Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri

Katy is represented by
Rachelle Gardner at
WordServe Literary

Read more Katy at
LateBoomer.net

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Recent Posts

• Soul Train
• Live Out Your Dream And Discard The Box
• Tears In A Bottle
• From The Young Mom I Once Was, To You
• I Can’t Help Falling
• What A Difference Ten Years Makes
• The Next Best Thing To Robert Redford
• The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
• Where Have All The Years Gone
• Fun With Kiki Cullen
• Stuck On Mom
• Ten Years Later, Our Girls From Northern Ireland Remembered
• The Thrift of Grief
• Job Security
• The Party’s Over

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E me at katy @ ngenius.com

Soul Train

One hundred years ago tonight, King Pattengale sat down at his makeshift desk and by coach lamp penned a penny postcard to his six-year-old son, Carl.

Carl had a collection of these postcards from his daddy, who worked on the railroad and had to be away from home more than Carl liked. He kept them in a wooden box, tied together with a piece of twine, and took them out whenever he missed his pa. But the one that was written on this date was his favorite for his whole life long.

“Do you see the date on this card?” read the cursive script. “11/11/11. Carl, that date won’t happen again for one hundred years! Imagine that…”

Carl did imagine. And he showed me the postcard only once, more than forty years ago. He was no young man by then, and his father, of course, was long dead. He read the card aloud to me and his eyes twinkled like they must have when he was a lad, mesmerized again by the magical thought of the one hundred years—slow moving in his youth but speeding by in old age—between 1911 and 2011.

“I won’t be alive when that date comes around the next time,” he said. “But you will.”

Years still moved slowly for me back then, but now I know, from personal experience, that it couldn’t have been true for him. What seemed like an eternity to me seemed to him like nothing more than the blink of an eye—and yet he knew he wouldn’t see the day that was so quickly approaching.

So I smiled an I-believe-in-magic smile and took the postcard from his open hand. I held it to my face and inhaled the lingering fragrance of the sleeper train and the rail yard and even, I think, my great-grandfather himself. And the scent of the little boy who became the man sitting next to me, my grandfather.

And I promised myself right then that on some distant 11/11/11 that I couldn’t imagine ever actually arriving, I would gather my grandfather’s people around me and celebrate his good life, his kind love, and the magic of passing it on.

I still have his postcard. Now that the long-imagined day has arrived, I will sit down and pen cards, perhaps to my own sweet grandchildren. I’ll tell them this date won’t come again for a hundred years, but I won’t have to tell them to believe in magic.

They’ll see it twinkling in my eyes.

---

Live Out Your Dream And Discard The Box

I’ve been embarking on my annual decluttering, and let me just say it ain’t pretty.

This morning, I questioned myself thoroughly about why (besides purely sentimental reasons) I cling to stuff like I do. I came up with three main reasons. Most of the junk I’m holding onto represents the person I used to be (but likely won’t be again…), the person I wish I was (but likely won’t become), or the person I am now (but really shouldn’t be).

Decluttering is about more than pitching stuff. It’s about choosing my purpose again today.

So I immersed myself in my closet, grasping first at straws and then at substance. I quickly found at least a dozen items of clothing, three pairs of scuzzy (as opposed to fuzzy) houseslippers, a computer bag that would only work if I wore a suit (which won’t happen in this lifetime), and some ragged underwear to feed the lust of the trash bin.

And then I spotted it, there on the shelf behind my questionable purses: The sweet wooden box I inherited from Grandma forty years ago. I reached for it, thinking I’d stored inside the beautiful beaded gloves, circa 1945, given to me by a lady who lived to be one hundred years old.

Instead, a single sheet of torn and yellowed newsprint and beyond that, only emptiness. No other treasures to compete for my attention. I unfolded the sheet and gasped when I read the title, for I now remembered stashing it here, a younger me hoping a future me would still cherish the message. This article originally appeared in the Kansas City Star on February 27, 1986. Here are Erma’s words to me all that time ago, and yes, again today:

“Live Out Your Dream And Discard The Box”
by Erma Bombeck

 

---

Tears In A Bottle

I’ve always treasured the Bible verse about God collecting our tears in a bottle, but it never meant as much to me as when I lost my first baby boy to miscarriage in 1978. That long ago but still remembered night, I held my son—perfectly formed at 14 weeks—in the palm of my hand and my husband and I baptized him with our tears.

In the days afterward, as I lay in bed recovering, I wrote down my thoughts about all the things God counts, including the drops that fall from our eyes. Doug set the poem to music, and he’s even sung it at a couple of funerals, but today, I’m offering the words to you, as a small comfort over your own lost loves.

