Train Tracks of Time

I love the distant clickety clack of the ole freight train as it slices through the early morning mist like a butter knife.  Like clockwork, the train carrying coal, lumber and grains from Memphis to Jackson and all points in between, chugs near my house in the early morning hours, often lulling me to sleep after a restless night.  The train’s whistle as it passes assures me that it is 4 am in our sleepy little town of Hernando, MS.  To me, these early pre-dawn hours are the loneliest hours of all – not quite night time but not day time either.

On this morning, I go ahead and get up, an hour and a half before my old Westclock alarm clock tells me it is time to rise.  In just a couple of hours, I will wish my son good luck on his first day of college, thus beginning a new season in our lives.  Seems like just yesterday I was wishing he would sleep through the night.

Drew seems to be riding the train of change very well, going from a small Christian school where he spent the last 12 years to the wide open road of the college bound.  But, I seem to be stuck on the little red caboose of his childhood.

For the past few weeks, I lay awake at night, my mind like a View Master, clicking through the stages of Drew’s growing up years.  Vivid, colorful images of Barney, Mr. Potato Head, Veggie Tales, and Garfield click through my dreams as snippets of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “You Are My Sunshine” flitter through my head.  Time has sped by so quickly, I can almost hear it as it whistles past by ears - the present becoming the past right before my eyes.  From diapers to jeans and Muppet CD’s to iTunes, the years of Drew’s childhood have raced by just like the clickey clack of that old freight train.  Most of the memories are so sweet, they bring tears to my eyes with their richness.  Others are so funny, the thoughts make me laugh out loud.

In 1995 when Drew was two years old, one of our big projects was learning to go potty.  His babysitter, Mimi, who was our expert on everything dealing with rearing well-adjusted children, had the wonderful idea of putting Cheerios into the potty and letting him “shoot” the cereal with his “water gun.”    Worked like a charm – on the No. 1 part of pottying.  Going No. 2 was a different story.  My busy little bee refused to do anything except tinkle in potty.  He would sit on the potty, playing with this cars, singing songs, playing with his toes - while I sat beside him on the bathtub reading “Raising the Strong Willed Child” by Dr. James Dobson.  Mimi assured us that he would come around and told us not to worry about it.  Emma Stewart – better known to the kids she kept as “Mimi” – was my Dr. Spock, Heidi Murkoff and Dr. Sears all rolled into one.  I often say that all the good things about Drew came from her.

The other big project in our lives during that time was our plans to build a larger home.  We were living in about 1200 sq. ft. of toy box.  Drew’s stuff was everywhere and we had outgrown our little house.  The Home Depot had just come to our area, and we spent most Saturdays walking up and down the aisles of the bog box store looking for new home ideas.  The new store was awesome in its displays of kitchen cabinets, faucets, lighting and countertops.  They set up room vignettes – complete kitchens and bathrooms to show the customer exactly what their room could look like with the materials displayed.  Excellent marketing idea.  We spent a lot of time going from “room” to “room” in the store.

One Saturday night, we were looking at the beautiful kitchen displays – rich maple cabinets, cool granite countertops, warm hardwood floors.  We were imaging ourselves eating breakfast at the breakfast bar and cooking gourmet meals on the state-of-the-art Viking stove.  Enamored with all the modern conveniences, I absentmindedly looked down and realized that Drew was no longer standing beside me.  I saw that my budget-minded husband was talking to the salesman and he did not have Drew. All thoughts of the fancy appliances vanished as I started calling for Drew and running from “kitchen” to “kitchen” looking for my child.

In tears, I walked from aisle to aisle calling his name.  Finally, I spotted a little pair blue jean overalls lying on these steps leading up to a display.  The luxurious bathroom display was so rich in detail; it had been built on a raised platform and included a Jacuzzi brand tub.  The tub was beautifully filled with scented water; red rose petals whirling around the jets. There was a tiled double shower, double vanity with makeup lighting and marble countertops.  Right in the center of the spa bath display was a magnificent Kohler-brand toilet.

