Snap By Snap

Another package arrived today - small and less mysterious than the last one. This time Debbie warned me it was coming, since I just about fell of my chair last time. This small treasure is a framed picture of my mother, I'm guessing at about age 12. It's in a cool old frame, and my mom is looking over her shoulder with ringlets and a bow in her hair. I love the spunky expression on her face. Her eyes have a spark - that same spark that carried her through her young life to a nursing degree, to a new family, a career, through five years of cancer, to a faithful life - that spark is there.


Snap by Snap has always been about photos and the stories they tell. I love the story this photo tells. Even though my mother has been gone 41 years, her daughters are still talking about her, piecing together bits of information about her life. Photos, a ring, a locket, a doll, a sewing machine, a diploma: The photos always tell the best stories. It makes me wonder what small parts of my life will remain 40 years after I'm gone and what they will say about me.


I found one small part of my early life in my wanderings today, and it made me smile. It's a Bible - and I have a few of those. Some belonged to my mother, my father, or were favorites of mine at various points in my life. But this particular Bible is the one I stole.


I was probably 10 or 11 - not much younger than my mom in the picture above - and like a lot of kids whose parents are leaders in the church, I spent a lot of time wandering the building, waiting for meetings to get over with. Our church building at that time was a cool old building with three stories, long halls of polished wood floors, creaky theater seats, and a basement whose columns had been marked near the ceiling to show how high the water reached in the flood of '38. There was a lot to explore there.  I found the lost and found that day, and it was full (of course) of lost Bibles. Bored, I began looking through them and stopped in my tracks as I found a familiar name in one of them.




This was during the period where I was afraid of forgetting my mother, and I was desperate for things that would help me remember her. And there on the page was her name. I closed the Bible, and took it home. When I got home, I scribbled out the name of the person to whom it had been presented. My internal Jiminy Cricket was practically shouting in my ear how wrong I was, but I could not tear myself away from that Bible. In my childish mind it represented a part of her. A moment in her life that was somehow now mine. It was the beginning of my small and unimpressive life of crime.


And here I am, so many years later, mostly reformed from my wild child ways, but I still have that contraband Bible. Why did I keep it? So many other old Bibles have been donated or given away, but this one remains on my bookshelf. I guess it still reminds me of that moment when I felt I'd gotten part of her back in some small way. Stolen and forbidden as it was, it was mine. Losing a person leaves such a gaping wound in our lives, and it takes time for grief to weave scar tissue over the gash and for our breathing to slowly regain its rhythm. Memories and momentos make it easier.


I've said it before in this blog - We are made for connection. In its absence we seek substitutes. I think that's why I love photos. I love seeing faces long remembered - eyes sparkling off the paper, proof to hearts that we remember. Having the photos preserves moments in our lives and theirs, and moves us past the pain of the separation to the memory of the life.

I arrived home last week to find a mystery box with my name on it. It was from my sister Debbie, but she hadn't said a word about sending anything. I opened the box and found myself looking into a distantly familiar face.

I have previously written about my mom's story when I started this blog in 2009, but visiting her life again through the contents of this box I am especially struck by her resiliency. She was determined to go to school, graduating from Long Beach Junior College at 21, and later finishing her four year degree at the University of Southern California at 24. When my father met her several years later, he found her still living at home, trapped in a family that depended on her for cooking, cleaning, and general maid service. He told me once that she seemed to live the life of a Cinderella, and he desperately wanted to rescue her. They married, and her new life as wife, mother, and registered nurse began. Finally, she had a family of her own.

I bought Christmas cards this year, I did. I even wrote the dreaded Christmas letter and printed some photos to include. And then .... I don't remember much after that. A sledge hammer of work stress descended on me at the worst possible time of the year. We had decorated the house at Thanksgiving, so I had plenty of twinkly lights and our tree to enjoy, but I did not do one bit of shopping or even really think about Christmas until about the 22nd, and the Christmas cards are still sitting on the shelf. It's a shame, because I wrote an awesome Christmas letter this year.


The best Christmas present I received this year was an understanding family. Late nights were met with hot meals, candlelight, Christmas music, and a listening ear. All of my family prayed for me, including my Church family. December slipped by, my scheduled two week vacation shrunk to a handful of days, I blinked, and Christmas was over.

Fortunately, Banjo added a lot of fun to Christmas this year. In the midst of long hours and stress, he brought lots of laughter in unexpected moments. I had heard that laughter is the best medicine, and now I'm a believer. After we filmed the video below, I felt absolutely GREAT for the rest of the day.


