An Attitude of Gratitude

Many years ago I listened to a tape from a Christian teacher named Russell Kelfer that encouraged me to have 'an attitude of gratitude' in all of life's situations, to look for the blessing behind the immediate crisis or disappointment. In the years since, I have found that this advice has kept me from self pity and despair, no matter what crisis or traumatic event life has brought. And I don't mean that I had to dig hard for them, I really mean that there were always several things to be thankful for. Maybe some times took me longer than others because I was too focused on the crisis at first, but once I started looking it never took very long to find how God had kept His Hand on us.

Around the Thanksgiving table this year, Russ asked us to each say something that we were thankful for. Family, home, job, God's love were all named, and for those things we are truly grateful to God. Our table was one short this year. Dad missed his favorite meal - our first Thanksgiving without him. I had to tell how thankful I was that I had been with Dad for the last week he was alive, without a clue it was his last. I had to tell Jess how thankful I was that her wedding had been that week, which is what had brought me home. At first I had been disappointed because the rest of my family couldn't make it during the time they had chosen for the wedding. But, oh how thankful I am now that God knew when I needed to be there and He knew that Dad would be handsome and smiling and happy for Jess' special day! We all treasure those last wonderful pictures of Dad and the fact that he was there to celebrate with Mom Jess and Tyler's wedding. Yes indeed, God is good.

We played Pictionary Telephone and Blackboard Pictionary and had a blast, laughing the whole time. What a great day!

Did I miss the rest of the family that weren't there? Oh, yes. Was I sad that Dad wasn't there with Mom? I sure was. Do we have struggles and worries? Absolutely.

But digging deeper floods me with an attitude of gratitude.

Goo

It was pumpkin carving time in the Burney house last week, and it wasn't just for the 'young in years'; it was for the 'young in heart'.

Ben and JoAnne brought over their pumpkins to add to ours, and we set them out on the kitchen table to go to work on our masterpieces. Each of us drew out a design that would impress and elicit oooh's and ahhhh's from the others and then set to work carving. Russ decided to have Mom, at 81, draw his pattern for him, figuring competition was sharp and he could use the help. Ben had his farm scene already planned and set to carving right away, while Jeremiah found an idea online and free-handed his witch-across-the-moon pattern, adjusting for size and his pumpkin's unique characteristics to come up with his potential champion jack-o-lantern. I drew a cat face on mine, thinking of Brynne and Noah's new kitty and Leah and Alaina's 'Huck' whom they love. Mom set to work cutting out the cat face while I reached in grabbing out the 'guts'.



We all stood or sat around the table wearing our own 'hard at work' expression - tongue hanging out, lips clamped tightly by upper teeth, pursed lips, or slack-jawed... Yep, we were each determined to end up with the 2009's most impressive gourd! Getting gooey is just part of the process and orange slime dripped from our fingers as we dug out the seeds and set them aside for roasting - yum! Leah wasn't too sure she wanted anything to do with the goo, but after some experimental poking and tentative tries, she decided it wasn't so bad and dove in.



When all was said and done, we lit them up and, like every other year, oooh'd and ahhh'd over each one of them, declaring that one could not be chosen over the other. Then we took our picture to commemorate yet another year of Goo and fun together.

Parable

A week and a half ago we moved in. What a wonderful house and yard! Nice neighbors, too. It's soooo good to see the big sky and the way it is always changing, deer and turkeys in the yard, farm fields all around, and of course the skunks and raccoons competing for road space.

But, oh! How I miss little Brynnie! Her quiet little steps up the stairs to deliver paperwork and her pleased giggles when she scares me...or keeping me company working in her office corner, coloring, cutting, and drawing and using miles of scotch tape to decorate my office walls with her amazing budding-artist masterpieces. I miss earnest young Noah sharing the deep workings of his tremendous analytical mind, seeing beyond what is, to the why... I miss the cuddle times with both of them and feeling so much a part of their young lives - part of who they are becoming..tying the past and the present with the future. Can a heart really break??

I miss the others, too, more than I thought I would...I love being Gramma Linda and can't wait to see them at Christmas. While we didn't get together as often, we knew they were there just as they knew we were there - family and those wonderful, house-bursting holidays!

I think I am done with change - it's too hard, too sad, too much work. I want to stay put and be home base, calling the kids home - to stay, or at least to visit hoping to draw them nearer as they and we get older...

Metronome

In a few days it will be two months since Dad died...two months. Every once in a while, it washes over me as if I just got the news and I feel my brain struggling to grasp the thought that he is gone - really gone. And I watch my mother do the same. The other day she washed the clothes he was wearing when he died and it washed over us again. I almost felt a reluctance to have her wash them, not wanting to erase the physical evidence of his being...but I know it is part of staying in the living.

Dad's relationship with Jesus I am not sure of; I wish I could know for sure, but Dad was private about things like that. There were doors that you just didn't open, or when you tried, you found it locked and barred. For now, I will believe that Christ's blood washed him clean and that he is with his Savior, fully understanding the things he struggled with.