And, perched right on top of the glorious pot was my two year old son, his Pull-ups dangling down around his ankles and his red Keds hanging off his little feet.

“Mommy, I go potty,” he beamed. 

I rushed up the steps to get him off the commode.  My beautiful and smart child had, in fact, gone potty.  No. 2.  He certainly brought the concept of try-before-you-buy to a whole new level.

There was lovely, scented water in the whirlpool tub, but there was not a drop in the toilet. 

I very calmly got him off the commode and took him into the bathroom to clean him up while my husband tried to figure out how to clean up the other mess. 

I was embarrassed, mortified and a just little angry that my child had decided to learn the hardest part of potty training in the middle of a busy store.  But, Drew was excited and proud that he had finally done what we had been trying to get him to do for weeks.  How could I let him know that what he had done was very good but where he had done it was not so good?

Then I remembered a favorite Bible verse, Ecclesiastes 3:1 - “To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heavens.”

I praised my son for the progress he had made in his potty training and I made sure he understood that there is a time and place for everything we do in our lives.

I have thought of that verse so very often in my life.  Drew’s childhood – those were the Summer moments of my life.  Moments of excitement and fun in our ever changing, busy lives.  We faced the awesome challenge of providing a solid, loving, Christian foundation for our child and we watched him grow into the outstanding young man that he is.  That was a golden season in my life.

As I lay awake this morning, thinking of sending my child to college, I know that God sent me this verse once again this morning.  Only this time, I think of King Solomon’s words as it applies to Drew’s season – the Spring Season.  His is a season of new beginnings, of finding his own way and becoming his own person. 

And, I think of my own season – the Season of Autumn, with still so very much to do and so much purpose before winter.  And, I am so very grateful that Drew is my bountiful harvest.  

A Tattoo of the Heart

When I was in the fourth grade, I got a tattoo – compliments of my little sister, Gail.

This is not Mickey Mouse on my ankle peeping out of the top of my sock or Cinderella dancing gracefully across my plump little thigh.  It is not a romantic little heart or a pretty pink rose.  My tattoo is the lead point of a No. 2 pencil jammed right into my forearm.   Over the years, the mark has gradually faded from a perfectly round black circle underneath my skin to a nice, gray, weathered look.  Matches my nice, weathered skin very well.

My sister branded me a bully very early on, after experiencing many frustrating episodes at the hands of her big sister.  Most days, I got away with my antics pretty easily.  This particular day, she just plain got lucky.

As a first grader, my sister was very small for her age.  As a fourth grader, I was huge.  She was fair, blond, and quiet with eyes the color of a creamy caramel candy.  I was dark, brunette, and loud with eyes the color of a stick of licorice. We were from the same batch, but we were very different cookies.

“Gail has a boyfriend,” I whispered to my mother one fall morning in 1966 as she pulled our 1964 Dodge Dart over to the curb to let us out at Senatobia Elementary School in our small hometown in Mississippi. 

“I do not!”  Gail cried.  “I hate boys!”

Ah, I got her!  I started singing the song I had written in my evil little mind the night before as Gail lay snoring lightly in the bed next to me in the room that we shared. When kids don’t have Wii’s or PlayStations or Nick at Night, they have very creative minds.  I was forever coming up creative and extravagant schemes to aggravate my siblings.

 “Johnny and Gail were lovers!  Johnny told Gail not to cry, his love for her would never die!” I sang at the top of my voice.

My plan was to sing that little ditty as loudly as possible and then made a run for it.  I would jump out of the car and off I’d go, laughing, leaving my sister behind to huff and puff her way into the elementary school.  I had practiced it in my head the night before.

Little did I know that she had asked my mother to sharpen her pencil that morning, right before we left the house.   We always packed our book satchels the night before and left them by the back door. With three children and one on the way, my mother was as organized as the Dewey Decimal System in making sure homework was done; school clothes were laid out the night before; school supplies packed and ready to go at 7:30 the next morning.  My mom sharpened our pencils with a kitchen knife, much like her father had whittled small pieces of wood with his pocket knife.  Gail had not had time to put her pencil in her pencil case.  So, she was armed and ready when the enemy – that would be me – attacked.