Banjo's santa suit taught us two things. First, we had to admit that we are the type of people who dress up their dog. There. I said it. It is sad, and possibly an artifact of two 50 year olds with an empty nest, but there you have it. Secondly, it has taught us how to calm down our dog. Banjo moves much more slowly in a sweater. He also walks sideways. So it is funny AND useful.

Today is January 1, 2012. I have a hard time believing that, but it's true. The scary part is that Amy is leaving for London in nine days. That's a week and two days. 216 hours. And she is NOT ready to go. So tomorrow we will try to finish up shopping for her trip, and try to get our heads around the details of having a twenty year old living in another country for three months.


There's a lot to get done, big changes to digest and process, and new year beginning.

I am not a big one for new year's resolutions. I do tend to set goals, but I am cautious of resolutions. I am more interested in progress and am happiest when I see progress in work, home, and relationships. But this year, I think I will try my hand at a resolution.

My resolution is to hold on to, to believe, the promises made to me. Like this one:

For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. ¹² Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. ¹⁴ I will be found by you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.   _ Jeremiah 29: 11-14

It is an almost overused verse - and unfortunately scripture can often be relegated to the level of "favorite quotes" instead of real, life changing promises meant to affect our daily lives. This year is the year I know I cannot do it by myself (and pretty sure I've known that before) - and there's no way that gritting my teeth and trying harder will do. I need the promises.

When I was in high school, being the Bible Nerd that I was, I spent some of my hard earned Pioneer Chicken money on a book titled "The Jesus Person Pocket Promise Book."  (Yes, I did grow up in the 70's - and proud of it!) I had a hard time, then, believing that the promises were for me - but maybe that was because I still believed that what I did, I accomplished because I was really just that smart, talented, and lucky. Nothing like 50 years to teach a person what they don't know and what it really takes to make it through a day. Or a year.

Maybe next year I'll send out two years worth of Christmas letters and cards. Maybe not. Either way, I hope I will be celebrating the year knowing it wasn't by my own power that I made it through. That I made it through holding on to the hand of the One who made promises He knew I'd need.

 Do you know how many times it takes for something to become a tradition? One time. I learned this from my daughter, Amy when she was about 8 years old. One year we bought a gingerbread house kit and what do you know, it was a tradition. For at least 12 years, we have purchased a kit every year and made a total mess with it. With all the practice we've had, you'd would think that we would be really, really talented at gingerbread houses by now.

One of my own traditions is watching the yearly show about the White House Christmas decorations. As a part of that show, they always show the White House pastry chefs creating the White House gingerbread house. After all the years of practice we have had, I'm pretty sure we could compete at that level. Yep.



Half the fun of buying the gingerbread kit (besides revelling in not having to bake our own actual gingerbread) is purchasing all of the extra sugary goodies to glue on, and licking the stiff white icing off our fingers as we go. I don't know if more sugar goes in us, or on the house.

This year's effort was a kit we bought at Sam's club and it came with fondant, which we had never played with before - big excitement. If you look really closely, you might be able to tell we are new to using fondant. Of course the rest of the house looks pretty much like the one above.

Some of our Christmas traditions have been adopted from Mark's family. One of them is that we serve hot Dr. Pepper (yes, you read that right) with lemon slices during Christmas tree trimming. It originates from a recipe my mother-in-law found in a magazine, and you know what? It is really quite good. I have to say that the first Christmas I spent with the Dobbs, I wasn't at all sure about this one!

The best tradition is not really one particular thing we do. Rather, it is the value that people are more important than things. Being together trumps presents, perfection, and busy-ness. That's what the gingerbread house is really about - it's about Amy and me taking time out of a busy season to sit at the table together and create . . . a $10 house that eventually we pick the candy off of or that the dog one day licks the decor off of. This year Amy reminded me that last year I didn't really help much with the house (too busy). Obviously, it was time to fix that. So today, in the year Amy turned 20 and I turn 50, we put the original Miracle on 34th Street on TV, and sat down with a pile of sugar and some magic stuff called fondant to create this year's house. It looks just like the box, don't you think?



I guess it's a good thing that having fun being together is really the point . . . because that is what we really succeeded at!

I have a confession to make.

It was very, very quiet in our house. Too quiet.

By the time Goldie had been gone for three weeks, we were ready for another dog to love. We had first met "Elroy" just two weeks after Goldie died, when we wandered by an adoption day in the Petsmart parking lot. There was this whiskery faced black and brown terrier in a crate, looking lively. I looked over in time to see the little guy lock eyes with Mark and stick his paw out of the crate to him. It really was love at first sight. But, we weren't ready yet, so we went home - confident that when we were ready there would be a wonderful dog for us, and that Elroy would certainly find a home. Several families were also looking at him that day. How could you not want to take home that face?