Thursday, April 15, 2010
Nurse Maddie
We have a great backyard. If I were a kid, I would love to play in our backyard. One one side, there is a trampoline, fully tricked out with every safety devise possible. On the other side, there is the most incredible playscape. I love this playscape! There are 3 swings, an awesome slide, monkey bars, 2 forts, a rock wall, and a picnic table. It makes my heart sing to hear kids laughing in the backyard as they play.
Only it wasn't laughing that I heard the other night. Someone was crying. It was Sean, our next door neighbor. Sean is the neatest kid who has been in the same classroom with Madison for both kindergarten and first grade. I opened the back door to see Sean crying and Madison holding his arm. Apparently, Sean jumped down from the trampoline and fell on his side. He was missing some skin on his elbow.
We brought Sean inside and as I looked for a Band-Aid and neosporin, Maddie took him into the bathroom and washed his wound. Sean was beginning to calm down under so much attention. Kim found the neosporin and I found the Band-Aid. After bandaging the wound, Maddie and I walked Sean home (next door). Maddie walked beside her friend, gently holding his arm up in the air to keep it "stable".
They knocked on Sean's front door and Sean's dad, a professional nurse, opened the door holding the phone to his ear. As I began explaining what happened, I watched Maddie walk Sean into the house, help him lay down on the couch, cover him with a blanket, and turn the TV on for him. All of this for a scraped elbow. Sean's dad got a big chuckle over all the attention. Maddie is growing up so fast and often seems too big for her britches. I frequently want to slow everything down to keep my baby from ruling the world before I am ready. It was such a special moment to see such empathy for her friend since I am usually listening to World War III with her sisters. Maybe we aren't screwing up as much as we think.
National Walk to School Day
Yesterday was National Walk to School Day. Don't feel badly, I don't think many people knew and I certainly didn't see a card at Hallmark to mark the occassion. In my book, it was a great opportunity to walk Madison to school and make another tally mark on my personal fitness challenge.
After seeing McKenzie and Morgan off to school with Kim, Maddie and I laced up our sneakers and set out for school. She told me all about the Reptile Hotel, conveniently located beneath a bridge where a creek runs through our neighborhood. Maddie pointed out her "desk" at the hotel and explained the clientelle of the hotel - snakes and alligators. She said she worked for a real snake too.
We were almost to the school when Maddie saw a friend, who was also walking to school. Madison called out to the friend, who stopped walking, and then ran to her to walk the rest of the way together. Much to my surprise, Maddie ran back to me to kiss me and say good-bye. I was truly touched by the expression of love in front of her friends. I watched Madison and her friend walk into the school and I turned to make the trip home.
As I walked, I began to pray. I thanked God for the day. I thanked God the ability to walk to school. I thanked God for my children. And then out of nowhere, the bottom let out! Rain poured out of the sky! I was drenched down to my initimate apparel. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, looked directly to the sky and said, "Really? I finally exercise and you soak me?" Five steps later and the rain stopped. I chuckled the whole way home. God is a funny one.
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Amy, The Writer
I love to read. I love to write. I can remember sitting in the back seat of my parent's car when I was in the 2nd or 3rd grade copying the words from my text book about Ponce de Leon and the Fountain of Youth. I loved how the words could be put together in different ways to mean different things. I loved to write in grade school.
I remember crafting note after note to friends in jr. high school taking great care to convey my thoughts correctly. Note writing, and eventually note passing, was an art form when I was a tween and later teen. I wrote notes during school, after school, at night, on the way to school, you name it. If I had a minute, I was writing somebody.
In the 9th grade, Mrs. Billie Sullivan was my English teacher and the lead player in my most of nightmares. This lady was tough. She scared me to death when I was awake and often appeared in the aforementioned nightmares. However, I owe her a debt of gratitude because I can still diagram a sentence like nobody's business and she had me read Fahrenheit 451. This book changed my life and it is probably the only work of science fiction I ever enjoyed. I learned the value of words and the power of their meaning in this novel. I fell in love with literature because of Fahrenheit 451. I not only wanted to read every word I could, but also command as many as possible.
In the 11th grade, I met Mrs. Helen Nicholson, AP English teacher and literary giant. She opened my eyes to even greater literary works and began my life long love of journaling. For the first 15 minutes of every class, we journaled about anything on our minds. I loved it. And she was the first to make note of my words. She thought I had talent. The following year, Mrs. Lois Rodgers, changed my whole world and inspired me to become a writer. She told me I had the honey that made everything flow. My writing was sweet like honey and everything stuck together beautifully. I thought Lois Rodgers was quite possibly the smartest woman in the world.