As the first born, riding shotgun was my birthright, so I had my arm on the back of the front seat as I leaned back to allow my little sister a full view of my tonsils as I belted out the malicious tune.

I heard the back door open before I ever felt the burning sting of the sword.  I saw my sister’s white cotton sweater with the Peter Pan collar dash past my window before I saw the pink eraser of her yellow pencil pointing up from my arm. 

My delightful little tune turned into indignant outrage as I realized that she had stabbed me with her freshly sharpened pencil and left it stuck in my arm. 

Our little brother, Andy, who had been sitting peacefully in the backseat waiting for his two big sisters to get out of the car, started crying.  I was screaming, my mama was trying to figure out how to take the pencil out of my arm and my sister, who usually tagged along behind me into school, was running as fast as her little legs could take her into the safety of Miss Crenshaw’s classroom.

Mama, always the comic, looked at me with her big brown eyes and said, “Gail forgot her pencil again.”

Years later when Gail and I, along with our own families, were on vacation in the Smokey Mountains, we sat around the kitchen table of the little cabin for hours and laughed about all the mean things we did to each other as kids.  When we were in our 20’s and early 30’s, both of us were so busy with our lives – she raising a family and I with my career – that we lost some of that “sister connection” that is so special between sisters.  Like two different flowers from the same bouquet, sisters share life-long memories that glue them together no matter how many miles or how much time separates them. Memories, like the strong threads holding together a patchwork quilt, weaved our lives together forever.  Memories of growing up conspirators against our parents, of dealing with little brothers, sharing everything and taking care of each other.  Of counting on, leaning on and telling on each other.  As siblings, we fought relentlessly, but we also took care of each other.  We were bitter enemies and the closest of allies.  I always found the first Easter egg, but I never found my second one until she found her first.   I don’t have a single childhood memory that does not include her. Sisters keep you honest because they, above all others, know your real story.

In a small cabin on the side of a mountain in Gatlinburg, TN in the summer of 1998, with children running everywhere and husbands napping on the sofas, we remembered how much we loved each other.   We left that vacation with promises that we would speak at least weekly and we did.  That was the first time we our families had ever vacationed together and we decided that we would do it again the next summer.  We never again got the chance.

My sister died unexpectedly in the fall of that year. I now know that God gave me a blessed opportunity that summer when I was able to spend that week with my sister. I have missed her every single day since then.  And, though I do not get to talk to her any more, I see her in her two children, who are now amazing young adults.  In her granddaughter, who, uncannily, was born eight years later on November 11, the anniversary of her death.  I see her in my mother’s eyes when she reflects back over the best days of her life, when all four of her children were at home, safe and sound.  I see her in my dreams, where she is always laughing.  And, yes, I see her when I look down at my arm and see the small dark tattoo of revenge that she left me.

It makes me smile every time.

Doing the School Supply Shuffle

There was a big commotion at Walmart last Saturday.

I dashed into the store to pick up a few things and thought I had time traveled to December 24.  The place was as packed as Christmas Eve with tired kids tagging along behind frustrated moms, trudging from aisle to aisle with a long list trailing behind them.  I immediately recognized the look….It was the annual Search for School  Supplies Trek, a time when mamas all over the country leave their homes to fulfill their duty of making sure their child has everything on their school supply list. 

 

For the first time in 15 years, I don’t have a school supply list.  No frantically running from store to store trying to find non-odorous, chisel- tipped dry erase markers, Fiskar left handed scissors, or vinyl, two-pocket folders with brads in red, yellow and purple only.  After running that race for my child, Drew, from 3K through 12^th grade, I am done with the school supply scavenger hunt.  Hallelujah, amen.