                                 
                              Our Tears

                    God has given them a number:
                    The leaves upon the trees,
                    The hairs upon our heads,
                    The grains of sand around the seas….

                    God has counted each of these:
                    The little birds that fall,
                    The lilies as they bloom,
                    The blades of grass as they grow tall…

                    But most of all, I think He counts
                    The tears His children shed,
                    The heartaches and the sorrows,
                    Until to His throne we’re led…

                    There He’ll give us each a crown,
                    Each tear will be a gem,
                    The bottles will be emptied,
                    And we’ll never cry again.

 

---

From The Young Mom I Once Was, To You

Twenty-five years ago, I had three darling little kids. Scott at age seven, Carrie age four, and Kevin only eighteen months old. One day, as serendipity would have it, all of the kids dissolved into a crying and wailing fit at the same time—-gathered around and clinging to my legs. In that moment, I didn’t know if I would survive raising children to adulthood. I was so overwhelmed with the enormity of the task that I did the only thing I could. I wrote a poem. If you find yourself surrounded by little ones today, this is for you.

              Little children at my feet
              A hundred daily needs to meet
              O when I’m yearning to be free…
              Let the children come to me.

              Places that I’m dreaming of
              The ocean wide, the sky above
              But then one climbs upon my knee…
              Let the children come to me.

              One tugs gently at my skirt
              A healing kiss for tiny hurt
              There’s no where I would rather be…
              Let the children come to me.

              For once a King upon a throne
              Gave up all that was His own
              He said with great humility…
              Let the children come to me.

              So may I bring them one by one
              To meet the King, Your only Son
              And in Your kindness, may it be
              That all my children come to Thee.

---

I Can’t Help Falling

“We need to sing,” said Garrison Keillor, and no one in the audience could argue with his logic.

It was less than one week after September 11, 2001, and Keillor was in Kansas City for a book signing and excerpt-reading event at the Uptown Theater. Many of the hundreds of people gathered to hear him had likely not ventured far from home in the past few days, but for Garrison Keillor, exceptions were made.

There was a sadness hovering over the crowd, though. A reticence. We wanted to laugh at his Wobegon tales, forget the present and reminisce over an innocent past, but we couldn’t remember how. There was even, I felt, a mild distrust of each other in that theater, as if we feared the stranger right next to us—yes, the mild-mannered Lutheran woman in the jean jumper—might be a likely threat.

“We need to sing,” he said, and led us to stand to our feet and hold our neighbors’ hands.

“Oh beautiful, for spacious skies,” he began, in a singing voice as rich and mellow and believable as the one he used to speak. One by one, members of the audience joined in, until the room was filled with a unity of heart and sound. There were no power-point slides to cue the more obscure verses, and as we moved past the second verse, soon only Keillor was left singing once again. He knew every word, and sang every verse strong and unencumbered.

It was the second song that surprised us, since it was neither patriotic nor religious.

It was romantic.

“Wise men say, only fools rush in.
But I can’t help falling in love with you.”

Utter fools have rushed in, killing people we can’t help being in love with…

“Shall I stay? Would it be a sin?
If I can’t help falling in love with you.”

But we’re still here. Not going anywhere. Can’t help it that we’re in this thing together…

“Take my hand. Take my whole life, too.
For I can’t help falling in love with you.”

We—each of us, all of us—looked into strangers’ faces in that theater, scanned eyes for signs of love, and found them. And we couldn’t help ourselves.

Never mind what we were facing, we just couldn’t help falling in love.

---

What A Difference Ten Years Makes

I’ve been blogging since way before most people had heard of blogging, and sometimes I like to look at what was happening in my life during this month one, five, or ten years ago.

Wow! I found a fallible entry from ten years ago this month that blew me away. Little did I know that literally within days of me writing this, my mother’s health would begin its steady and precipitous decline. Little did I know that Doug and I would not get to enjoy any time between raising our kids to adulthood and becoming caregivers for both our moms.

I had high hopes, though, didn’t I? And I still do, though the past decade bore absolutely no resemblance to what I’d foreseen. Here’s what I wrote back then:

“I’m starting to think that the Final Exam in Successful Marriage isn’t really about finances, or in-laws, or hormone replacement therapy, like they tell us. Shrinking retirement accounts and itty-bitty-bladder syndrome, we can get through. Male-patterned baldness won’t kill us, even if it’s mine. I’m starting to think the test is in the nest. Being members of the sandwich generation used to frighten me. You know, the period in a middle-aged couple’s life when their kids and their parents are all needy at the same time. But guess what happened while our independent moms neglected to need us? The kids moved out! The big stuff really has made us strong over the course of these past 25 years, but it’s the little stuff—-the little people—-who’ve made us fun. We’ve got a few years left with our youngest son, and we won’t be hurrying him from the nest before it’s time. But we won’t try to stop him when he’s fit to fly, either. In the meantime, we’ve become returning students of each other, Doug and I. We’re facing pop quizzes daily, examining the teacher’s text for insight into the coming chapters, and worrying just a little about the unavoidable essay questions. The semester may be just beginning, but we’re determined to pass the Empty Nest Test with flying colors.”

