PEACE: It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. It means to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart.” Georgia Carriker Newell
Cancer Didn’t Win!
On this Memorial Day weekend I have been thinking a lot about my mother…to be honest, I usually am thinking a lot about my mother, but today I think I had a breakthrough of sorts. For those who don’t know, my mother died three years ago when her breast cancer returned after a 6-year remission. Ever since she got sick again I’ve thought and said aloud that she lost her fight with cancer. But I realized a few minutes ago that I am wrong. Cancer didn’t win! It certainly laid her low and made us all miserable to see her so sick, but cancer didn’t win.
Who won? God won! The Jehovah that Mom had studied with her Grandmother Bateman as a small girl, the God she told us all about who was so alive for her that her favorite hymn was “In the Garden” — when she was too sick to continue on this earth, her God gathered her up in his loving arms and took her home with Him in Heaven.
Does realizing this make me miss Mom any less than I did before? Of course not. I still miss her in every corner of my being. But realizing this will make me tell her story differently, because it is no longer a story of loss, but one of triumph! No longer will I say, “Cancer took her from us,” but “God called her home”. Home where she is no longer sick, and will be waiting for us when it is our turn.
I love you, Mom.
I love bread!
Earlier this week I ran out of bread. It was too cold to go outside, and I knew if I went to the store for just bread I would spend money on odds and ends I didn’t need. So I played a few computer games and thought about bread alternatives. Very unsatisfactory!
Then I remembered the box of bread mix in the pantry, waiting to be baked. I cranked up the heat in my apartment (bread dough rises way too slowly in a cool room), got out my ingredients, and began to work.
There is magic in yeast when it meets warm water and begins to “proof” or bubble and breathe. Adding flour and stirring makes a gooey, moist mess…until the kneading begins. Remember how good making mud pies felt as a girl? Kneading bread feels SO much better. Sprinkling flour on the counter and rubbing it on my hands, I lift the dough and slap it back down, feeling the texture lighten and change. I can smell the musky yeasty beasties as they multiply in the dough. The bread comes alive beneath my hands, and the world outside my kitchen is far away.
On a whim, I add a good handful of raisins — nothing else — and watch them dimple the surface. More kneading incorporates them throughout, and my dough is ready to rest and rise.
An hour or so later the now plump dough goes into the pan, ready to rise again. This is not a process for rushing, but for contemplating. And at last, into the oven it goes.
The delicious smell sneaks up on me as I read and play more games, filling the air until it is impossible to ignore. The timer rings, the bread is baked, and my waiting is nearly over.
As soon as the loaf is cool enough to handle, I cut three lovely thick slices and slather them with butter. Thanks to the raisins, it is just sweet enough — no jam needed! A fresh cup of tea, my latest magazine, and warm, rich bread. Could Heaven be any better than this?
Feasting on Gratitude
For the past month, we have been having discussions on “gratitude” at church each week. Today we had our ingathering of pledges for the coming year, and were encouraged to write a thank you note to someone who had taught us gratitude. I would like to share the note I wrote to my mom:
“Thank you, Mom, for teaching me that a woman can love her family unconditionally; can love God even without going to church; can hunt and gut her own deer; can create beauty from “found” things; can refuse to accept ugliness in people or in circumstances; can always anticipate goodness.”
Trigger’s Horse Demystified…
I had an “Ozzy and Harriet” childhood. I was raised by two loving parents, had a younger sister and brother, and lived in a neighborhood teeming with friends. There was very little drama in our lives; we had a stay-at-home mom and a daddy who always held a job. When other mothers cheered the beginning of the school year because their children were returning to school, ours cried because she loved having us home.
Two houses separated my house from that of my best friend, Jackie. If we weren’t at our house, we were at hers, or playing in the cul de sac in front of our house. Our house was imagination central, with dress-up clothes and jewelry, tent-making blankets, and a tipi that doubled as an army hospital or a saloon, depending on the day. Mom was our best support and supply officer.
