Who am I?

What people say: 
My young son says I am a terrible driver.
My older son says I am a great cook.
My teenage daughter says I am a know-nothing.
My grown daughter says I am a genius.
My husband says I am a treasure. 
My mama says I am a brave heart.
My dad says I am a good praline maker. 

My grandson calls me the impostor. 
My sister says I am a talented writer. 
My doctor says I am overweight. 
My friend says I am gifted. 
My club friends say I am bossy. 
My granddaughter says I am an artist. 
Mr. Tate says I am a poet.
God says I am his daughter. 
Who am I? 


Answer: 
I am a mom.
I am a wife. 
I am a daughter. 
I am a grandma. 
I am a sister.
I am a friend. 
I am a unique individual.
I am me.

Dear Dad,

I remember that day at the fair when I was only five-years-old. I lost you and panicked and ran to catch up and grab your hand. Imagine my fright to realize I had chosen the wrong hand! I knew how your hand felt and knew I had erred. Soon I found you and the comfort of your hand holding mine has stayed with me all my life. How I wish I could hold your hand now.

It is hard to be so far away and think of you lying in a hospital bed with a broken leg, a new mechanical hip joint, and doctors probing and testing you for cancer. I am afraid for you, afraid for us. We need you. I need you. I need to feel your hand and know all is well. The universe seems to jump a gear and run haywire sometimes. I feel now just the way I felt that day at the fair when the wrong hand's face leaned over to me and said, "I bet you think I'm your daddy, don't you, little girl?"

I'll be coming up soon to take care of you and Mama for a few weeks. It will be so good to sit near you and talk to you. It will be good to touch your hands and know it is you and you are getting stronger and soon will be working again, carrying in firewood and building a fire, pouring a cup of coffee, wielding a pen over a crossword puzzle, lacing your work boots, shoveling snow, planting your garden, greeting a friend with a handshake, tousling a grandchild's hair.

I see that day. I know it will come soon and I will be comforted even though my own hands should be the ones doing the comforting this time. I think I will always need you, Daddy.

Love you,
Elece

Pianos and Ponies

Dear Jesus,

You certainly know how to make children happy.  A day or two ago, Brenna came riding up to the back porch  on her "borrowed" horse White-Tee. I took this picture of her docile steed and her joyful face. It reminded me of another little girl and an old piano.

You recall the piano, I'm sure. It was an old upright that had been in a little clapboard country church for decades. Its varnish was cracked and its keys were yellowed, but the tone and tune even after being moved in the back of a pickup truck were fine.

Rachel had wanted a piano since she could talk. She ached for one of her own. She asked us again and again, but at that time we really couldn't afford to consider it. When your daughter wants something so badly it is painful to say no.  We told her that there was no way we could buy her dream for her, at least for a few years. We told her to pray and tell you  about her wish. That night she prayed for you to send her a piano.

She must have had great faith because the next afternoon the phone rang. It was Rachel's Grandma. Her church was purchasing a new piano and had to move the old one. She wondered if Rachel still wanted one. If we would come pick it up within a week, she could have it. We did, of course, and that old piano was a thrill to Rachel. She learned to play on it. When she was teenager she was able to buy a better instrument. But that first one was her own personal miracle and her faith and talents grew.

Brenna wanted a horse to ride. This beautiful and calm horse is her personal miracle. She keeps him and rides and trains him, but for now he belongs to a neighbor. The neighbor even provided a saddle and tack and a request that she keep the horse in our pasture and ride him often.

Jesus, you are good to bless us with such things. You show us that you know our needs and our hearts' desires and that you care, even about dreams like pianos and ponies.

Love you,
Elece

A Baby Born

Dear Mama,

This week I was the grandma. I rushed to Audra's house to keep the children while she gave birth to another little one. This time she was experiencing a slow labor with long gaps in the pain. The work was worrisome. The hours passed slowly. Eventually, the contractions picked up and soon my third daughter was birthing her third daughter.

As the baby was born to us and we saw her little self all wet and soft, we realized the awesome power of life, and at the same moment felt the complete helplessness that defines us as humans. The baby girl was well prepared for her earthly journey. God built into her all that she would need to survive her lifetime. Her heart, her lungs, her stomach and internal organs, her skin and hair, her brain, and even her ears and eyes would  make her able to grow, walk, read, talk, explore, and work in her spot on the planet.

Yet, we could do nothing for her except to love her and make her comfortable. We could not guarantee her to be strong and well. We had not given her breath or made her blood flow through the arteries and veins.We could not keep her alive if God deemed otherwise.