Have you ever imagined that a period of your life was going to go a certain direction, and then gotten blind-sided by the hard, cold facts? Or is it just me?

And tell me, am I the absolute worse prognosticator you’ve ever heard of, or what? :)

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The Next Best Thing To Robert Redford

Today, my friends, Robert Redford turns 75 years old. To celebrate, I’m breaking out a recipe that is at least 35 years old, if not 40. My mom made this a million times and we never tired of it. I’ll give you the recipe exactly as she’s written it. It does not get better!

          The Next Best Thing To Robert Redford

1 cup flour
1/2 cup softened butter
1 cup finely chopped nuts
8 oz cream cheese
8 oz Cool Whip
1 cup powdered sugar
1 box instant chocolate pudding
1 box instant vanilla pudding
3 cups milk
grated chocolate for garnish

Cut flour into butter with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Mix in nuts. Press into the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan. Bake in a 350 oven for 30 minutes. Cool. Mix together cream cheese, 1 cup of the Cool Whip, and powdered sugar. Spread over cooled crust. In a large bowl, combine choc pudd mix, van pudd mix, and milk. Stir until thickened. When thick, pour over first 2 layers. Cover with remaining Cool Whip and garnish with chocolate. This will keep, covered, for up to 2 weeks in refrigerator, or may be frozen.

Trust me, this WILL NOT keep up to 2 weeks in refrigerator!! Enjoy!

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The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

I wrote this essay when my mother was still alive, when she’d already verbally passed the “Matriarch of the Family” torch to me, when I’d begun to feel the full weight—and privilege—of preserving the memory of her losses. My brother, Patrick Joseph McKenna, would be sixty years old today, if only he’d somehow lived past the age of four. It’s in his honor I wrote this, and in my mother’s and father’s and grandparents’, too. For the longer I live, the more I think that remembrance may itself be the greater part of honor.

————————————————————————————————
I worry sometimes that when I’m dead, no one will remember my brother.

It’s a quiet worry, not one that I’ve ever expressed in words until now. But I guess I’ve carried it in my heart all my life.

Do you feel surprised when you open your containers of Christmas ornaments each year? I’m always shocked at the gasps of joy and stray tears of nostalgia that escape me when I see the treasures my children made for me during their school years. They are my most precious decorations.

But there, among these keepsakes, is one I weep over season after season. It’s a tiny red and ivory knit stocking, no bigger than a baby’s sock, with a printed Santa and the words “Baby’s First Christmas.”

I can’t help how I feel when I hang it on my tree. I can’t help thinking of my parents celebrating Christmas 1951 with their three-month-old firstborn child, unaware that he’d only ever spend three more Christmases on this earth. I can’t help it that I’ve already asked my sweet daughter to become the caretaker for Patrick’s stocking someday.

I’ve already asked my daughter to not forget.

Because, you see, my mother now remembers less about her little boy than I do. I repeat back to her the stories she’s told me about his short life, and she shakes her head. “Did I tell you that, really? It was so long ago, like another lifetime…”

It didn’t used to be like this. In one way, my mother’s whole life has revolved around the loss of this one dear son. But now, so much has faded in focus for her, and so I have become, of my own volition, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter.

I know that Patrick’s name will someday—perhaps with the passage of only one more generation—be little more than a brief line in a family tree. A line with no branches descending beneath it. Someday, perhaps one of my own grandchildren will take up an interest in family history and ask about the little boy without a story.

Will the Baby’s First Christmas stocking hang on a tree somewhere for generations to come? Or will the threads finally disintegrate like a mother’s fragile mind? I think I know the truth, but it’s hard to face it.

There are some things I’ll take with me to the grave, but I can still hope my brother’s memory isn’t one of them.

---

Where Have All The Years Gone

Mom died 5 months ago today, and while I don’t typically navigate the 7th of the month without unbridled emotion, today I’ve skated through. In fact, I decided to pay my respects to Mom by posting a love poem Dad wrote for her on the occasion of their 28th wedding anniversary, in 1978. They only had 33 years together before his far-too-early death, and among my most favorite possessions are the letters and poems he dedicated to her.

