Word Quilts

Early morning: DH doesn’t know it yet (he’s still in bed), but I think today is door-painting day. Our porch has been painted for weeks, but I have procrastinated on the finishing work–painting the door and the facings. To tell you the truth, this delay is entirely my fault. The delay began when I couldn’t find the color I wanted. I know what I’m looking for and have bought several sample cans, but so far no luck in matching my mind’s eye. I was getting closer, but then I had to put it out of my mind for a while. You see, I made a promise to my granddaughter to let her help me pick out the paint. More importantly, I promised her we would save the door for her next visit, because she so badly wanted to paint it herself. That is no longer possible. We are no longer allowed in her life.

Sometimes you can’t keep your promises no matter how badly you want to. My front door became an emotional sticking point for me and I had to turn a blind eye to the unfinished mess for a while. Today, I break 2 promises as that door gets painted, and that breaks my heart.

Evening: When I crawl into the pit of depression, God meets me there with His blessings. First thing this morning, while I was writing the first part of this post, Sunshine #3 told his mother what he wanted to do today—he wanted to come to Papa/Nina’s house. (For children, love is enough, and they know who loves them.) It was great to spend the day with this part of our family. And, God changed the door-painting from a sad moment into a memorable occasion. After going to Lowe’s to pick out paint (I switched colors since my previous choice wasn’t working out), Papa taught Sunshine #3 how to paint. He did a great job! While Sunshine #5 slept, #3 and I made cinnamon rolls. And I got to spend a lot of time visiting with my precious daughter. God is so good to me. I don’t know why. But I’m so glad He cares enough to change my day from blue to wonderful (while my door turns blue in the meantime), and to fill my home with laughter. Only God can do that. And I am so grateful. We had a wonderful long weekend. Thank You, God, for the refreshment. Our souls needed that. Did I say wonderful too much? Not possible.

Fruit goes in the fridge, right? Not if they are magnets!

Sunshine #5 asked me about putting the 2 big fruit magnets on the refrigerator (or so I thought). I told him to go ahead. Later in the afternoon we had quite a laugh when I opened the door and found these.

Good morning, Sunshine. Today is your birthday! Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Sunshine, happy birthday to you. I can’t believe you are one already!

You don’t know who I am, but I know you. Your daddy is my son. He used to let us see you sometimes, so though you don’t remember, we have spent time together. I have some really sweet pictures of you with me and your Papa (and your daddy), but I’ll keep those private until I can give them to you some day.

I remember very well the day you were born. Your daddy was living with us. He couldn’t be there while you were being born and was worried out of his mind. He was so worried that he was sick and couldn’t even eat. I stuck right there with him all those hours, supporting him that night as he paced back and forth, while I prayed that you would be born safely and healthy. The house was just too small to hold all his worry, so he had to go outside sometimes. He loved you so much! More than once he almost drove to the birthing center, which was just a couple of miles from our house. The only reason he didn’t go was because of you. He didn’t want to cause any trouble that would impact you. It was a terrible night for him because he so badly wanted to meet you and couldn’t. I know. I was there. Always know that he would have been there if he could. I promise. I will never lie to you by telling you a falsehood, by bending the truth, or by twisting the truth. What you will get from me is pure truth, and you can decide for yourself what to do with it.

In January I wrote about you on my blog and included a picture of you and your daddy. He left this comment for you:

She is very special, that’s for sure. She’s a happy little girl. We are “snuggle-buddies”.

