healing hugs, and begin the preparation and reflection that is the Lenten season. As Easter approaches, so does the birth of our newest grandchild, another reason for "getting ready." 

 I  rely on strength beyond myself.  Grace! I want to be sure I have things recorded and in order.  I have a project started that I  call Answers - answers to all the questions that can come when illness or loss occur.  I am reminded that even though Mother died in 2006, her development of Alzheimer's took her sharp mind away beginning around 6 years earlier.  It was her record keeping long before that which became so important recently.

Mother had never taken care of bills and bank accounts, etc. when Daddy died in 1982.  During the next 15 years she did a marvelous job of doing just that and kept meticulous records.  She would have been horrified to discover what happened with a property tax delinquency.  I believed at the beginning that this was another lash of the Alzheimer Dragon's tail, and indeed, the difficulty uncovering records for the 2 years just prior to my moving her and beginning to handle everything was affected by that.  But her previous record keeping was in the end what helped me answer the questions I needed to satisfy my curiosity before paying up.  Many times she had spoken to me about a tiny amount of royalty interest, and the lease records are in those old files.  The bottom line was a result of a combination of things.

  1) She sold her little house in 1998, distributed the income from that to my sister and me, filing a forwarding address.

  2) Because royalty property tax is only assessed when production/income is a significant enough amount to warrant a statement, apparently she did not receive any tax bill, so no tax payments in 1998 and 1999.  By then, the forwarding address order would have expired.
   
3) In 2000-2001, the first years of said delinquency, the tax office said they did not have any returned mail.  My only guess is that the people who were then at that address just pitched the bills thinking it was "old" and not necessary to return. 

 4) In 2002, I moved her here and she became a resident of another county where she died. 

 5) Since I had never paid that kind of tax for her, I wasn't aware I should be paying it!  I do think my attorney was remiss in failing to get her death filed in Smith County as well as Fort Bend.  If he did that, they would have had a traceable address for the last 6 years. So the last 6 years of delinquency were indeed mine!

Aging gracefully and dying well are important for us to consider thoughtfully and deliberately as we continue to care each other.  God's good gifts of daily bread continue to be our source of strength and energy.

Bad Day

the loud knock at the door was not my neighbor

a uniform, herald of gravitas

papers extended, not a handshake

do you know this person?

I dread to look,

astonished, say yes

my mother, I say

this was her last address

what can you want?

she died 6 years ago

can I help you?

yes, that's me, her daughter

Tax delinquency?

Impossible.  I paid her bills.

 12 years ago?

Interest? Penalties? Fees?

This one day I am glad she isn't here.

Celebration

Today my friends hosted a wonderful brunch to celebrate Kristen and Ben and Nora Opal, who will soon arrive - our fifth granddaughter!  Extended family and friends shared good food, strawberry lemonade and cupcakes, and presented the first time parents with gifts, good advice, and baby blessings.  Most of all, I recall the laughter and joy of us all.  And the pure delight in Ben and Kristen's faces.  Above is a photo of the sign on the front porch which sat between rocking chairs.  We are waiting with open arms, Nora!

Together Again

On January 26, I posted a story titled "Returned Mail"  about a lovely Southern lady named Charlotte who died last year at the age of 98. Last week, her husband died and on February 14,  Paul Parker was buried. They were married for 73 years! When couples who have lived and loved for a very long time die, it often happens that when one of them passes away, the other soon follows.  I am remembering my own paternal grandparents, Tom and Ida Teal,  who died within a week of each other when I was 17.  I like to think that Charlotte was waiting for Paul -  that they are together again. Their love story lives on as we remember them.

www.tinyurl.com/PaulParkerObituary

Jacksonville, Texas

Jacksonville (population 14,544) sits about 30 miles south of Tyler in East Texas and is surrounded by lush green forests nestled atop rolling hills. Some might find that strange because when I’ve spoken to people who don’t live here and I tell them I’m from Texas, their first comment is, “It’s so flat there.” What they don’t understand is that Texas has a diverse landscape and Jacksonville is one of those places that proves it.

Jacksonville was founded as a result of an Indian massacre. On October 5, 1838, the Killough family migrated to the area from Alabama and was attacked by a group of Cherokee Indians while preparing the land for harvest and building their homes. In total, eighteen were either killed or taken as captives. The few family members who managed to escape walked over 40 miles south, ending up in Alto, Texas and those who were taken as captives were never heard from or ever seen again. General Thomas Rusk brought the Texas Army to the area to search for those who committed the murders and one of his soldiers, Jackson Smith, while scouting along Gum Creek,  found a spot that was so beautiful he vowed to return and make his future home there. He did so nine years later.

 Jacksonville is a city with an exciting and unique history. Its story goes back to 1838, the year of the Killough Massacre, East Texas' worst Indian atrocity. The site of the massacre was about seven miles north of the current location. Eighteen settlers, including women and children, either were killed or carried away, never to be heard from again.

General Thomas J. Rusk brought the Texas Army into this area to search for the renegades who had committed the murders. One of his soldiers, Kentucky native Jackson Smith, was scouting along Gum Creek when he found a spot so beautiful that he vowed to return and make his home there. Nine years later, he did.

Jackson Smith built a house and blacksmith shop along the east bank of of the creek in 1847, setting up a post office at one end of the shop which took the name Gum Creek, after the little community that had grown up there since 1838. Soon after Smith built his shop, Dr. William Jackson built an office next to it. When Smith had a townsite and square surveyed near his home in 1850, Jacksonville, named after the two men, was born, officially replacing the community of Gum Creek in June of that year.

In 1872, the International-Great Northern Railroad was built through Cherokee County, missing Jacksonville by about two miles. Jacksonville inhabitants, aware that the railroad was crucial to the survival of the town, worked out an agreement with railroad officials to survey a new township along the railroad. In the fall of 1872, most of the original Jacksonville was moved the two miles east to its new location.

Within ten years, agriculture became the main focus of the local economy. Jacksonville was a leading center for peach production from the 1880s to 1914; thereafter, tomatoes became the primary crop until the 1950s. During this time, Jacksonville earned the title "Tomato Capital of the World." Livestock has always been -- and to a certain extent still is -- an important part of the economy as well. The production of plastics and polymers led industry from the 1980s through the '90s.

                                                                                                         ****

In 1945, when I was 4 years old my parents saved enough money to pay cash for a small frame house on the corner of Sunset Avenue and Pineda Street, which was my home until I was 17, graduated from Jacksonville High School and went away to college.  Some of the old photographs in this slide show I believe to be prior to 1945, but many were taken during the time that I grew up there.