As a matter of fact, I could probably open a little school supply business on the side.  One of the best pieces of advice came to me several years ago from one of Drew’s elementary school teachers.  She suggested that we set aside one cabinet in our house and stock it with school supplies.  Pick up notebook paper, pencils, pens, construction paper – all that - when it is on sale and stick it in the cabinet.  That way you always have school supplies on hand.  I have done that for the past 7 or 8 years.   You need a purple, two pocket folder with brads?  I got it.  Need wide ruled or college ruled notebook paper?  No problem.  Poster board – what color?  Three hole punch or hand-held one-hole punch?  Composition books for one, three or five subjects.  Binders from half an inch to three and a half inches with inside pockets.  Notebook hole re-enforcers, ballpoint pens in black, blue and red, book covers, rulers, calculators – all available at Fondren School Supplies for Well Equipped Children. 

I remember when my mother took me to the Ben Franklin’s Five and Dime for school supplies when I started first grade at Senatobia Elementary School.  In 1964, we didn’t have to have a list.  We could pretty much remember what we had to have.    We left the “Meet the Teacher” meeting, walked downtown to the store and got my new book satchel, fat pencils, first grade tablet and box of fat, first grade Crayola colors.   I took an old bath towel for nap time.  We surely never had kindermats or designer backpacks or markers that smell like strawberries (I’m sure if I had a smell-good marker, I would have eaten it!).

The really big deal at back-to-school time was shopping for new school clothes.  We wiggled our dirty little toes into a pair of brand new school shoes – toes that had not been covered except on Sundays since we took off last year’s school shoes in May.  My sister and I each got new underwear, socks, and three new dresses.  In the mid-1960’s, we were not allowed to wear pants to school unless it was extremely cold – then we could wear pants under our dresses.    We wore pretty much the same thing to school every day – not because we had to wear uniforms, but because that was all we had to wear.  We had school clothes, play clothes and Sunday clothes – and never did the three intermingle.

I remember the year I desperately wanted a pair of white go-go boots.  My mother warned me that if I got the go-go boots, that would have to be my one pair of school shoes.  A fashionista even at age 8, I went with the go-go boots.  They were shiny white, patent leather, pointed-toe boots with a back zipper that just covered my ankles.   I wore those boots every single day until Christmas, when finally my grandmother gave me a pair of regular shoes.  I am still a sucker for senseless, but fashionable, shoes.  

While I am ecstatic about not being involved in this year’s hunting and gathering of school supplies, I admit that I will miss excitement of the first days of school.  I will miss checking off the list with Drew, making sure we have all that he needs for a promising school year.  I will miss tearing open the packages and organizing the supplies with him.  I’ll miss the excitement (and disappointment!) of finding out which teacher he gets and which of his friends are in his classes.  I have asked my child every single day for the past 30 school semesters, “What did you eat for lunch today?”  I will miss that.  I will even miss the nights when he suddenly remembered that he volunteered to bring sausage balls the next day to a class party.    I will miss that very special connection that mamas and their children have during their school years.  

I was in the restroom of McAlister’s restaurant the other day where a young mother was wrestling with her two young sons – a preschooler and an infant.  The three-year-old, blond curls spilling all over his chubby little face, was singing at the top of his voice while his frazzled mom changed his screaming baby brother’s dirty diaper.  Fussy children never bother me, but I could see that this teary-eyed mom was really at the end of her rope and was a little embarrassed that her children were being so rowdy.  “My children are not always so disruptive,” she told me, as she struggled to sooth the tired infant.  “We have been in the car all day and we are all tired.”  I assured her that her children were no bother and that they were both as cute as pie.  “I remember days like this,” I told her.  “Enjoy them while they are young.  Before you know it, they will be graduating high school and gone.”   The young mother smiled.

I dried my hands, patted the blond curls and left the bathroom, feeling a little bit nostalgic.   My 18-year-old college freshman son was anxiously waiting for me outside.    “Come on, Mom, we still have lots to do,” he said.

Indeed, we do.