Two weeks ago tomorrow the most horrible tragedy occurred. Our closest friends' 22 year old son was killed. Their only son. Their beloved, full-of-joy, so-much-potential son. My four sons' "other brother".

Grief is mostly unfamiliar to me so as I watched that awful day unfold I was totally awed by, well, everything. I hugged them both at once as they cried those raw words into my ears, the words I hear over and over again with the same agony and despair "I don't know what to do. I just don't know what to do." I didn't either. Helpless.

There were many other things wept out that day with the same anguish as they tried to grasp, to understand. In the history of me it was the worst day, the worst week, of my life... and he wasn't even my son. How does one go on from that? How do you be a friend through that?

But, oh, there was so much good as well. People came. Some jumped into their cars as soon as they heard. Others brought food. People answered phones. Made lists. Made plans. The house was filled with love and respect. And, while I was there the whole day I did nothing but stay by El's side. I would move away when someone new came in to give her love but would move back as soon as they moved on. She needed touch. She needed love. But I felt useless. She needed something none of us could give her.

It haunts me. Sleep eludes. Work is meaningless. People around me don't "get it". My God and music have gotten me through. It is amazing to me how healing music can be. As if, someone else out there understands what this family, this friendship, is going through.

I came across this beautiful song, lyrics below, sung by Greg Long.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Help Somebody Cry

Someone you care about has a broken heart
You want to be a friend but you don’t know where to start
There are no words to speak that could ever be enough
How can you show them your love?

Help somebody cry
Be there for the tears
God will use your life
To show them he is near
There’s no easy way
To make it feel alright
When you don’t have the answer to why
Help somebody cry

Time may heal the wound
But that doesn’t matter now
So lend a friend your faith
Walk them through the doubt

Help somebody cry
Be there for the tears
God will use your life
To show that he is near
There’s no easy way
To make it feel alright
When you don’t have the answer to why
Help somebody cry

Sometimes there’s nothing you can do
But hold somebody’s hand and pray them through
There are no words to speak
That can ever be enough
How can you show them your love?
Help somebody cry.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today is El's birthday. There will be no celebrating. If you pray, please do so for the family of Dane Nelson ~ his parents, sister & brother-in-law, his bride of 6 months, his friends, and his students. And realize how fragile life is and how quickly it can be snatched away. Go hug your loved ones right now.

In no hurry at all, I pushed my cart down the wide aisle of T@rget heading toward the registers.  I glanced down each row as I passed, just checking out the items to see if there was anything else I'd missed.  

That's when I noticed this.  A dark-haired child with her back to me, maybe 3 years old, sitting in a cart.  A man gently sliding a small barrette into her hair.  She had leaned toward him a bit so that her hair hung perfectly straight, her face tilted up.

I know.  I only was walking by, maybe four steps was the scene in my view.  It doesn't seem like anything of note does it?  But, oh, the tenderness with which the man did this small task.  The way she seemed so accustomed to the act.  The palpable love shared between them... well, it moved me.

I feel so blessed to have witnessed it.

I awoke to the sound of chirping outside my window.  I couldn't resist opening my eyes to see what this mysterious bird could be, so happy on this first really cold day of November.  Within my view was one fat fellow cheerily pulling dried hackberries from the branches.  Grabbing my glasses and raising myself higher I found that it was a robin and there were several more of his companions doing the same.  The surrounding trees were full of singing robins, no doubt thrilled to find such bounty when most food sources appear to be gone.  The sharp wind was blowing their feathers inside-out but they didn't seem to mind as they cheerily filled their bellies before they continued their flight south.

I smiled and reminded myself that it is time to take down the hummingbird feeders and hang the bird feeders.  What a great way to begin the day opening one's eyes to the simple joys of the world.  It would go on to be a very good day.

~This is the day the Lord hath made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.~

Zeke is spending his summer in the deep South. He is living and working in the heart of West Jackson, Mississippi. (Fred, isn't that the part of town you warned him to stay out of?) I think he is loving it!

He is working as an intern at Voice of Calvary Ministries, helping with their Summer Youth Program. They do school work enrichment and also take field trips and fun stuff. After work every day the kids insist he play football with them, so this soccer player plays football in the deepest Mississippi heat and goes home hot and drenched in sweat and happy.

