In Summer: Great Oaks

A few months ago we were reading in Alma 37 before bed, including verse 6, "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass."  

We started discussing what that means and I asked the kids for examples of small actions that can lead to great or wonderful results.  After listening to Lucy share a few ideas, I saw a lightbulb go off for Spencer, "Hey!  I know one!"  he chimed in. Then he solemnly recited one of the Kindergarten phrases we'd been memorizing at school, "Great oaks from little acorns grow."

I smiled at the excitement in his eyes and we wrote the phrase in the margin of our scriptures. 

When we made our annual pilgrimage to Wyview for the Fourth of July.  W spent several evenings under the sprawling shade of our old "backyard" oak tree.  

I felt sincere awe as Spencer tossed me a tiny acorn and we compared it to the expansive canopy  overhead -

- the same familiar branches that hovered over so many happy days gone by.

Which is, of course, the reason why we love to go back.  To remember all that warmth.   

I loved laying in the shade with Lucy the Sunday after the Fourth.

She looked so luxurious on that carpet of green with her gold skirt and her Oreo. 

After a few minutes or casual chatter and happy reminiscing, she said fervently, "If I could have any present it would be that tree!" 

I nodded and smiled wistfully, wishing there was a way to grant her wish that didn't involve a lifetime -  more than a lifetime -of waiting!  

But some wishes do require waiting.
We agreed that it was good to be able to visit that old oak from time to time.  To enjoy the shade and the beauty and the memories.  We talked about the value of that huge tree - worth thousands and thousands of dollars after all these years of slow, steady growth.  We wondered and daydreamed about who might have planted it in the first place.

And we discussed how a similar kind of slow, steady growth is the purpose of our lives as well.

Sometimes slower than we want.  But in the end, so valuable.  

A Certain Smile, Cont.

I was going to write a little more for Wes's birthday, but I couldn't find words after looking through all those pictures.

There aren't really words.  Not adequate words, at least.  But there are a few things I'd like on the record.

I learned that old Johnny Mathis song, "A Certain Smile," long before I met Wes. I sang it for a choir audition in high school. I liked it because I was always a sucker for a good smile.

Wes had good smile.  The song seemed to fit him perfectly, especially after he left on his mission.  "You love a while, and when love goes..."

I used to play and sing it to myself wistfully - indulgently, really, as I had no idea whether or not our brief friendship would ever amount to anything more than brief friendship. 

Lucky for me, it did.  Once, after we'd been married a little while, I told Wes about that sappy little song I had sung to myself so often while he was away.  Thereafter, he would occasionally request that I sing it for him. He could never remember the song's name. Would always just say, "Sing that one song." And the certain, sly smile he always wore with the request made me helpless to refuse.

I don't (can't) sing it now that it's so painfully relevant. But the music is often open on our piano and it periodically floats though my head with images of Wes's handsome face and perfect smile.

There was a time very early in our friendship when I hinted to Wes in an e-mail that I was in love with his smile. He was scheduled to have his wisdom teeth removed and so I wrote something like,

"good luck tomorrow! I hope the doctors don't do anything to disturb that terribly winsome smile of yours!"

I can't tell you how many times I typed and deleted that very c a s u a l sounding second sentence. And I can't tell you how hard it was to hold my breath for over twenty four hours until I got Wes's response.  He wrote back a nice, chatty, very c a s u a l e-mail that concluded,

"and about my face, you don't have to worry, I know you can see the most beautiful smile anytime just by looking in the mirror."

No comment about how my freshman heart reacted to those words.  And no way to count the million different ways Wes told me that same thing over the course of our marriage.

And so, on particularly difficult days, when I look in the mirror with swollen eyes and a red nose, I seem to hear Wes tell me, lovingly, (with a poke in my ribs if he could), "S m i l e!" 
And so I try to. 
For him as much as for anyone.

And there are lots of reasons to smile. 

*bonus points if you guess what "l n" stands for* 

I smiled when Lucy found this conversation heart on a Valentine cookie and passed it to me excitedly.  "Just like you used to say to Dad!"  she said. 

I smiled when I found my buddy asleep on the floor one night instead of his bed (better access to his toys/books!).

I smiled about the balloons and the laminated-to-withstand-the-weather Calvin and Hobbes comic our friends left on Wes's headstone for his birthday.

I smiled (laughed my head off) when I read the note Lucy posted on her door a few weeks ago (readable to both Spencer and me)

I smile every time Spencer sets the table.