It is hard to be the grandma knowing what I know now. I know that this new baby's infant days will pass quickly and that before her parents can imagine it, she will grow into a toddler and then a little child twirling in the center of the living room showing off her pink dress ruffles to Daddy. In a few more months (or so it seemed to me) she will turn thirteen, and a few minutes later go off to college and/or head down the aisle as a bride. Before long, she will be calling her Mama to come assist with her own baby's introduction into the world.

My girl will try, as I did, and as you did with your brood to make them happy and healthy. She will try to never miss a day of fun and learning. To make every day count, but time marches unmercifully on.

I helped my daughter and I watched her suffer and strain and I saw the tears of exhaustion turn to tears of joy at the sight of her precious baby. I was honored to be there. I was happy to be there, and terror stricken, and dismayed, all rolled into one grandmother.

I laughed. I cried. I hoped. I feared. And I thought of you, Mama, and how much I have always depended on you. How much I needed you and still do. I hope that I am as good a mama to each of my daughters as you have been to me.

Love Your Third Daughter,
Elece

 Audra with her new baby girl, Madison Louise.

Dear Carpenter,

Have you ever wondered what happened to your old tool box? Probably, you left it in the detached garage beside the first house you rented forty-five years ago.I wish I could ask if you made the box yourself and if it was always painted sage green.

You might be irked to know that I bought the odd antique at a garage sale for two dollars. The straight rod that formed the handle and fit in the holes at each end was broken and held in place with masking tape. I tried to fix it, but gave up and removed the handle altogether.

The lids were still hinged in place, so I folded them open before I filled the base with broken pottery pieces and covered those with potting soil. I filled it with purple petunias which have bloomed happily where once screw drivers, hammers, a hand drill, chisels, sand paper, and nails mingled.

I know you haven't forgotten this tool box. Surely, you set it aside with a bit of nostalgia when you purchased your first metal one to replace it. Maybe, you thought your grandchildren would like to see it someday. So you set it on the garage shelf where it collected up rolls of fishing line, random extra tools, and a 3-in-1 oil can. A mud dauber built a stucco apartment on the underside of the lid and it was forgotten.

Years later, someone cleaned junk from the garage and took it with a load of salvageables to the sale, where I saw it and invested two bucks in my love of the mysterious. Every antique has a story and a mystery. I can resist neither. So, I thank you for the fun and though you may be miffed at my turning your manly toolbox into a flower planter, you have to admit, it does a beautiful service.

Still Friends?
Elece

Dear Mama,

Mother's Day is coming up and I was thinking about you even more than usual. When spring arrives and the flowers bloom, I recall Dad bringing you a huge bouquet of salmon pink gladiolas he had stopped and chosen from a local gardener. You put them in your tall gray pottery vase and set it in the sunlight in front of the picture window. It was spectacular!

When we lived in Michigan, you planted snapdragons and pansies in the flowerbeds along either side of the driveway. You have always been a flower lover. I know you would be thrilled to see the roses, irises, lilies and azaleas that I have blooming around my house now.

I have an old straw hat hanging on the wall that reminds me of you. I know you love straw hats, gardens, and the country life. You were an Oklahoma girl, growing up after the dust bowl years, the third eldest of a group of eight siblings. You loved farm life, riding horses, swimming in the creek, and walking in the fields. You loved your Uncle Stoney and Aunt Blanche from Tecumseh.

Be sure of the fact that I will be thinking of you next Sunday as we celebrate Mother's Day.

Love you,

Elece

Dear Rachel,

I wanted to write and thank you for the beautiful basket of Bougainvillea that you brought me on Easter Sunday. I hung it on a branch on the sycamore tree beside my birdfeeders and it is gorgeous. Its pale green and pink petals fluttering in the spring wind remind me of ruffles on a little girl's Easter dress.

Didn't it seem to you that spring green burst out of nowhere? It seemed sudden and I have been enjoying the sunny skies and warm breezes. The oak trees have unfurled their leaves like green pennants and catkins shower pollen on the newly mown grass. The pecan trees and the sycamores are just "breaking bud" as Dad would say.

The tulips have nodded in the wind until their petals dropped, and the redbud tree out front has begun to shed pink, the color of frosting on a strawberry cake, in a circle beneath its branches.The purple iris are blooming, and today a first yellow rose bud popped open on the bush outside the picture window. The azaleas are opening and they will soon be a splash as bright red as a cut ripe watermelon beside the white of the house.

The best thing about the flowers you sent me is the fact that you bought them for yourself and then loved them so that you decided to part with them. You were thrilled with the blooms, yet knowing I would love them you gave them to me. I know it was a gift from your heart.

The flowers have given me joy, just like having you for a daughter does.