“Where have all the years gone, have they merely flown away,
But oh what joy they’ve left behind to fill each passing day.
Where have all the tears gone, for oft-times they were shed,
Some in sorrow, most in joy, like on the day we wed.
Where has all our love gone, sure it’s very plain to see
That I love you more than ever and I know that you love me.

Where have all the years gone, each one of twenty-eight,
Each a priceless cultured pearl on that elusive string of fate.
Where has all our trust gone, from the housetops you can shout
My trust has grown still greater, of that there is no doubt.
For some the past is all but forgotten but love’s a wonderful thing,
It makes those years fond memories, and for us the angels sing.”

I know, Mom and Dad, that the songs of the angels must sound even sweeter when you’re in God’s eternal presence. All my love to both of you, forever.

---

Fun With Kiki Cullen

I decided, just for fun, to post the opening scene of a novel I wrote. I used to post excerpts from works-in-progress, but those bits never resulted in a completed manuscript. This one did. I still get a kick out of my main character, Kiki Cullen:

My car hydroplaned through the radio station’s parking lot thanks to a hyperactive sprinkler system, skidding to a halt a fraction of an inch from the Employee of the Month sign. I gasped at the near miss and then beamed at the shiny pole, which bore a rectangle’s worth of affirmation.

It would be a shame to dent the back of a sign I desperately hoped to be parked in front of someday.

No time to wax wistful now, though. The manufactured rain created an arc like a crystal rainbow over the front end of my car, where I sat just long enough to gather my computer bag, my purse, and the umbrella that was wedged under the passenger seat.

Why was I late again? Oh, yeah. Copious numbers of cratered orange barrels and so many tipped construction cones that it looked like scores of drivers had bowled perfect strikes with their SUVs.

And now? A show to host with no prep time at all.

Worse, I’d missed Sweet Talk, the semi-regular pastry-laden meeting during which any broadcasting career might be shaped, sliced, filled, or even turned into a burnt offering.

I shoved the car door open, snapped the umbrella up like a parachute, and splattered my way onto the puddled concrete. I ran around to the other side of the Employee of the Month sign for another look at that name.

No mistake.

The seams of my umbrella nearly split with pride and I allowed myself a moment’s sopping satisfaction, but I couldn’t very well stand there and gloat. I sprinted for the building, regretting my choice of stilettos more with every triangle-toed slosh. When I finally threw open the station’s side door, my show’s call screener greeted me—a girl I must say seemed a tad testy even though she was perfectly dry.

She bit her lip and glanced down to observe her old-fashioned watch’s sweep second hand do its sweeping thing. “Four minutes, thirty-seven seconds.”

“Plenty of time,” I said, impersonating an optimist.

We set off walking.

I gulped stale smoke in the narrow hallway leading to the studio, struggling to keep up with her. A long line of former bigwigs crowded the walls, framed and hung, suspended on black velvet cords—almost by their necks, if you asked me. They alternately scowled and glared, and I could have sworn one winked as I skittered through the mostly-dead-executive gauntlet.
We stopped in the coatroom just long enough for me to ditch my umbrella and the raincoat I made a habit of toting—but never wearing—in October. Autumn’s melancholy outbursts of precipitation mirrored my mood in a soothing way.

Like a friend who empathizes with your blue funk by sharing her own tale of woe.
“You weren’t at the meeting.” She looked me up and down with a stricter appraisal than usual, and a hint of disappointment. “What happened?”

I shrugged and huffed, the huffing being not so much with exasperation as with inhalation deprivation. Short legs are so overrated. “Doesn’t matter now. Catch me up on today.”

“It matters. Gillespie’s watching you.” A timer went off in her pocket. A back-up system for her never-fails second hand. “Four mins, five secs.”

“Watching? I thought we were still doing radio.” I shouldn’t tease her, but sometimes I couldn’t resist.

She made a face, not an amused one. “Watching from the control room. That’s what this morning’s Sweet Talk was about.”

“What exactly will he be watching for?”

While we jogged the final few yards of marble-floored hallway, she held out a document and pointed to a paragraph midway down the page. “It says here, ‘The host’s no-holds-barred attitude during Your Marriage Matters will ultimately make or break the show.’”

“My…attitude?”

“Yeah, and it gets worse.” She pointed even more pointedly, flipping the page my direction. “Market studies show improved ratings on days following one of your…um…rants. Three minutes straight up.”

“The document from corporate used the word rants?” I knew I’d gone mildly hormonal with a few callers in recent weeks, but three days ago the doctor adjusted my meds. Besides, at no time did I think my on-air behavior constituted a bona fide rant.

We skidded around the corner and into the studio. She handed over the sheet. Green highlighter blended with a fleck of icing on the page like food coloring on a St. Patrick’s Day cake.

“Read it and don’t weep,” she said. “This could go either way.”

