Christmas Letter 2018

Christmas 2018

Have you ever fallen asleep while laying in the middle of a parking lot at midnight gazing up at the Milky Way?

Underneath your beach towel, the asphalt is still warm from the day, but the evening air is cool after the heat of the afternoon.  Crickets and frogs and owls serenade you from the edge of the surrounding forest as the stars slowly brighten before your eyes.  The Big Dipper comes into view. Orion’s Belt. There’s the Little Dipper and Polaris.  Could that be Venus, or is it Mars?  Is that a shooting star or a satellite? 

And as you lay there next to the four people who mean more to you than anything else in the world, with no cell phone service or television to distract you, you begin to contemplate the glory of creation, to think about how very infinitesimal you are in this incredibly infinite universe.  You realize that what matters most is right here and right now with these people in this place.  You feel connected to all of the hundreds of millions of people who have looked up at these very same stars for millennia, and you let the stress of 21^st century life slip away. 

You talk a little, not much though.  Nothing more than, “Did you see that shooting star?” or, “Look!  There’s the Seven Sisters constellation!” or simply, “Oh wow!”  The time between words spreads out until all you hear are the sounds of the night and the slow, quiet breathing of those around you.

And then time stands still, and the sky becomes one with the asphalt, and you are floating, falling, connected to those four people by an invisible, unbreakable cord that reaches out beyond you, and connects you to everyone who has ever gazed at the night sky in wonder, and those who will someday do the same.  And you feel yourself letting go, and peace washes over you.

At some point, you realize you’re all sleeping in the parking lot of Mammoth Cave National Park, and it’s well after midnight, and you should probably get up and go to your cabin so you don’t get run over by some late-arriving RV.  But you don’t want to break the spell of being surrounded by the people you love, so you linger a little bit longer while everyone else sleeps, drinking in the miracle that is this life, this place, these people.  And all you feel is love.

That is what I wish for you this holiday season…wonder and peace and love.

Merry Christmas!

NOW is better than THEN

I love reenacting. I love the clothes, the manners, the slow way of life, and pretending to be someone who lived nearly two centuries ago. So much about stepping back in time is just really, really fun, and we tend to romanticize how things were back in the old days.

And then every now and then, I am reminded, slapped in the face reminded, why NOW is so much better than THEN.

Today, while doing some genealogical research, I stumbled across a compilation of causes of death for people who lived in Grayson County, KY, where my ancestors had lived since the early 1800s. I began scrolling through the years to see if I could find any of my people. I ran across a couple, but what I found was one of the main reasons I am so glad to be alive now instead of then: healthcare.

Looking at the lists, one of the first things that struck me was how very, very young most of the people who died were. Babies, children, and teenagers made up the majority of deaths in several years. Hardly any people had "old age" listed as cause of death. Instead, what was listed time after time after time were deaths from illnesses that are basically non-existent (or easily cured) in today's world...typhus...scarlet fever...croup...whooping cough...fever...worms...diphtheria...measles...so many deaths that are preventable today. So many lives gone so very young. There were families that lost two and three children to typhus or scarlet fever. One family lost 5 family members. Another lost 4 children. My own great-grandmother lost one child to typhus and the other to the flu. I saw all of those causes of death listed and thanked God for vaccines.

Many people died from "milk sickness," which is caused by drinking milk from cows who have eaten the snakeroot plant, the same thing that killed Abraham Lincoln's mother. One family lost a father and 2 children. Another lost a mother and 3 kids. Just from drinking milk.

As I sat there skimming those names and ages and causes of death, I felt blessed to live during a time when so much illness and death can be prevented, when my kids are safe from measles, mumps, and rubella, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), and tetanus, from typhus and scarlet fever and worms and croup. I thought of the night Emily had a croup attack, and we gave her a breathing treatment, but her lips started turning blue anyway, and we called 911. She got to ride to the hospital in an ambulance and come home the same night. What if that was not available to us? It makes me wonder what future generations will marvel at when they look back on our causes of death.

So, while I love dressing up and pretending it is 1816, I am ever so grateful to live in 2018.

http://genealogytrails.com/ken/grayson/graysoncountydeaths.html

Hanging Up My Hat

I'm about to lose my job.  I've had it since August of 2001.  Sometimes I've loved it, but there were many times I hated it.  It's been inconvenient, patience-testing, and the hours have sucked.  I've done this job in the rain and snow and heat and when I was sick and exhausted and had 1000 other things to do, but now that it's ending, I am grieving the loss of driving my kids around.

I began taking my kids to school when Kyle started kindergarden.  Kyle could have taken the bus, but school was close, and we saved several hundred dollars a year by me driving, so I drove.  I was pregnant with Emily at the time, and Claire was just 2 1/2.  I remember dropping Kyle off at school the first morning with Claire strapped in her carseat in the back, and she cried, "I want Kyle!" as we pulled out of the parking lot.  A couple of months later, Emily was born, and I had three kids in carseats in the back of the minivan.  I became an expert at finding the lost pacifier along the side of Emily's carseat while stopped at a red light.  Pretty soon, I realized it was a better option to put Kyle next to Emily and Claire in the way back, so he could help hold a bottle if Em got fussy before we got where we were going.