There are so many things I wish for you. I wish I could give you a birthday present today. I wish I could sing the song to you that I sing to my other grandchildren–You Are My Sunshine. (I call all of you my Sunshines.) I wish I could play “match pitches” with you. I have perfect pitch and like to teach my Sunshines how to listen to music tones. I wish I could teach you how to bake cookies with Nana. (That’s my name.) I wish you could meet the Nananator. She’s pretty fun. I wish you could meet your great-grandparents. They are very special people. I wish we could get up early, before dawn, and go sit in the backyard in the swing, watching the sun rise and sharing our hearts. I wish you could play with your Papa. He is our Sunshines’ favorite toy! I wish you could play Knock-You-Over with him. I wish we could read you stories. Bible stories. Bedtime stores. Silly stories. Papa is a champion story-reader. And me, I’m a pretty darn good teacher. There are so many things I could teach you….I tell you the truth–you are missing a LOT by not being allowed to be part of our lives! I wish I could see your smile. You have the most beautiful smile. The few times I got to be with you, you were so full of smiles. I wish I could tell you stories about your daddy when he was a little boy. I am the keeper of his history, and you won’t get that from anyone else.

Though your Papa and I don’t get to see you, you are still part of us, and we love you so very much. I know you won’t see this greeting on the Internet, but I will preserve a copy for you. I am keeping a journal for you so some day you will know me and will know how much you are loved. Papa keeps a journal too. There are gifts that we have bought you. We will keep them for you; no matter how old you are when you finally get them, you’ll know you were loved and that people have been praying for you in the background. We have all this love to give you with no place to put it, so we are doing our best to leave it for you in other ways.

We have something else to give you that can never be taken away–our prayers and the prayers of your great-grandparents who love you so much. More than anything else, I pray that you will know God as your Heavenly Father, your best friend, your shelter in the time of need, your rock in times of trouble. There is no telling what you will face in your life and who will disappoint you. But GOD is always there, never changing, the same yesterday, today, and forever. He wants to have a personal relationship with you. Our prayer is that He will put you in places as you grow where you can learn the truth about Him and that you will accept Jesus as your personal Savior. I want us all to go to Heaven some day and spend eternity together. Our family has been so very blessed in many ways through the years, and I pray God’s blessing on you.

I love you, Sunshine. I love you. Happy birthday.

Your Nana

I wasn’t going to post this, but a friend has convinced me to.

Well, here I am again, up at the crack of distress. Some people can’t sleep on the front end of night when life pokes them. I have no problem going to sleep. For a while. After my body has rested, my mind has to get up and sort things out. It is very frustrating, because I really needed to sleep this morning. But over the years I have learned to just flow with it instead of fighting it. These early hours bring me my best insights. I’m always surprised at what comes out of me.

I have done a whole lot of healing from past heartbreaks, and I thank God for healing me. But there are still aftershocks. Spider veins. You know, those ugly little broken veins that appear in parts of the body that endure the most pressure. “A group of veins radiating outward from a dark central point” (plasticsurgery.org). In this analogy, they are the backwaters of heartbreak.

Veins have valves that act as one-way flaps. These valves prevent the blood from flowing backwards… If the one-way valves become weak, blood can leak back into the vein and collect there. womenshealth.gov

Nothing can rival the tsunami of pain from fresh trauma, but that can only happen once. After the initial break, the heart then suffers aftershocks, waves of pain as the large parts fracture into smaller parts with each incidence. Over time, these waves become smaller and shorter. Finally, after prolonged exposure, there just isn’t much left except these final wimpy little spider veins leaking out whatever vitality was left.

Spider veins are permanent. After the bruising stage they aren’t painful, but because they are so close to the skin, they are always visible. You can’t cover them up. You just have to accept them. You just have to look at them and remember where they came from. You just have to realize that you endured a lot of pain to get to this point, yet you survive. You just have to live with them and know there was nothing else in your power that could be done this side of of living a lie.

These aftershocks don’t change how you feel about the people involved. Love is love. What changes is how you react. How you live with it. Acceptance. A release of pressure as the valve collapses. A final gasp as all efforts die. Spider veins signal the demise of a sick heart and the beginning of building a new one.

I know that a number of my friends, who painfully slog through their own journeys, will understand exactly what I am talking about–a slow deterioration of the heart. Some of you reading this won’t. If this makes no sense to you, you should get down on your knees right now and thank God that you have been spared. And live your life in such a way that you don’t send others there either.