He's living in a house with 5 other interns. They have no internet service and often spend their evenings sitting on the front porch. They are getting to know their neighbors and he says all the neighborhood kids from 5 to 20 years old come on over to inspect the white kids living in their midst. The little kids all want to feel his soft blond curls and he lets them... gets a kick out of it.

One Friday in mid-June he drove 9 hours to be in a friend's wedding, then turned around and drove back Sunday morning. Angus and I met up with him on Saturday just in time to see him all decked out in a fancy tux, he had not gotten his hair cut, but it was so good to see him.

He was a Groomsmen, also played guitar and sang. It was a lovely wedding and we visited with him a bit at the reception but there was so little time!It had only been a month since I had seen him but he had already changed and grown. A friend once told me when your child goes away to college it's like getting to know someone new every time you meet up again. She was right. It seems they change as much as they did when they were babies, only now it is in a less predictable pattern but every bit as fascinating!

Saturday was Zeke's birthday and I spread the word among his friends and relatives. Having a summer birthday, he's spent many of them away from home on family vacations , at Camp Galilee, at a soccer tourney in Minnesota and at the Sonshine Festival. But always he'd been with people who knew it was his birthday. I doubted if he'd even care if no one knew about it but I thought it would be cool if he got a bunch of cards on his day.

He did! He called on the Friday before and asked me if I think he is 7 years old? I laughed as I could hear the pleasure and joy in his voice behind the mock disgust. He'd already gotten the gift we sent and several cards, one with five bucks in it. (Remember when it was a thrill to get $5?)

He had to work Saturday morning at a Youth Rally in the park. It was his second one and he already knew it would be a fun day. A TV crew showed up and was taping and he made it on the WLBT TV News that evening!

His GrammaJo ordered a cheese cake at the Broad Street Bakery in Jackson(found on the internet) and all he had to do was go pick it up. He's not much for cake so we always have cheesecake on his birthday. Bet he didn't expect it this year. Surprise! He shared it with his new friends that evening.

A good kid. A good day. A good life.

The thundershower rolled in just as my extended family were all arriving for our Father's Day picnic. Thirty minutes earlier the sun had been shining but we could see the clouds rolling in from the west so I had gone ahead and set up everything indoors. The guests ran into the house laughing with rain-splattered backs and soggy shoes. By the time we'd finished eating, the rain had passed and off the kids went to explore. Sometimes I forget how fascinated kids are with frogs and tadpoles and flowers. They followed me around like the Pied Piper intrigued by the herb garden and wanting to taste them all...dill, cilantro, parsley, thyme, basil, chives.... They searched the vines for ripe peas in the garden and held out their little hands for more, more. They plucked the ripe mulberries as high as they could reach then persuaded their 14 year old cousin to pick for them. Life is sweet when you are two or three or four.

Their feet were muddy, their fingers purple and when their uncle sliced the watermelon they ate with abandon not caring at all that the sweet juices dripped off their chins and soaked the fronts of their shirts. Life is full of joy when you are one or two or three or four.

And when I see them full of sweet joy at the wonders of life it makes me joyful, too. It makes me remember to be grateful for the gift of each new day. So after they had all gone home I wandered over to the mulberry tree and I pulled off berry after berry and plunked them into my mouth, one by one savoring each one. I'd forgotten how sweet life can be... when we pay attention to the joy and forget about the messiness.

CJ called me on May 23rd and his first words were "We have a baby". He had begun every phone conversation in the previous month with the words "No baby yet". It was very sweet to hear the new words. I mentioned that he sounded out of breath and he informed me that he was lying down...the nurse had insisted on it because he was hyperventilating. I had to laugh out loud. He told me he had taken almost 100 photos already in the hour since Patrick's birth. He was so proud, so pleased, so happy.

It's still a little hard to think of him as a dad. Not that I don't think him capable of being a father and a good one... it's just that I don't always think of him as an adult, much less a man responsible for a family!

He graduated from high school in 2000 went off to college, got married, moved to Arizona. He rarely came home from college and we only see him once or twice a year now. So we pretty much missed those maturing years into real adulthood.

He has always been self-assured and independent. When he was a young teen I had no problems leaving him in charge of his 3 younger brothers because the kid had a head on his shoulders, cool in emergencies and confident in his decisions.

