Husband and I spent the evening yesterday with members of his family on a pretty lake, celebrating family and the 4th of July, our nation’s birthday.
We enjoyed lots of good food while we waited for the sky to get dark and the fireworks to start. Unfortunately a pretty heavy thunderstorm blew through about the time we were going to start eating. We ran for the house.
That wasn’t the kind of dark sky we had hoped for. But lucky for us after the rain the sky cleared and the fireworks started on time.
We sat in lawn chairs on the shore and enjoyed the show. It reminded me so much of my childhood when my family would take our little 35 horsepower ski boat out on the water and watch the fireworks.
Lots of similar memories were made last night.
And though I did worry about my dog back at home, closed into a bedroom with the TV on loud, I couldn’t begrudge all the people out last night on a warm summer night watching the lights explode overhead. Later in the week when folks in the neighborhood are still setting them off I’ll be more grumpy.
I hope you all have the kind of 4th that best fits your family. And I hope this great American experiment lasts for centuries more.
Once upon a time, when I was 14 which was many decades ago, my brother gave me a watering can for my birthday. I kept it through all my moves, college, 8 apartments, my first house, and finally to the home we live in now. Years of moving around and the watering can always moved with me. It lived in the cabinet below my kitchen sink.
These days I only have one plant, but it’s hard to water, because it’s years old and very dense. The long spout of my watering can helped me get water to the roots. I water it every Sunday.
Then, one Sunday I couldn’t find it. In fact there was nothing below the sink. We’d had to empty most of the cabinets to get some work done in the kitchen the week before. I didn’t know which box, out in the garage, held my watering can. I used a glass to water the plant, most of the water ran down the leaves to the floor.
When we put everything back into the cabinets in the kitchen I couldn’t find the watering can anywhere. I asked my husband if he had seen it. He looked stricken, and said maybe it had accidentally been thrown out. I was heartbroken. I continued to water the plant with a glass and wipe up the spilled water. I almost asked my brother for a new one for Christmas this year. But I didn’t want to tell him we had lost it.
And then the dishwasher broke.
While my husband was installing the new one, hoses connecting under the sink, the watering can appeared. Way in the back of the cupboard, hiding in plain sight, it had been there all the time. After almost six months of being lost, of me thinking about it every Sunday, it reappeared.
Yesterday I watered the plant and smiled as the thirsty roots grabbed every drop.
I was driving to Kensington Easter Sunday morning. On the way I passed a place where Katie and I have walked together a few times. Every time I drive through this town I think of her.
“Oh Katie.” I said out loud.
“I love you mama,” she replied, also out loud.
Proof that it’s possible to continue driving, even when your eyes are leaking.
The news has been so sad lately. Images of California neighborhoods fully engulfed in flames mixed with those of President Carter’s coffin being delivered to our nation’s capitol by a horse-drawn caisson. The lines of people solemnly passing by the coffin in the Rotunda. And, more privately, two different friends of mine learning to live without their own parents.
But this morning my husband and I watched the state funeral for our 39th President, and afterward I felt a little better. No, California isn’t better, the devastation there is beyond understanding, and my friends are still deep in grief, but watching the ceremony honoring President Carter took the edge off my sadness.
Not to say I didn’t cry a little bit during the service. The first tears fell when President Ford’s son, Steven, spoke. Before he began to read his dad’s eulogy for President Carter, he extended his heartfelt condolences to the “Carter children.” It seems back when his own dad died in 2006 the Carter kids offered his family support and comfort. Now he was returning the love.
I remember the funeral of President Ford, it was only a couple years after the funerals of my own parents. The pain on the faces of the Ford children was so intense and I knew, deep inside, what they were feeling. I wanted to hug them all and tell them they were not alone. And now here are the Carter children. Not children anymore by any means, but still grieving their dad a year after their mom. Heartbroken.
Most of the speakers caused me to shed a tear, each of them deeply touched by the life of Jimmy Carter. The grandchildren speaking made it clear that his legacy is in good hands, that the mission of making the world a better place will continue uninterrupted. Grandson Jason heads up the work, and spoke so movingly of his PawPaw, making us laugh and cry, just like, I’m sure, all the kids, grandkids and great-grands are doing tonight as they sit around telling stories after a long day sharing their Jimmy with all of us.
And one of the sweetest moments came toward the end while Garth Brooks and his wife Trisha Yearwood sang John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Somewhere in the middle of that quiet, gentle song the camera swung to President Biden who was singing along. “Some may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.”
So what was my big take-away from this celebration of love? That Jimmy Carter was a husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather and that he was a regular guy who wore shorts and crocs and struggled with his new fangled cell phone just like all of us.
For a couple of hours today I could forget about all the stuff going on in the world, in our country, in my part of the universe. For a couple of hours I could immerse myself in times long gone, remembering most of them, the celebrations, the grief, the wins, the losses.
I was reminded that we’ve been through hard times before and we made it to the other side. And I’m reassured that there are more good, regular people out there than we sometimes realize. And that most of us are just regular folks trying to do the best we can.
Just like President Carter did for the entirety of his 100 years.
I’m headed home now from a week at my parents’ house on the lake. I hadn’t been there in a few years.
First covid happened and then we had other priorities for a couple years. It was hard to find the time to go South.
While I was there I had a few days without any agenda where I mostly sat on the deck and watched the water in the lake change over the course of the day.
Years ago my mom used to try to convince me that folks in Alabama enjoyed fall color, though I’d always argued certainly not the color we have in Michigan.
I was down there, this year, at the perfect fall time, with yellow, green and red popping under warm southern sun.
The leaves across the way reflected in the lake as I sat on the dock, memories of years past flitting through my mind.