Love You,

Mama

What the heart gives away is never gone...It is kept in the heart of others.

Robin St. Johns

AHHHHHHH

Dear Ellen,

I am so happy to have met you this winter. If you were ever in Brownie Scouts, I'll bet you remember the little song: "Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other is gold." We sang this diddy in a round and it could go on and on. I guess I will still remember it when I have forgotten who I am and where I live! :)

You seem to be a quiet person. The thing I liked about you right away was your smile and your friendly voice. You are not pretentious.You just let people see who you are and take you or leave you. That is a pleasant way to live.

You are an unselfish person. I noticed how you always wait on people, offering a chair, or something to drink, or your own sweater.You are hospitable and that is a good characteristic in a friend. You invited us all into your home for a visit and made us all feel welcome and at home. I like to know I have friends I could drop in on and they would be glad to see me and not upset.

You must know that I am that sort too, so come visit when you can. I may be a little hard to decipher, but I like people and I love having company. I enjoying getting to know a new friend. I know sometimes those friendships last for years and years. Let's hope for that!

Love you, Elece

Dear God,

It is the end of March in Oklahoma. My daffodills are blooming and the other bulbs sending up their spears to the blue sky. Soon the irises, the tulips, and the hyacinths will bloom. But this morning sleet is pelting the side of the house. The rain fell all night followed by freezing rain and then an hour or two of sleet, sounding like rice popping as it hits the windowpanes.

I ventured out into the cold wet wind to fill my empty bird feeders, grab the mail, and pick a bouquet with ice on it. The mud puddles and the water still standing from the last rain are frozen now. Snow is swirling out of the northwest - large soggy flakes. The weatherman predicts four to eight inches before the day is over. We have had these last of March snow storms before and they are soon gone and spring moves in with southern breezes and warmer days soon afterward.

In Louisiana, I was enthralled by the camellias that budded out on bushes and produced assorted orage, red, pink and salmon colored blossoms against shiny leather-like green leaves. What pretty flowers! I brought a potted one here to try my hand at raising them. Though roses grow well here, camellias don't stand a chance against the freezes we have. The lilacs I carried home from Michigan failed for want of enough cold.

Here we have the Indian Paintbrush, the Prairie Primrose, and the wild rose that trundles in great sagging sprays over pasture fences. Every place has its natural graces. Cardinals, cowbirds, chickadees, white-throated sparrows, downy woodpeckers, and nuthatches are busy outside my window like so many mobile flowers.

Brenna's little donkeys have eaten the center out of a round coil of hay. They seek the shelter of their open-sided shed on days like today. The cows and horses don't seen to mind the cold. They graze lazily along the wooded side of the orchard.

Winter clings and then is gone. Spring, summer, and autumn each hold allure and trials of their own. I love living where I get to experience all the seasons fully. Things change and new joys and challenges entertain us.

Thank you for the seasons, especially these that keep us hopeful.

Love you, Elece

Dear God,

Thanks for the sounds of today. A hawk is calling as he soars across the orchard. I love to hear the birds, the meadowlarks perched on the barbed wire fence, the hawks wheeling, the chattering of the songbirds, the ka-plink, ka-plink, ka-plunk of the cowbirds (like berries landing in Sal's mother's bucket), the cooing of doves, the lonesome night call of a whippoorwill, and the owls stirring up the night air.

So many lovely sounds and mixed with the tree frog choruses and the laughter of children and the whistle of a tea kettle, the hesitant notes of a child learning to play a piano, a far off train whistle, make our world a place of beauty--a wonderland of sound.

We all have favorite sounds, sounds that spell peace, comfort, joy, freedom, and excitement to our ears. I am so glad that you created voices, music, birdsong, and even the sounds of a flowing stream, waves on the shore, wind in the treetops, a baby's coo and cry.

Help me to be alive to sound, to hear it, to study it, to feel it, to know it. Thanks, God.

Love you,
Elece

Dear Mama,

I sure do miss you! It would be great if I could just drive over to see you sometimes. (If you lived less than twenty-one hours away.) If it didn't take so long to drive and at such an expense , besides missing work and school. To just be able to drop by and bring you some flowers, a meal, or a book would be so nice. We could drink a cup of coffee together and talk things over.

I've been married to Ron now for thirty-seven years and I love him, but it has been hard having to live so far from one, if not the most, influential person in my life. I have lived far away all of those years. Yet, you have always been a guide and an encourager to me--even long distance. Thank God for telephones!

I miss you, Mama. I will dream a little visit for us, remember your face, hear the cadence of your voice, and be near you, at least in heart.

Love you, Elece