I drove them to and from school for awhile, and then their dad took them in the mornings, and I picked up each afternoon.  We carpooled with a neighbor for a few years, taking turns driving two or three days each week...Dads in the mornings; moms in the afternoons.  I sat in the afternoon parking lot for hours of my life, waiting for my kids to come out with the bell.  I could tell if it had been a good day or a bad day by the looks on those sweet faces.  Sometimes they grinned with exciting news...an A on a test, spelling bee champion, a lost tooth.  Sometimes they crumpled and tears spilled if it was a not-so-good day...a card flipped to yellow, a snub at lunch, a bad test grade.  No matter.  I hugged them when I saw them, and I knew I'd hear all about their day when we got in the car for the ride home.  I was so glad I was driving on the day of the Sandy Hook massacre because all I wanted to do was hold my kids, and I cried when I saw them coming across the parking lot.

During these years, I not only drove to school, I took the kids to guitar practice, dance class, and football, soccer, volleyball, field hockey, lacrosse, and basketball practices held at schools and churches around town. I drove to field trips and skating parties and sleepovers, and when they got older, dates and movies and Friday night football games.  One of my favorite memories is one night when the van was full of Emily's friends belting out songs from "Newsies" even though none of them except Emily had ever seen the show.  My kids knew that I was willing to drive them and their friends to wherever they needed to go, and I always had a van full of smiling faces, and they always thanked me for driving.  My parents had driven me everywhere, and I, in turn, wanted to do the same for my kids.  On many days, I'd put 50 or 60 miles on the van just driving within a 10 mile radius of my house.  I tried not to have them eat dinner in the van, but sometimes they did.  And poor Emily spent so much of her early life strapped into her carseat while I took Kyle and Claire places, it's a wonder she learned to walk at all.

When Kyle started high school, I was back to morning driving.  Kirk still took the girls to school, and we carpooled to both places, having to coordinate my high school days with my grade school days so that all the kids were covered.  My calendar was color coded to make sure I didn't forget to pick up or drop off anyone.  I actually loved driving to St. X, hearing Kyle and Evan recount the latest Coach Hines video, imitating him berating Yamanashi.  I learned that if I stayed silent, they almost forgot I was in the car and would talk about things like I wasn't there.  You can learn a lot driving kids around!  Pick up from high school football, wrestling, or rugby practice at evening rush hour was never fun.  The boys smelled bad and were tired, and the ride home was mostly silent.  Still, sometimes they talked or shared a moment from their day.  It was nice to just be in the car with Kyle for 30 uninterrupted minutes since he was gone from home most of the time.

I loved sitting in the parking lot at St. X at dismissal and watching the boys pour out of school, pulling off their ties and untucking their shirts, backpacks slung over their shoulders or books on their hips. They'd go to their cars, throw their things in the backseat and head out, windows rolled down, hollering at friends.  The difference between freshman and senior is never so obvious as in the parking lot after school.  The last day of my St. X carpool duty was a sad day for me.  I tried to take it all in, waiting for Kyle to walk out the cafeteria doors.

Kyle was driving himself to school by the time Claire started at Sacred Heart.  We had another carpool to SHA, and Kirk still drove Emily in the mornings to Holy Trinity.  The girls were always chatty, and, again, I learned that silence is the best way to get the scoop.  Sometimes I'd pull up to get Claire, and she'd be standing there with two or three friends, a smile on her face, asking if they could come home with us or if I could drop someone off on the way.  I didn't mind.  I was glad to be the mom she knew she could count on to help out.

I drove Claire to volunteer out off Poplar Level Road on Wednesdays.  Some days I had to sit in the Holy Trinity parking lot for an hour to get a spot in the first row so that I could get Emily first and then head to SHA so Claire could get to her volunteer work on time.  There was a lot of planning involved to make sure everyone got where they were supposed to be.  It was exhausting.

Claire started driving to school senior year, and she took Emily to and from on most days.  It was actually weird not to have to drive to school, and I kind of liked it.  There were days I'd have to pick up Emily from SHA, and I was still taking her to dance class and play practice, but the driving was not constant like it had been in earlier years.

This year with Claire away at college, I drive Emily to and from school every day.  We listen to "Are You Smarter Than Dingo" every morning and marvel at how dumb people really are.  Sometimes we listen to pop on the radio, sometimes country, sometimes her CDs of "Dear Evan Hanson," or "Hamilton" or "Heathers."  I pick her up in the afternoons either from school or rehearsal and hear all about her day.  This week it was how she spoke out against "juuling" and vaping.  Two weeks ago, it was about all of the issues that happened on sophomore retreat and what grades she got on her geometry test.  I drive her to voice lessons and dance class and drop her off at rehearsal for whatever play she is in at the time.  "Mom," she'll say, "do you want to hear the new song I learned today?" and of course I alway say yes, and then she will belt out the newest song in her repertoire.

After the audition for "Pippin" a couple of months ago, I saw her face when she came out of St. X and knew she'd burst into tears as soon as she got in the car.  She had forgotten the words to the audition song and had to ask to restart.  She knew it was a death sentence and thought she'd never get a part.  She cried all the way home.  Turned out not to be a big deal because she got a great role with a solo, but I was glad to be there to pick her up that day.

Emily has her permit now and will get her restricted license in a month or so.  She will be able to drive herself wherever she needs to go, and my job will be done.  Three kids, three schools, three minivans and thousands of miles later, I will hang up my chauffeur's hat and call it quits.  Breaks my heart.  I will miss the smiling faces, the stories in the car, singing Broadway tunes, and the uninterrupted minutes when it's just my kids and me.  Precious time it has been, gone way too soon.