Gillespie planned to choose one program for much wider distribution across his expanding network of stations. Either Your Marriage Matters would break out, or the following hour’s show would prevail: a knockdown, drag-out, he-said, she-said, liberal-conservative shout-fest.

Like that’s what the world needs now.

“So what happens to the other show?”

“Didn’t say.” Fiona glanced over my shoulder into the control room.  “But you’d better put on your headphones. Gillespie wants to talk.”

I shivered, though my blouse had completely shed the sprinkles. “You mean, before I go on?”

She gave me one of those looks and nodded.

Two minutes and small change. Good thing I could skip out on wardrobe check, hair, and make-up. Radio does have its plusses, but having a pre-show conversation with Gillespie?

So not one of them.

“By the way,” I said, meeting her eyes. “I missed it, didn’t I?”

Her lips curved into the most modest of smiles. “Yeah, Kiki. I really wanted you there.”

My heart melted. What would I do without this girl? “You’re the best Employee of the Month ever, Fiona Carmichael.”

And then she grinned outright and I hugged her with all my might.

---

Stuck On Mom

At Mom’s house, family photographs are prominently displayed in one of three places. The refrigerator is the logical landing spot, but the fridge is now 18 years old, and some of the photos have hung there that long. Once a picture has secured a position on the fridge, it’s for life. Even if the subject of the photo is now hanging in the post office, he knows he’ll be wanted on the fridge, too.

These snapshots are lovingly interspersed with such treasures as her copy of “When I Am Old I Shall Wear Purple” and a twelve-year-old announcement promising, “MRS. McKENNA, you may have already won!” Magnets bearing advertising slogans are the cohesive elements of her refrigerator-door art. “Pizza Hut” delivers the connection between the grocery list and the picture of my dad in a two-year-old’s party hat. “The Channel 41 News Team” provides a smooth segue between the “Better Than Barry Manilow Muffin” recipe and a running tally of her bingo winnings since 1973.

The glass front of the china cabinet, its wooden lattice providing a natural framework, has accumulated dozens of pictures over the years. If she took down the photos, guests could admire her Waterford crystal, but she’s unpretentious.

“Oh, the kids have new school pictures?” she exclaims. “Let’s make room on the china cabinet!” No gilded frame could make a grandchild feel more special.

Finally, Mom creates elaborate montages by fastening pictures to the inside of closet doors. These are private collections, not to be shared outside the immediate family. Represented here are kids in their underwear, kids sitting on potty chairs, and anyone having a bad hair day. Every shot of someone with a full mouth is in one of these discreet groupings. Come to think of it, most pictures here are of my brother, John.

As essential as this photographic timeline is to our family’s history, the even greater importance of newspaper clippings cannot be overlooked. Clipping is where Mom’s true passion lies, where her artistic sensibilities blossom.

When my sister won a trip to Hawaii through a Kansas City Star contest, Mom carefully clipped articles for the sake of posterity. When my son became a National Merit semi-finalist, she scavenged 17 copies. I think she treasures the newsprint wedding pictures of her children as much as the professional portraits gracing the grand piano.

Once in a while, one of us actually does something mildly newsworthy, or is accidentally standing near someone who does, and a picture with accompanying caption makes the front page (even if it is just the local shopper). The unexpected thrill is almost more than she can take.

Her most treasured clippings have one unifying characteristic, one value-added element that sets them apart from the typical snippets found in kitchen junk drawers everywhere. Each has been bestowed with the highest honor my mom can imagine, one that earns it a certifiable space in the family annals.

Mom isn’t sentimental in a showy way. But what could be better than having her lead me to the bathroom mirror, point to the clipping of me with a kraut dog at the Price Chopper Grand Opening, and say, with admiration in her voice, “See, honey? You’re laminated!”

At Mom’s house, the pride of accomplishment is never more than a plastic coating away.

---

Ten Years Later, Our Girls From Northern Ireland Remembered

“Doug, can we honestly provide a ‘religiously neutral’ home environment?”

I sat filling out an application to become a host family to a pair of teenagers—one Catholic and one Protestant—from Northern Ireland. Until coming across this particular requirement, which the literature repeated several times for emphasis, I imagined we’d be perfect sponsors. My husband and I had grown up Catholic, but we’d raised our own family in a non-denominational Christian church.
We empathized with both sides in the Irish “troubles,” but did that make us religiously neutral? I wanted to make sure that, according to the guidelines provided by the Children’s Friendship Project for Northern Ireland, we fulfilled the letter of the law.