And oh, I could go on and on and on. 

Surprises in the mail...
Sleepovers at Grandma's house... 
Spring getting closer and closer (never mind the inches of snow that accumulated last night!)...
Neighbors who lend you powdered sugar in time to save your visiting-teaching-on-the-last-day-of-the-month cinnamon rolls.  =)

Life is good!

It's Tradition

October 2003

Wes and I made a pie every fall.  There was no real reason, except that we both liked pie, and the process of making pie was longish and togetherish.  Which was perfect. 

We baked our first pie in the tiny oven of our DT Hall Advisor apartment.  The same apartment we brought Lucy home to as a baby and where we learned of Wes's cancer diagnosis.

We baked several of our yearly pies at my parents' house.  Somewhere I have pictures.  Sometimes we made pumpkin pie, sometimes apple.  One year we tried peach, but we never made it again because the effort seemed wasted.  Peach cobbler is much tastier and significantly less taxing than peach pie. 

Last year for Christmas, Wes and his mom gave me a new pie plate and a pastry cutter.  So today, after a lovely (with my family ) but difficult (without Wes) Thanksgiving break, we came home from church and I told the kids we were going to make a pie.  Never mind that we'd already eaten pie on Thanksgiving day with the rest of America.  It was the process I needed. 

Longish and Togetherish.

Step One:  The Crust

Step Two:  The Filling

Step Three:  The Topping

Step Four:  The Waiting

Step Five:  The Cooling

Step Six:  Mmmmmmmm.

I think our Dad would be proud, don't you?

Hope all of you friends had a wonderful holiday!!!

We Three

Sometime in early June (and, of course, without the definite knowledge of what one month's time would bring), Wes and I spent an evening planning summer celebrations for the kids.  Time on the porch together was a treat when Wes was wheelchair bound and I love that memory of sitting together making plans for our little people.  Lucy had expressed an interest in auto mechanics, so "car week," among other things,  took shape in my notebook:  a few activities, mostly a list of books and movies. 

I hastily placed an Amazon order and that was that. The items arrived sporadically and we enjoyed them un-methodically. Spencer and I spent a sweet afternoon at Wes's bedside searching for Goldbug, but as Wes became increasingly ill, most of the other items went unused. The evening after their Daddy died, however, Lucy and Spencer needed a distraction, so I pulled out an unopened DVD, put it on, and went upstairs to make popcorn (knowing all along that Wes, ever a movie lover, would approve).

Turns out Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a L O N G, W E I R D movie. Did you know?! The kids were up until a ridiculous hour and it was still not over. But I'm relating this memory because of one tender mercy. One moment that forever redeemed the evening (and the movie) for me. When I came in with the popcorn, I didn't intend to stay.  My soul was positively awash in the emotion and grief of the day.  And there was so much to do.  But Dick Van Dyke, singing to his small son and sweet daughter, briefly caught my attention,

What makes the battle worth the fighting?

What makes the mountain worth the climb?

What makes the questions worth the asking?

The reason worth the rhyme?

To me the answer's clear;

it's having someone near; someone dear

Someone to care for; to be there for.

I have You Two!

Someone to do for; muddle through for.

I have You Two!

Someone to share joy or despair with;

whichever betides you.

Life becomes a chore, unless you're living for

someone to tend to be a friend to.

I have You Two!

Someone to strive for, do or die for

I have You Two!

Could be, we three get along so famously,
'cause you two have me, and I have You Two too.

It is, in fact, a darling song.  But that particular night it was much, much more than darling.  It was a reminder, amid great loss, of what I have. 

The months prior to and following Wes's passing, "we three" shared a bed at Grandma and Grandpa Truman's house.  Those were sleepless nights for various reasons...

My place was usually in the middle somewhere, and the falling asleep process generally included one little hand in each of mine.

On our last night in that big bed, I lay very quietly, holding Lucy and Spencer's hands with tears running down my cheeks long after they were asleep.  I knew I'd miss those cozy sleeping quarters and that unique,  difficult, wonderful time in our lives.  As I laid there, savoring the feeling of their hands in mine, the words of D&C 84:88 came forcibly to my mind, "I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your heart, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up." 

I thought about the tangible little miracles there on my right hand and on my left.  I thought about how much strength they provide to me, how much perspective, how much joy.  I thought about the angels ministering to all three of us. 

And I knew that somehow we would manage to muddle through.

Together.