There was really only one rule, strictly enforced: Children were not allowed to quarrel with each other. If you couldn’t play pretty, you had to go home!
One beautiful summer afternoon, Jackie and I were playing “Gunsmoke” in the backyard, as usual. We were getting dressed up and organizing our play, when an argument erupted about which one of us got to be “Miss Kitty”. I felt that, since it was MY house, I should be Miss Kitty. Jackie, of course, thought that SHE, as my guest, should have that honor. Our squabbling brought Mom out back to referee.
After listening carefully to both sides of the issue, Mom passed judgment, “As far as I’m concerned, you can BOTH be TRIGGER’S HORSE if you want to!” she declared. (We knew, of course, that she meant to say “Roy Rogers’ horse, Trigger”, and did our best not to laugh in her face.) She then marched back into the house, and we dissolved in giggles, argument averted.
Since that day fifty-plus years ago, “You can be Trigger’s Horse” has been short-hand in our family for “there are no limits to what you can achieve”, and in Mom’s honor, I blog as “Trigger’s Horse”.
True confessions
I have a confession to make: I didn’t go to church this morning. I was in town, not watching granddaughters, without any particular reason to skip. I was up in plenty of time, but I just couldn’t go. You see, I used to begin every Saturday and Sunday morning on my front porch, talking to Mom on the phone and sharing my garden with her as she sat out in hers. Since she is enjoying God’s garden in Heaven, I miss those phone calls more than I can say. So today I stayed home from church for some one-on-one time with God in my own garden.
I’m sure you have seen the garden signs that say, “Love began in a garden”. Our concept of love certainly did. After He created the planets, the night and the day, and the animals, God created Man and Woman, and placed them in his exquisite Garden of Eden. Of course, from there we kind of went down hill…Anyway, I love to garden, and feel closer to God in my garden than anywhere else. And no matter what my own plans for my gardening time, I always end up, humbly, on my knees.
I have often created grand garden plans. My hearts desire is a cottage garden, a la Tasha Tudor, with chicks and kittens romping among the flowers that grow so closely together that no weed dare approach. Tucked into a corner would be an herb garden where I would snip fresh parsley or fennel or rosemary as I cooked hearty meals for all comers. An arbor covered in roses would shelter a comfy sofa just right for taking tea and reading. In reality, I now live alone, and have only cooked one meal for company in my 15 months here. My garden today is a flat chunk of lawn, designed by yard men with no thought to aesthetics, who rolled out sod from fence to fence to wall to wall and called it good. There are no trees or shrubs in sight. In a rush of enthusiasm when I moved in last year, I plunked down a couple of planter boxes and grew some veggies and iris, then let them become neglected and overrun by grass as “life” co-opted my time.
Today, though, God let me “do church” in my garden. I snipped too-tall grass next to the fence, dug out a GIGANTIC thistle guarding the far corner, and ended up, kneeling, clearing out space for a real flower bed and planting a beautiful fuschia-colored verbena. The bright orange zinnias will get planted tomorrow, after more grass is dug out to enlarge the flower bed. By the time I was done, I was hot, sweaty, and tired. But my mind was clear, my “hurry-up” feeling was gone, and Mom’s favorite hymn was being sung in my heart, “And He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.”
My prayer is that my new “retired” life will find me spending more and more time in the garden.
Putting my toes in the water…
I have been drawn to the written word since my first argument with my mother (in Kindergarten) about the kitten in “Fun with Dick and Jane”. “It’s Puff — P U F Puff! My teacher said so!” I claim no particular expertise or credentials, other than wanting to share the random insights of a life thoroughly lived.
My mother has always been the best audience and sounding board for my writing. She now watches from Heaven, and I miss her insightful comments. Please feel free to make your own as you read.
So welcome to Triggershorse (pronounced Trigger’s Horse). I’ll explain the name later.