My husband’s answer caught me off guard. “Religious neutrality’s easy. We’ll just avoid favoring either kid’s denomination. It’s not like the organization’s asking us to be spiritually complacent…”

I winced. If we hadn’t exactly grown spiritually complacent, we were certainly comfortable. Our family’s spiritual comfort had been the precise reason I felt we could risk inviting strangers into our home. Our own kids (then 22-year-old Scott, 19-year-old Carrie, and 16-year-old Kevin) enjoyed growing relationships with the Lord, great friends, and positive outlooks. Even if we ended up hosting two Irish kids with serious attitudes, we would still emerge, I hoped, comfortable.

Was that such a bad thing?

I put the signed application in the envelope, sealed it, and prayed for the teens God would send us, all the while feeling more uncomfortable than I had in a long time.

Out of Ireland

“Are you out of yer cotton-pickin’ minds?”

Our entire family—each of us holding cheesy signs bearing the girls’ names—burst out laughing as Sheryl Heaney and Chloe Faulkner, their fresh-off-the-plane faces beaming, delivered their well-rehearsed line in unison. Never had we been victimized by such a horrible rendition of a Southern drawl!

Once again, I was caught off-guard. I’d expected all of us to go through a period of shyness, but awkwardness in the presence of these girls couldn’t achieve even a toehold. We were out of our cotton-pickin’ minds, all right, but in very good company.

In County Tyrone, the girls’ religions dictated where they shopped, the sports they played, the schools they attended, and even whether they entertained a belief in leprechauns. In day-to-day life, their paths weren’t likely to cross. We determined that while in our country, they’d spend every waking moment together—and every sleeping moment, too. If by some miracle they succeeded in becoming true friends, who knew how big an impact they might have on their communities back in Northern Ireland?

For now, though, Northern Ireland would have to wait. For the month of July, 2001, Sheryl and Chloe belonged to Kansas City, and the whole city belonged to them.

To get things rolling, we threw a huge Fourth of July party with friends, family, and fireworks. The organization warned us that fireworks might frighten the teens, but instead they were thrilled. Within days, the group’s thoughtful warnings fell by the wayside, as Sheryl and Chloe embraced regulated sunbathing, strange foods, and distinctly American entertainments.
 
More than anything, they desperately longed to see cowboys in ten-gallon hats and pointy-toed boots, riding vicious livestock in a good old-fashioned rodeo. Before the opening act started, though, the Irish girls and our kids headed off to buy soft drinks.

Had they lost interest already? “Hurry back. You don’t want to miss the bulls.”

I should have known their innocent smiles meant trouble. By the time we realized they’d been gone too long, they returned with sheepish grins—and Sheryl sporting a limp. If only someone had warned us about the mechanical bull!

Spreading the Word

As the weeks went on, Sheryl and Chloe accumulated so many shared experiences and touched so many lives—whether hammering with Habitat for Humanity or cruising in a police car with my brother-in-law cop—that the Kansas City Star decided to print a front-page story about them. The reporter and photographer shadowed the girls, along with our kids, for a couple of days, following them into shops on the Plaza, treating them to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, and even accompanying them to church.

Rather than attend their separate denominations on Sundays, the girls insisted on experiencing our church, Great Plains Community, together. They found Pastor Tom Blasco’s messages entertaining and meaningful, the music energetic and engaging, and the youth group welcoming.

In other words, even at church, they found common ground.

Once back on Northern Ireland’s soil, the girls remained close. They continued posting entries to the online journal Doug helped them set up, and looked forward to attending university in Belfast in the fall of 2002.

Imagine our shock when Sheryl once again made the newspapers—this time for her death. Just one year after we fell in love with her, she and her sister Tara lost their lives in a car accident on a treacherous piece of road in County Louth.

As horrible as we felt, we couldn’t deny God’s grace in the midst of tragedy. Sheryl, a Catholic, had engendered such respect among Catholics and Protestants alike in County Tyrone that a local Protestant parade—a recurring thorn in the side for Catholics—was canceled in her honor. Not only that, but her parents, Michael and Gwen Heaney, invited a Protestant minister to join the Catholic priest in presiding over the funeral of their daughters, setting an unheard-of precedent.

Against all odds, people from both sides of the conflict came together in genuine sorrow to mourn the community’s loss in a way rarely witnessed in Northern Ireland.

Sheryl and Chloe made a difference not only in their world, but in our world, too. In the end, Doug was right. Whether or not we were religiously neutral didn’t seem to matter much to our girls. But it would have been sad indeed if—given such a wonderful opportunity to touch a pair of lives—we’d been spiritually complacent.

In the end, two young women became unlikely friends, lured us out of our risk-free existence, and ultimately caused us to lean, once again, on the God of all comfort.

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The Thrift of Grief

Of all the ways I’ve meandered my way through grief since Mom died four months ago, none has proven more surprising than the new joy I’ve found among the dusty treasures in thrift stores.