For years, I have written letters, poems, articles, columns, journals, and anything else I could find. I love words. I love the power of being able to make other people laugh or cry. I love being able to inspire others with my thoughts committed to paper. I even fell in love on the internet, another world of words.
Today I met with the Carolyn Scarborough, aka the Book Whisperer, to gain focus and direction in my writing. She took the shell of my book and worked miracles. She helped me devise a plan, design a schedule, determine what really matters and say for certain what it is that I know. After meeting with Carolyn for 1 1/2 hours, I left Panera Bread a changed woman. For the first time, I felt like a writer. While I may be Nora's daughter, Kim's partner, mother, sister, saleswoman, friend, neighbor, PTA member, and Christian, I am also an author. In my heart of hears I have always known this to be true. Today someone confirmed the truth to me and the world has taken on an entirely new glow.
Monday, April 05, 2010
Thoughts on Easter
Wow! What an action packed weekend we had! I am exhausted. I was so thankful to be able to take the kids to school/pre-school this morning. I needed some down time in the worst way. All 3 kids were out of school on Friday and we scheduled a play date at the bowling alley with friends.
Friday afternoon was spent at Picture People in the mall where a million fabulous photos were taken of the girls and will soon grace the walls of the store. I can hardly wait to see! Saturday started out with a bang when we held our own Easter egg hunt on the cul-du-sac. Hilary, Ruggie (new neighbor) and I hid a few dozen eggs for the kids and at 10:30 on the nose, opened the front doors of our homes to let kids spill into the street. Finding every egg took about 8 minutes so the party moved to our backyard and we had a wonderful day. I took all 3 kids to a play date Saturday afternoon and had a ball chatting with all the moms. Of course, it started to dawn on me Saturday night that maybe, just maybe, we had overdone the weekend because I could hardly move. Exhausted!
Sunday morning began with an alarm clock - ugh - and Easter baskets. I have celebrated Easter so many times in my life and it amazes me how I can discover something new after celebrating the occassion year after year.
As I drove the family to church, I thought about the gloominess of the day. The sky was dark with thick clouds and the rain began to drizzle on the windshield. The air felt heavy and I thought it probably matched the mood of the Disciples as they went about their own Sunday morning routines following the death of Christ. I once lost someone significant in my life and the darkness that surrounded me in the following days was blinding. My beloved Aunt Kathy was dead. She was only 10 years older than me and more like a sister than an aunt. A few months before she died, I read an article that said something to the effect of by the time you reach the age of 35, you will have suffered a devastating loss in your life. Reading that article I thought how blessed I was to have not lost anyone closer to me other than a grandparent.
Kathy committed suicide. There was no warning. There was no preparation of the heart. Death came to my world hard and swift. I was dazed and confused, wondering how this could have possibly happened. I kept thinking there must be a mistake. Kathy couldn't possibly be gone. As the days passed, I thought I would die not ever hearing her voice again. Driving to church yesterday, I knew exactly how the Disciples felt knowing Jesus would never say their names again. He was gone. They were alone.
And then came Sunday. Can you imagine the joy the Disciples must have felt when they learned Jesus was, in fact, alive? I know how I would have felt if the call came to my house with the news, "I was wrong! Kathy is right here! She's alive!" While I used to identify with Thomas, the Doubter, who needed to see the holes in the hands of Jesus to believe it was really Him, I now know I would have danced. No questions asked, no explainations necessary. I would have danced and cried and shouted and screamed and praised God. I would have called every person I know. I would have flown to Atlanta with the power of my own 2 arms. I would have hugged and kissed her until she begged for air. I would have held onto her with every ounce of strength in my body. What had happened before would no longer matter. The sheer joy of having back the one you love would have changed my life forever.
I am thankful beyond measure that Jesus kept His promise and rose from the dead as He said He would. I know the lives of the Disciples were changed forever from that experience because we celebrate Easter today. I know Kathy is not Jesus and she will never live again save for in my heart, but I identified with people I will never know in remembering my own loss and knowing firsthand the joy I would have felt had Kathy lived again. Easter took on new meaning to me yesterday. Like the onion, I found a new level of understanding, a new layer, to the Easter story. I pray I never forget it. And I pray for the day when I will see Kathy again.
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