Adding Another Year

She adds another year to her age today. I won’t reveal that number here. I do after all have to live with her. I do understand that measuring a person’s worth by a number is really not the best way to show value. I know that because I know her and what she brings not only to my life, and our life together with Hannah, but to so many others as well.

While I can have my moments with words, sometimes what I put together is just a jumble that can be hard to decipher. Sometimes, someone else writes the words that seem to match the life being lived. And, so for her birthday, a few short lines which describe my wife Jennifer as we grow older together courtesy of singer-songwriter Bruce Robison.

Come to me my darlin’ bride

Shower me with charms

You know I won’t be satisfied

‘Til I got you in my arms

Forever seems so far away

When your love for me was new

The years may turn gold leaves to gray

But the years sure look good on you.

What’s another New Year’s Eve

When you know what lay in store

How many party favors have we thrown away

Then go out and buy some more

I‘ll celebrate with you anywhere, anyhow

It’s the least a country boy can do

The years many never change your mind

But the years sure look good on you.

It’s easy to laugh at old photographs

And tonight we’re really on a roll

Remember that suit, remember that hair

Well, darling why didn’t you let me know

But snapshots and portraits don’t tell the story

That I’ve always known to be true

The years may fade our photographs

But the years sure look good on you.

The years may fade our photographs

But the years sure look good on you.

Happy birthday, Jen!

"The Years" written by Bruce Robison and performed by Bruce Robison and the Back Porch Band on YouTube

Just Like Mom

Our country has just celebrated Mother’s Day, a day that has been an official part of our national consciousness since 1914. And, yes, I know there are bad moms out there. Yes, I know not everyone was blessed with a good mom or even has a good relationship with his or her mom. It seems though the bad is often all we hear. Some of us were blessed enough to have good moms. Maybe we can speak about that from time to time and not be made to feel ashamed because of it.

I have written before about my own mom. This post published in 2011 remains one of the most favorite things I have ever written. I have also written about the wonderful mom Jennifer is to our daughter. You can find that here. I still stand by these things I have written and could write even more about how these two are tremendous at being moms. This year though I want to recognize someone else who, in a number of ways, has been a mom to me.

She is my sister, Joann. When I was born, she was already a teenager. I understand she often helped take care of me. She has memories of my young life that I wish I could recall but am thankful she can share with me now. Pictures remain alongside memories…she holds me in her arms while standing outside in the snow, we are gathered around the Christmas tree surrounded by our presents. Then there’s one picture of me, her and our brother, Donny. I imagine Mom had long wanted just one professionally produced picture of her three children together. In the picture I look as if I am up to something mischievous while Joann and Donny look like they have had enough of me and are ready for this adventure to end, something they have admitted to in years since, as it seems I was none too happy that day about having any picture made.

Our time as a five-member family together under one roof would end soon enough as Joann married then moved two hundred miles away to South Carolina. Within a few years, she had become a mom to Todd first then to Jill. As she settled into life as a wife and a mom, we would visit on weekends several times a year or they would visit us. Admittedly, I would have more in common with my nephew and niece than with my sister, and so over the years, I become more of a big brother figure than an uncle to them. The same would happen with my brother’s children, Carrie and Sarah.

I suppose the story could end there but it really does not. I would grow older eventually departing for college. Greener than grass and wet-behind-the-ears, I left home on a January morning moving over three hundred miles away from all I had ever known. Looking back, maybe my sister understood on some level how that felt. During those college years, almost weekly, I would go to my campus mailbox and, there, would be a letter from my sister. She would keep me up-to-date on life on that Carolina cattle farm where her family planted roots. Sometimes, she would send homemade hot chocolate and her tasty party mix concoction of Chex cereal, pecans and nuts.

I also know over the years, even to this moment, that her quiet spirit has spent time in thought and prayer for so many including me. Prayer seems to be a bedrock for so many moms who make a positive difference in the lives of others. I know she has worried over loved ones and their career choices, sicknesses, financial situations, relationship matters, travel concerns and more. Good moms seem to accept what they have been handed then determine to work through what is there with the understanding it all belongs in God’s hands.

Then one day well into my adulthood I connected with my sister in a way I did not expect, a way that made everything come full circle for me. It was my own wedding day. In the midst of the activities, I recall looking at my sister. She looked back at me and I could see she was fighting back tears. I also saw she was thankful I had found someone to share my life with but I saw she was missing that little boy she knew from so long ago. It was almost as if she was my mom at that moment. In some ways, I suppose to her, she was.

These days, she and I are more like brother and sister than ever before. We talk about health ailments and homemade remedies. We try to remember times gone by and share memories of family members fading into memory. In her community, she quietly helps people out with good deeds that go unannounced to the world at large. Just like a good mom, what she does is hardly ever about herself, it is about others. She still is a wife of a cattle farmer and a mom to her son and daughter and now grandmother to two precious, precocious granddaughters.

Now, along with our brother, we watch as our parents age. We wonder where life will take all of us next. As our Mom has health problems mounting, some in the family may see my sister becoming more and more of a mother figure to the rest of the family as a whole. I don’t know if she sees it that way. She though is the right fit for such a role. I can say that from experience. Yes, she is my sister but I also know what a good mom she really is.

Curves

I drive curves too fast. I believe it is my North Georgia blood that makes me make a car lean heavily to one side in a turn. After all it was some of those mountain men from a few generations back who whistled through the red clay hills and deep dark hollers as fast as they could. Sure, some had revenuers in hot pursuit behind them but still I imagine some just wanted to see how fast they could safely drive without tipping a mass of metal and rubber onto it’s side.

Having lived away from but still near those mountains for several decades now, I have had ample opportunity to return there. It seems I have determined most every way a person could drive a vehicle to get there from each direction. Each direction has it’s own set of hills and curves and challenges. Many of those times before I set four wheels in motion to get back there I was determined to get there as quickly as I could. I might pass a car only to glance to my right so I could give them a look of amazement at how slowly they were moving as I zipped past them. Then I would cut my eyes to see their vehicle shrink into a small dot in my rear view mirror. In my justified haste, I would tell myself how I wanted to get off the highways and by-ways but how I also wanted to spend time with family and friends, so I had no time to waste. If it meant I took a few of those curves a few dozen miles-per-hour faster than what had been safely posted then I likely tried it.

Looking back I realize how foolish that mentality is. It is dangerous and can be costly in a number of ways. Still, there are times now when I see a curve ahead and wonder how quickly I can get through it. There is even a fairly sharp curve a few miles away from our home. I drive it a number of times every week. Usually that curve has a good deal of traffic on it so there are times when I get behind some one then have to slow down as they hit their brakes to navigate this curve. When this happens I mumble through gritted teeth, “Just drive the curve.”

Recently, we went away for a few days. We traveled down some very curvy roads to get to our destination. One stretch of road took us over a mountain then down the other side with turn after curve after turn after curve. Admittedly, as I drove the first few sharp curves, I thought how I would love to be hitting these exact same curves a bit faster than what I was doing at the moment.

I didn’t though. I made a deliberate effort to reign in my desire to “just drive the curve”. I would like to think I have grown wiser with time. I want to believe the thrill of speed and flirtation with danger somehow has been satisfied for good somewhere. Maybe those things ring true at some level. Maybe it’s really something else.

I do know though that when we traveled those curvy roads recently I still glanced to my right during the drive even though I wasn’t blowing past a car when I did that. I also looked into the rear view mirror like I would in times past. These days when I do these things I see my wife and my daughter. When I see them I understand this ride we are on together is fast enough as it is and if I have to ride the brakes a bit through the curves we face to keep them safe and secure then I can live with that.