In a thrift store, you’ve got everything that good old-fashioned grief requires.

First of all, no matter which way you turn you encounter items—-whether pieces of apparel from the ‘80s, salt and pepper shakers, or bronzed baby shoes—-that remind you of the dearly departed. So you shed a tear and no one in the shop is any the wiser. They all imagine, if they notice you at all, that you’re rabidly allergic to mold and mildew, commodities in ample supply in most thrifts.

You let the tears roll down your face and don’t even bother to wipe them away, because to do so would leave huge streaks of dirt in their stead. Dirt acquired from touching stuff, the kind of stuff people donate to thrift stores, stuff that’s been in basements and attics and garages for years, maybe decades. Dirty stuff.

Second, once you get past the fact that it seems you just donated half this junk when you cleared out your mom’s possessions and now you’re facing the temptation to buy it all back for sentiment’s sake, you’ll take a closer look at your fellow customers. One young mom has your mother’s same high cheekbones and lightly freckled nose, her dishwater blonde hair pulled back with a nape-of-the-neck barrette. Her clear blue eyes are made even brighter by the (obviously) thrifted clip-on sapphire rhinestone earrings that are exact replicas of ones Mom wore in the ‘50s. Rhinestones in the light of day! With shorts and a halter top and espadrilles!

This long-legged gal could be your mom some fifty years ago, and you the little girl holding her hand, clutching in the crook of your other elbow a Bobsey Twins hardback.

Next, you spot the old woman, the one wearing scuff house slippers, whose feet are so swollen she’ll never find a pair of second-hand shoes—-even among the men’s selection—-to fit her. She smiles a waif-like smile, considering her overall girth, and gives you almost an apologetic look, as if she owes you an explanation for her disability, for the untold effort it takes her to shuffle to the side so you can pass. You smile back and greet her with a kind word because of course, she owes you nothing. And neither, neither does your own dear mother.

Finally, you make a few choices among the peasant blouses and the jeans with the brand-new tags still on them and then study the prices. Suddenly, it’s 1958, and your mom has taken you on a thrilling shopping trip to the Jay Kay Shop in the Waldo neighborhood of Kansas City. Mrs. Jay Kay is showing you her latest merchandise, an outfit that will become your favorite of the season. Your mother is not a bargain shopper. She pulls out her billfold and counts out the dollars to Mrs. Jay Kay. Counting is your strong suit, and you carefully consider the price your mom is paying, as she places into the shop owner’s hand the exact amount you’ll be paying today.

Grief can be the greatest extravagance you’ll ever know, and on many days, it is. On some days, you have no choice about the emotional toll you’ll pay merely to get from morning until evening, like the charge to cross a bridge in questionable repair.

But on other days, grief is thrifty. It doles itself out bit by bit, 25 cents’ worth at a time, and you end up with a greater number of treasures than you started with, and for a price you can actually afford.

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Job Security

You started out a two-bit thief,
Sleeping through the sun-drenched days, lazy and unmotivated.
You only came out at night, back then, sneaking around
Gaining entrance through carelessly unlocked windows, helping Yourself
To the old woman’s unimportant memorabilia.

Then you stepped it up a notch,
Breaking and entering through bolted and chained doors,
You disabled her alarm system over and over again.
Stealing more valuable possessions every time you cased her joint,
Terrorizing her with anger, confusion, fear,
Taking everything, except the knowledge that you’d return.

Now she hears the final frightening footfall,
Your brazen steps storming through what’s left of her mind.
She can no longer name another living soul,
Only you.
Dementia, what a Master Thief you’ve at last become.

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The Party’s Over

“Look what I got for you, Mom,” I say, not knowing if she’ll like the flimsy plastic Happy Birthday banner, replete with pink and purple butterflies, that I hope to hang like a wallpaper border at ceiling level in her nursing home room.

It’s just a little girl’s decoration, after all. It came from a dollar store, along with the other trinkets and favors we’ve purchased to do her 80th birthday in style. I have no idea whether my sisters and brother and I will be able to give Mom a wonderful celebration or not. So much depends on her, and the truth is that for the past few years, she often doesn’t want to be the main character in her own story.

But this is her life, the only story she will have to tell. The only memories she gets to make with the people she loves. The only memories we have a chance, at this late date, to make with her. Happy or not, it’s time to party.

“I love the banner,” she says, and I am more than surprised. I climb up on her desk, then step even higher onto her dresser, and finally onto the headrest of her recliner, to thumbtack the Easter-egg colored banner across the top of her wall. She smiles with delight and I think maybe this day could actually turn out to be a lot of fun. But then…

“I hate this blouse the nurse put on me,” she says. “Who gave this to me? It’s too bright. These aren’t my colors.”

