The Gifts We Give

The gifts we give our children are not always easily measured. One gift I received from my mom was learning not to smoke. I saw what a disgusting habit and health risk it was for my mom and decided early on it wasn't for me. Thanks Mom. You probably saved me so much money and so many health problems.

A gift I recently got from one of my daughters came in a conversation when she said to me, "Remember when we used to do this...?" I remembered, but more importantly, so did she. My own childhood was frought with pain and heartache; so that most of my childhood is still a vague memory for me. There weren't many pleasant memories to begin with. Too many bad ones. I don't even have a single memory of my mother and father being in the same room together. How sad is that?

So the fact that I gave my daughters pleasant memories is my gift to them. Now they give them back to me when they say, "Do you remember when...?" Thank you for the gifts.

I Swam With a Shark Today

I swam with a shark today.
We played tag and catch me if you can.

I was a catfish, gliding along in the deep.
I was a dolphin, rippling through the water.

I was a cowboy, riding my trusty horse,
I roped a cow that was getting away.

I was a football player as I jumped
And made the winning score of the game.

I dove for sunken treasure,
Shining in the bright sun.

I turned to see my waves as I dove deeper.
The shark tickled my feet as he slid by.

Bubbles floated up from my face,
Racing to get to the surface before I did.

The blue sky was bluer than the water
As I swam with the shark today.

Solitaire

Did you ever notice how life is sometimes like a game of solitaire? You get the cards you are dealt and can't change that. They sometimes seem out of place and then seem to fit together. Frequently you get the right card at the wrong time and wish you had it to play over again. Sometimes all you get is the same card over and over, like having all four 6's showing at one time. When you play with actual cards, it's easy to cheat, but when you play on a computer, it's impossible. And sometimes, especially rare when you're playing a single card at a time, they all fall into place as they should and you win. All this is metaphor for life. We can't always control what happens to us in life. We have to play the cards we are dealt and make the best of it. Sometimes it just seems like nothing is going right and we want to change some situation and quickly move on to something else. (That's easy to do with computer solitaire, no shuffling the cards for so many times.) And rarely, we get that opportunity when everything falls into place and life works out like we want it. That's why we keep playing, for the joy of playing and sometimes winning.

Daggers and Feathers

For those of us who have children, we know those moments in life. The ones where we have to reach up and take the dagger out of our freshly pierced heart and gently lay it aside, knowing the aim was true, albeit unintended. Our children can say the most innocent thing to us, not meaning to wound, but doing so anyway. Recently, my younger daughter, on a week long trip to Michigan, called to chat with me for awhile. She sounded down, so I asked if she was feeling ok. She admitted she was feeling a little homesick, to which I replied, "Oh, do you miss me?" "Well, I miss College Station and if you're in College Station, then yes, I miss you." Now, she's been away at school for 3 years already, so she doesn't really live at home anymore. She doesn't even come home over the summer; she works at a camp in Michigan for several weeks. So I don't know why I thought she referred to my home. She doesn't miss Mom and Dad and our home much. And it's right that she now considers her place at school as home. But still...

Then today, as we were trying to get her to Dallas flying standby from Chicago, we had to reroute her through Memphis, then to Dallas, because the direct flights were all too heavily booked. As she approached the gate in O'Hare, she said "I'll call you when I get to Memphis". This was the pinprick that said, "Yes, Mom, I need you to help me, but I'm grown and I can fly around the country on my own and I'll be fine. I'll eventually make it home, well to your home, before I get in the car and drive to my home...". So you know you have raised your child to be strong and independent and capable. A feather in my cap...

Come to think of it, I stabbed my own mother's heart when I went away to college. She drove me to Austin and helped me carry my things into my dorm room. After we went to dinner, she drove me back to the dorm. But instead of parking and saying a proper goodbye, I asked her to let me off at the corner. A dagger to my mother's heart. What do they say? What goes around, comes around...

Here's hoping my daughters get more feathers than daggers!

A Big Brown Day

Did you ever have a Big Brown Day? The 2008 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner and this year's hopeful to break the 30 year drought on the Triple Crown, Big Brown seems to have had a bad day on Saturday, during the Belmont Stakes. It seemed like the other races at first. His jockey let the others break out and we kept expecting him, Big Brown, to come from behind and run away from the pack. But the break never happened. After the race, the buzz was there must have been something horribly wrong with the horse. So far, it seems that the horse is fine. Now we sit and wonder, what happened? Did he just not feel like running that day? Did he just have a bad day, on the worst possible day in his 3 year old life? He had never lost a major race before. We have all had those days. So much is expected of us for whatever our goal is and for some reason, it just doesn't happen. Mine was in high school. I was on the swimming and diving team and it was my senior year. I received my letter jacket as a sophomore, not because I earned it, but because my coach awarded it to me. It was still special to me, but I wanted a chance to earn it. The day of the Regional swim meet in my senior year was the last opportunity to place in the top six and earn the jacket on my own. I had placed 7th in the previous years. I felt ready. I was performing well, consistent and even though my region was the toughest in the state(the number one girl was an Olympic alternate the next year and the number 2 girl now does commentary for the Olympics), I thought I could do it. Unfortunately, I had an off day that day. Dives I could normally do with no problem at all were suddenly hard for me to do. And the hard dives were even worse. Once again, I placed 7th. Sometimes it isn't meant to be. We all have to search for the deeper meaning in the trial and error than in the achievement of the goal. Life is a journey and not a destination, that sort of thing. It took me a long time to find that meaning and embrace it. Hopefully, Big Brown's family will someday reach the same conclusion. Of course, we don't have to live out our Big Brown days in front of millions of people with so much money and pressure "riding" on our backs. Thank goodness!

It's All in the Hands

I recently received a gift from my daughter, as it turned out, on her 21st birthday. It was a framed collage of her hands fingerspelling our last name, with a beautiful Texas sky as the backdrop. I cried when I saw it. Later she asked me if I really liked it and I explained that I liked it on so many levels. I taught her to fingerspell many years ago while I was studying sign language for fun. Since then, she has gone on to study it in high school and college and anticipates a career in interpreting. She frequently shares with me photos she takes of skies, sunsets and sunrises, so that was touching also. But mostly it moved me because of the fact that it was her hands which I consider to be precious. When your child is born, you hold their tiny hands in yours and remark at the delicacy and wonder of their perfect little fingers. When I saw the photos, I realized at that moment that the feeling never goes away. I still feel love when I see her hands, as well as those of my other daughter. I think they are precious still. And I see in them, my mother's hands along with mine. In those hands and fingers are generations of love, caring and wisdom that can only be passed from mother to daughter to granddaughter. I suppose the feeling of loving your child's hands will never fade. At least I hope not.

The Pool Ballet

Tonight as I floated in my inflatable pool chair, I paused in my reading. Well, really, the light teased me as I was trying to read. The setting sun's rays skipped across my page and begged me to look there towards the west, where the wind tickled branches of the trees, dancing about the clear blue sky. The pool sweep swirled and twirled about the pool, as to the music the birds sang in time with the swaying trees. Even my husband unknowingly participated as he drove back and forth and around in circles on his riding mower. One of the birds joined the ballet and lighted gingerly on top of a branch that was too small for its size, causing it to bow down to the audience below. Thank you God for this beautiful performance!