I was riding with two of my sons the other night and they were picking my brain, hearing things about me that they didn't ever remember hearing before. As I talked and they exclaimed over things they hadn't known, I realized that those things are almost another person, another life - I didn't remember that I remembered those things. It's odd how many lives I feel like I have lived in this one life.

We are about to enter into another life yet again, a new home in a new setting quite different from where we have been before. I lay awake last night going over things in my mind - what it would be like to live there, where I would put our furniture, wondering if our youngest would find good friends of upstanding character, and anxious to create memories in this new place which is the only thing that ever really makes a house a home. It will not be truly home until every one of our kids has been there to share in making memories, filling the walls with our laughter, sharing, and ghost pictures of our living. May it be a home whose family honors God while loving one another and living in a struggling world.

Someday

Someday has reared its ugly head. It always seemed like Someday was a permanent resident of some distant, foggy, realm...never to cross into the land of reality. I am still struggling to believe that my last words to Dad were, "I'll see you in two weeks!"...no shadow of knowledge that he would be gone the next day...no special moments marking the last last time we would hug and kiss and speak together...no lingering to drink in the way he looked and talked and joked his lame one-liners...no chance to hear once more the stories and memories of his growing up days, his brother who died at the hand of a sniper after the Battle of the Bulge, another brother who was in China with Chennault and the Flying Tigers, Gramma's struggle to raise her nine children alone after Grampa died when Dad was a month old...

I know Dad wasn't perfect - in fact had some glaring faults, but HE WAS MY DAD. I won't have another. He worked two jobs while I was growing up to give me a home; he loved my mother with everything in him. When I was young, I would follow him from project to project so eager to hand him the screwdriver or hammer before he had to ask for it, or pound in the nail with fewer strong, accurate swings, or climb the rafters fearlessly to help nail them. Dad's approval was important to me; I needed it and got it the best way I knew how. It didn't always come easily; in fact sometimes it seemed impossible, but I couldn't quit trying, following his rules, going above and beyond whenever I could see an opportunity, and somewhere along the way I would strike gold again and bask in his approval. Dad didn't mean to be that way; it was part of what he knew and he just couldn't seem to come to grips with a different way...Anyway, I loved him. He was my dad.

Dad, I miss you. Home isn't the same without you puttering here and there - going out to check mail, taking care of the chickens, calling mom's attention to the birds at the feeders, making a pot of coffee, reading your magazines in the sunroom, napping with your mouth open "catching flies", loving up Dazzle, asking mom for a pie, baking bread - oh! your yummy, fresh baked bread! - I finished the last piece of your last loaf the other day; you made it the day before you died; thank you for that. I have the grocery list you were working on when you died; I had to keep it, to run my fingers along it, knowing it was one of the last things you did, as if it brings you back in some little way...I love you, Dad.

So, Someday came on June 10th and now I know that Someday is real.

Savoring

Knowing the time is short, the things that I really enjoy about the East coast are jumping out at me...
...the rock walls everywhere. I wonder whose hands so laboriously piled them, the stories they tell, the people just like me tackling the back-breaking work of farming and settling a new land far from anything familiar...
...the cozy, tree framed lanes with mottled sunshine winding up and down holding hidden treasure just around the bend - and potholes that keep you from getting too nostalgic...
the ever-changing scenery - hills and dales - resplendent for fall in fancy dress like nowhere else...
...the wonderful old - truly old compared to the rest of the country - homes built with so much character and finished with such beautiful artistic elements, their walls filled with remnants of lives gone by ...
...summer trips to the ocean to listen to the surf and watch the kids and grandkids boogie board and dig sand castles and bury each other up to their noses...
...Monhegan Island - what a wonderful, magical week that was! It will stay with me always...

I always tell the kids it would truly be tragic to have no sense of loss when leaving a place behind...

Sky Show

We went tonight with Lyss, Matt, and the kids into Manchester to watch fireworks. It was an incredible, full 30 minute display like I have never seen before. They used the bridge as a launching pad and It lit up the park like daytime during some of the more intense portions. Impressive! At one point, an airliner was coming in for a landing at the nearby airport and looked as if it was passing right through the shooting streams and pops of color! That drew the ooh's and ahh's from us all! After working our way through the massive crowds, making a quick stop at Taco Bell, we made it home by midnight...what a fun evening!

Choices

eyes on the wide, straight road ahead, avoiding the fields and paths that meander and draw .. that hold hidden experience for those who dare to walk a different path…giving up the good for the new, the safe for the unknown, the harmony for the discord…

Today

Today was beautiful! Warm but not hot, just the way I like it! I packed, worked in the office, packed some more, made four deliveries with Russ, and then he brought Jmiah to a friend's house to have a camp fire and spend the night in his fort. It's raining now, so I can imagine him with the sound of those raindrops playfully jumping off the roof overhead, snug in his sleeping bag with the woods wrapped around him as he drifts closer to sleep whispering stories with his friend...sounds nice.

The bridal wreath are blooming gloriously, their white coated branches reaching up and then gracefully arching their necks to the ground. I am going to plant a whole hedge of them when we settle in at our new place! Their blooms last such a short time, but early spring holds promise, and there is something magical in their flowers and form!