“I think you look great,” I say, “but not as gorgeous as you’ll look after we curl your hair and put your make-up on you.”

“What? I don’t care about any of that. I’m just in this for the guacamole and the Margarita….”

We plan to scoot Mom in her wheelchair across the busy road from the nursing home to the Mexican restaurant. She knows that part, and has been obsessing about the guac and the drink for weeks. What she doesn’t know is that we’re going to make a bona fide parade out of it. We’re going to stop traffic if it’s the last thing we do, and she is going to be the center of attention, the starring attraction in her own life.

“No make-up, no Margarita,” I say, with enough of a threatening tone that she takes me seriously. I wheel her into the bathroom, where the mirror is set low enough for her to see. I hand over her face powder with an old-fashioned powder puff, and she pats it on like foundation, spreading it evenly with the puff. Then I pass the lipstick.

She applies it to her cheeks first. “Your sister Liz taught me this. You never have to worry about your rouge and lipstick matching if you just dot lipstick onto your face and rub it in.” Then she smoothes a bit onto her lips and she is done. In the meantime, I’ve heated up the curling iron and take some quick swipes through her still ungreyed hair, marveling that someone so sick and broken can look so young.

Finally, we’re ready to head out to the lobby, where my siblings and their spouses will be meeting us. I spin Mom around the corner and there they are, bearing the rest of the party paraphernalia, cameras, cake, and huge grins.

Bridget places a child’s dress-up pendant (which perfectly matches the shirt she didn’t think she liked) around Mom’s neck, a gaudy piece of bling on her finger, and an enormous, glitzy tiara on her head. Mom beams! Mary ties helium balloons to Mom’s wheelchair, John passes out the horns and gives Mom a big kiss, and Liz makes sure everyone has a bottle of bubbles.

“What on earth is happening?” Mom asks.

“A parade,” we say. “And it’s all about you.”

For once, she does not object. She does not tell us it’s too much for her to be the heroine, for us to make over her and act goofy and pretend together that we’re a bunch of little kids at the best party ever. We open the door of the facility and are greeted by the bright sunshine of a fantastic April day.

Before we’re even out of the parking lot, and increasingly as we near the intersection, we start waving our bubble wands and blowing our horns and shouting, “Happy Birthday, Mom!” Dozens of cars slow down, pull over, open their windows, and call out their own birthday wishes for our mother. They honk their horns, give thumbs up, and blow kisses as they pass by, all to Mom’s delight.

Mom has the lunch she’s been waiting for. The guacamole, made at the table while she watches, is—she says—the best she’s ever had. The generous meal that follows is delicious, too, but she’ll be talking about the Margarita (yes, in a salt-rimmed glass) for weeks to come. By the time lunch ends and her presents are opened, she is very tired, but not so much that she doesn’t get a huge kick out of it when a young mom (followed by her husband and awe-struck children) stops to say, “We didn’t know we’d be in the presence of royalty!”

We her family wheel her back across the road, still blowing bubbles and tooting our horns, but with somewhat less enthusiasm than we had on the way there. Because yes, stories end, and this one was reaching its curtain call.

One year ago, at this very hour, Mom’s 80th birthday party ended. Six weeks ago, at this very hour, my mother breathed her last. In that moment, as I hovered over her soul-forsaken body and stroked her arm, I heard my long-dead father’s voice singing, for old times’ sake, a 1950s-era Nat King Cole song. One he’d sung hundreds of times when he and Mom were young and I was younger still, one that always seemed so sad to me, because even a child knows what’s eventually coming.

Even a child knows that every song—like every story—has an ending. Sometimes it’s the final tragic line that tempts us to stop listening to the music. But we don’t stop listening, do we? Because the music, like the story, is what we’re left with when this life’s party is said and done. It’s who we are.

The party’s over
It’s time to call it a day.
They’ve burst your pretty balloon
And taken the moon away…

“Do you want me to take your Happy Birthday banner down now, Mom? Because your party’s technically over…” “No! I love it. I don’t want you to take it down, ever.”

The party’s over
The candles flicker and dim…
Now you must wake up, all dreams must end.

“The birthday flowers John sent you have seen better days. Shall I throw them away?” “Not yet. Just add some water, maybe set them in the window. Give them another chance.”

The party’s over
It’s time to call it a day.
They’ve burst your pretty balloon and taken the moon away.

“Do you want to change your clothes, into something more comfortable?” “Did I mention I love this shirt?” “What about your make-up? Are you done with it?”

Now you must wake up, all dreams must end.
Take off your makeup, the party’s over
It’s all over, my friend.

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