I wished my parents were with me at the lake house. I wished my mom was making potato salad. I wished my dad was telling stories.
I spent the week surrounded by memories of times when we were all together. It was both a sad and a happy week.
Even though my mother has been gone for almost 20 years, it feels important to acknowledge her on Mother’s Day.
After all I had the best mother ever! She let her band of four kids roam the lake and woods together without getting upset when we came home wet and muddy.
She fixed meals for her family of six every single day even when she’d worked all day at running her retail business downtown.
She supported our interests whether it was music or writing or photography or swimming or boating or building forts in the woods. She encouraged us to be the best we could at whatever we loved.
She sacrificed things she might have wanted to do in order to provide us the ability to do the things we cared about.
She smiled when we painted her a card or brought her flowers from the field, no matter how crazy our art was or how wilted the flowers.
And she loved that we all turned out to be productive and independent people, in no small part because of her.
Thanks, mom, for pushing us and putting up with us and loving us through all the muddy, crazy years. I hope you have the most beautiful flowers up there in heaven, though I’m sure you won’t think they compare to those we picked for you decades ago.
When someone has been gone a long time you begin to realize you won’t ever be able to take more pictures of them.
Mom and Dad visiting his mom up in Charlevoix MI at Christmas, probably 1952 or 53.
So often when I write about my folks I wish I had something new to share with you. I think about how you must be tired of seeing the same images. But what I have is all I’ll ever have.
Right?
Well, mostly right. There was that time that I was thinking about my folks a lot and was so surprised when I received a letter from one of their friends that held a photo I’d never seen of them taken in the early 50s, before kids. That was a treasure, and I still smile when I see it.
Mom and Dad in 1952.
Months ago my cousin, going through his mother’s things, came across some photos I’d never seen before. He sent me copies via email and to be honest I didn’t look at all of them then.
Mom, Dad and me in 1956.
Time went by and I was cleaning up emails this week when I ran across his, and remembered there were pictures attached. I thought I’d seen them all but I was in for a treat as I clicked through them.
I’m sure dad set this up on his tripod with a timer.The arm of the chair over on the bottom right is the rocker I have today.The picture on the wall is one they gave me years ago, I had no idea it was Grandma’s.
Look how young they were! Look how young I was!!
Treasures are so much more special when they come as a surprise.
My grandmother and my dad.I have only a couple pictures of her.And the rocker that sits in my living room today.
Thank you to my cousin for sending these treasures to me. They sure make me smile.
My mom used to say she wished the radio stations continued to play Christmas music after Christmas day. Back then you had to be in the same room as the radio in order to hear and she didn’t have time to listen before Christmas morning. She had four kids to shop and wrap for and a big holiday dinner to prepare.
She didn’t have time to enjoy the season until it was over.
The Clarkston Community Band, pictures from the audience perspective taken by my husband.
I wish she could have attended the concert our Clarkston Community Band played last Friday evening. Pretty lights and lush music shaped our theme of “Let there be Peace.”
“Bugler’s’Holidayby Leroy Anderson
I don’t think there’s a better way to get in the spirit of the season than to go to a live concert, right in your own community, performed by your friends and neighbors. The musicians might not be professionals (though sometimes they are) and the performance might not be perfect (though sometimes it is) but the spirit is real and the motivation is pure.
Friday night songs like “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, “White Christmas” and “I’ll be Home for Christmas” got us all into the right mood. When the audience sang along on a medley of Christmas carols I had to stop playing for a moment and just listen to all those voices joined together.
Pure magic.
Santa waits in the wings
Yep, Friday night we filled that auditorium with love. Toward the end of the show lots of children came up on stage to ring jingle bells as we played “Here Comes Santa Claus” in the hope they could convince Santa to stop in for a visit. These kids were very convincing, and Santa showed up right on cue. Their faces, when they realized he was standing right behind them, were priceless.
More magic.
Excitement builds as they hope for the big guy to arrive.
And then Santa conducted our last piece of music, “Sleigh Ride,” because it’ can’t be a holiday concert without a ride through the snow behind prancing horses, even if it’s all only in our imaginations.
A perfect ending to a perfect evening.
Friday night we all came together for a moment of celebration and peace, even knowing the world is filled with unrest. We all left that night smiling and you can too. This season, check your local high school’s web page. There’s likely a holiday concert or two near you this very week. Please take time from your preparations to support those musicians. They’d love to see a full house and you’ll be glad you went.
I guarantee there will be magic bouncing off those walls.
I have a few images from dad’s childhood. He was six years older than his little sister, my Aunt Becky.
My dad and his baby sister.
She loved her big brother so much, when he was killed by a tired semitruck driver December 23, 2004, she was heartbroken. They are together in heaven now, I imagine it was a pretty special reunion.
Hanging out in Ann Arbor MI.
This coming Tuesday is Giving Tuesday. I hope you will consider giving to the nonprofit I’ll be highlighting, CRASH (Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways) which is a partner with P.A.T.T (Parents Against Tired Truckers) to form the Truck Safety Coalition.
One of my favorite images of the two of them.
We provide support to families of those lost in semi crashes, and to those who have survived crashes too. Every year there are more heartbroken families.
He loved being on the water.
And we work hard at changing regulations, rules and laws in order to protect everyone on the road. But the crash statistics are going up, more than 5,000 dead, almost 150,000 injured in 2021, the last year for which we have numbers.
And he loved all kinds of boats.
So we can’t give up, can’t even slow down now. Please consider helping us on our mission to provide comfort, to make a place for families to put their grief, and to make our roads safer for everyone, truck drivers included.
Wading in Charlevoix Bay.
Thank you for the years of support you’ve already given me.
Change Is Hard 