Interestingly, as fatherhood fast-approached, we received almost daily phone calls asking questions about his childhood, or babies, or nursing or just wanting to know our thoughts on something. He even told me that he'd been thinking a lot about the kind of father that he wants to be, what parts of his own dad he wants to find in himself and what parts he wants to leave behind. He was thinking about the values he wants to instill in his child and what kind of father and husband he wants to be.

I was blown away. He has always marched to his own drum, never taken anyone's advice about anything... one of those kids that had to learn the hard way. He's always been sharp but I've never know him to be philosophical!

I am impressed and so proud of him and what he has become - and is becoming ... A good man, a confident father, a compassionate husband, and a caring son.

Wow.

CJ looked up just in time to see the cat take a swipe at their 2 day old baby! He flew to Petey's rescue, scooping up the cat and throwing her across the room. He was ready to boot the cat out the door never to be seen again but Ana remained calm. Petey had only some tiny little marks on his face. Obviously, the cat just "tapped" him, teaching him a lesson about who is boss... she is bigger and older afterall.

I recall that my dog, Fido, never got used to baby CJ. She continued to growl whenever he was in the vicinity so when he started crawling at 5 months, the dog found a new home at my sister's. (Thank you, Aunt Dandy!)

What will become of CJ and Ana's feline friends? They are keeping the cats, Mini and Maxi, in a separate room from Petey now, unless he is being held. Time will tell how they will adjust to their new "brother".

"Evil Cat" Maxi doesn't even look one bit guilty for picking on a 2 day old!

I've had writer's block for so long. Nothing seemed worthy of writing about. Not that my life is boring but it just didn't seem like I had anything to say that others would be interested in.

May was crazy. I had started a new job in January as the Middle School Librarian and had never been through the end of year inventory and all that craziness. Bo graduated from high school, Kev graduated from college and we had a grand celebration for them. Oh, and there was a wedding slipped in there, too. I was able to get my garden in between every thing. Ana graduated with a Doctorate in Pharmacy and then gave birth to our first grandbaby a week later. That was May. Wonderful, fabulous, fun-filled May.

Then it all calmed down and my life has slipped into slow motion. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Can you hear my sighing? I was sitting in the sun just enjoying life. I felt more alive than I had in months. I'd been so weary, just going through the motions but not putting my heart into anything. I have so much to be grateful for but I can feel my life shifting gears. I can feel my role changing. I'm not sure yet where it will go but I know that change is in the air and I am ready.

So I sat lazily in the sun with a weightless sense of relief and joying washing over me, felling no guilt whatsoever for my idleness. For now, for at least that one shining afternoon, all was well with my world. I felt such a sense of peace.

I glanced around me and started to write. My thoughts just flowed out of me and I scribbled onto my yellow legal pad for 6 full pages. Life is full of surprises!

I AM A GRANDMA!!!

It has taken some time to sink in really, since we are here and they are there. Although CJ took many photos he didn't have the means to download pics until they all went home a couple of days later. Can you imagine what torture that was for all of us grandparents??

Patrick Ostein was born on May 23, 8 lbs,4.5 oz. in Tucson, Arizona ~ named after Angus' father (Patrick) and Ana's grandfather (Ostein), both of whom passed over a year ago. Isn't he gorgeous?

They thought they had planned it all with perfect timing to have the baby born right after her graduation, leaving her time off after graduation to be with the baby and study for her Boards before getting a real job (hopefully close us). Unbelievably, it worked out just as they had planned!

We haven't actually seen him yet. We haven't gotten to wrap our arms around the parents or hold the babe in our arms yet. Because they are there and we are here. It has been so hard.

Jennie's mom flew down yesterday and I am sure Ana is so grateful to have her. We are going out in 2 weeks and I am counting down the days!

God is good and life is so very sweet...

I am sitting here in the sunshine on this first day of June. It's humid and the sweat drips off my forehead onto my notebook. My hands are glistening with perspiration but, well... it feels good... the heat. It's been a long cold spring.

It's like when the kids come trundling into the house from college laden with dirty laundry and dragging guitars and amps and cords all of which get dropped in the living room. Yet they also bring laughter and music and joy back into our quiet home. It is all good.

It feels like that, this coming of summer. And just as I am so glad for the kids to come home again I am also glad for their leaving in the fall even as I feel the regret of the lonelier months to come.

Everything changes. But life is still good.