Estonians

“Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you.” - Rashi


For years I have taken in, fed, medicated if necessary and found a home for every stray that has come my way. I do this without thinking about it; I do it without weighing the consequences; I do it because it’s just something I must do. For this reason I’m a big fan of Hebrews 13:2, the Bible verse that says “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” The thought of entertaining angels unawares makes all the time and energy I spend on strays seem a little less nutty, like maybe it’s even some kind of spiritual pursuit…


The latest strays to cross my porch were not feline or canine – they were human – a pair of Estonian college students, both girls, here to experience America by selling educational books and software, door to door, for the whole summer – in Winder, GA. Now to me, that seems like a rough card to draw.

First off, Estonia is a small country up by Russia, Sweden and Finland. The hottest temperature there might be around 80 and most of the time it’s either cold or temperate. Imagine what our Georgia heat must feel like to them – especially during these days of heat indexes of 103-plus degrees.


Secondly, they use bikes for transportation. (Actually, one of them has an old car without A/C she uses because her sales area is Auburn.) According to the brochures they gave us about Estonia, you can drive from one side of the country to the other in about four hours. They have a lot of bike paths and a decent bus system. It might not be unreasonable to go door to door selling books from a bike in Estonia, however, here in Barrow County that seems like a stretch. Things are spread out too far; there are a lot of hills; and a lot of our drivers aren’t used to bike traffic.


Thirdly, the company they work for (a reputable American company established in 1868 doing door to door Bible sales) demands an exacting commitment from them. They are to work 13-hour days six days a week, and attend sales meetings in Augusta on Sundays. No dating; no alcohol; no TV; no time. But, since 300 of the 2,500 students the company has here this summer are from Estonia, it must sound like an okay deal to them…One of our girls is in her second summer and she has nothing but great things to say about her experience last year.


Before they came to our door on their first day in Winder, looking for “a room to rent, two bicycles perhaps to use or purchase affordably, and perhaps also a car…” I knew nothing of Estonia. But, having watched these two young women tackle challenge after challenge, calmly, quietly and always with a smile on their faces, I have developed a respect for the Estonian people and their history.


Apparently, some of the first humans in Europe lived in Estonia. Because of their location, or sparse numbers (Estonia’s current population is 1.5 million, compared to our 5.5 million in the Atlanta Metro area), or incredibly even temperament, Estonians have been invaded and ruled repeatedly, by Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Poland and most recently, Russia. If our Estonians are any indication, they don’t have a cultural chip on their shoulder about that; they seem to be a people who simply takes what comes and continues to get the work done.


One of our girls told us, with some pride, that her boyfriend just got back from a tour of duty in Afghanistan. She said Estonia sends 150 soldiers to serve alongside our troops and has since the war began. “Something to do with NATO,” she said. “It’s just part of our responsibility as a country.”


As most stray stories do, the Estonian one has evolved over time. Initially, it was, “Here’s some water and sunscreen, and yes, we have a couple of bikes you can use…” That turned into “Sure, you can stay for a week or two while you find something a little nicer - less dogs and noise and such…” Now, they’re with us for the duration, which is fine because they’re so hardworking and pleasant.

They leave the house every morning at 6:30 and return, rain or shine, sales or no sales, around 9:30 at night. And, in spite of the obvious toll all that bike riding, heat and door knocking takes, they are always cheerful, upbeat, and enthusiastic - ready to shower, pack their lunches and face the next day - whatever it may bring.


I don’t know if our Estonians are “angels unawares” or just a couple of college students seeing America the hard way. In either case, if you see a tall, thin, very blonde woman riding a bike or going door to door in your neighborhood, offer her a bottle of water and a kind word. I assure you, she’ll thank you profusely and it sure will help her along her way.

“Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.” – Newt Gingrich


I have a special admiration for people with perseverance because it’s a quality I lack. I’m a person who does a really good job for a pretty long time, then quits right before the finish line. I can’t seem to complete things. I have shelves full of books that I’ve read all but the last chapter. I have closets full of projects taken to near completion then abandoned. It is not uncommon for me to shut the stair-stepper machine at the YMCA off at 19 minutes, rather than making it through that final 20th minute. I don’t know why I do this – I just do. It’s simply the way I am.


For this reason it was particularly inspiring for me to cover the Honors Celebration for the Winder-Barrow Coalition for Adult and Continuing Education (WBCACE) last week. Now those are some folks who can stick to a task!


The first set of awards was for Perfect Attendance, which as the presenter said, is particularly hard to achieve for an adult student who works full time, has a family and a lot of other responsibilities. There was a surprisingly long list of people who won this award, including one woman who walked all the way from the Fort Yargo area to the adult education offices in Winder so she wouldn’t miss even one evening of class.


The next set of certificates was presented to students who mastered English as their second language. Several of those had already received perfect attendance awards and a few were also recognized for becoming certified as substitute teachers. That’s a lot of hard work completed in evenings and on weekends.


There were awards given to students who earned their GED and to students who received scholarships to pay for taking their GED exam. One recipient of exam scholarship money had taken his GED test that day and passed. His dad and several other family members were with him and they were so excited and proud.


There was an award for Positive Attitude, Perseverance and Dedication, and this certificate seemed particularly precious to those who had earned it – like, wow, all that hard work and effort was actually noticed and recognized!


One woman with perfect attendance was also among those inducted into the National Adult Education Honors Society. She also received an Exceptional Achievement award for passing six levels of material on a single test. Her husband and little girls were in the audience cheering for her – making it obvious that her school work wasn’t’ the only thing she had to take care of.


A man was recognized for achieving U.S. citizenship, which I understand is a long, arduous, expensive process. His wife had already become a citizen and they have two sons, born in America and nearly grown, with long lists of academic and athletic achievements. Their excitement about the opportunities America offers was tangible; it shone from their eyes and lit up their faces. I got the sense that in that family even the sky might not be the limit...


The student speaker was a woman who started working towards her GED years ago. The twists and turns of her life meant that it took a long time for her to succeed, but with perseverance, the support of her family and “so many people praying for me,” she said, she made it and was a beaming example of how good achieving a dream can be.


I wiped more than one tear from my eyes that evening. “These people have worked so hard,” I kept thinking to myself, wondering why, at times, someone like me, blessed with English as my first language and surrounded by so many opportunities, can’t seem to follow through at times…


It took me 20 years to complete my bachelor’s degree. I dropped out of college my final semester just after my son was born and, two English credits short of graduating, never went back. Over the years, I ordered a couple of distance learning courses that I didn’t complete. Then finally, after working in newspaper for a few years, I found a dean at my old university willing to give me those two credits if I submitted a sufficient sampling of my newspaper work.


Thanks to her, I graduated in 2001 – with honors. It seems my old grade point average was high enough that she could enclose an honors metal with that not so hard earned, but long time in coming college diploma.


I’m not proud of that story although I’m glad it has a happy ending. There is no reason for someone blessed the way I have been blessed, to dilly-dally around and not complete something as major as a college degree for 20 years. There’s just no excuse for that…And, so, my hat is off to those adult education honorees; they clearly have exhibited a level of perseverance and dedication that continues to escape me.

True Love

“Who, being loved, is poor?” – Oscar Wilde


I hate that Tipper and Al Gore are splitting up. It’s not that I was ever a big Al Gore fan (except for his work on global warming.) It’s just that theirs was such a sweet story – high school sweethearts, four kids, grandkids, years in politics and still a hot romance. After 40 years together, it seems like a shame they can’t make it.


I heard a lady on NPR talking about all the attention the break up is getting and how it seems to be making a surprising number of people sad. Her theory was that there is so much bad going on right now – the oil spill, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, North Korea threatening South Korea, etc. etc – that people are overwhelmed. Somehow, the only thing we can wrap our heads around to actually grieve is the end of the Gore marriage; everything else is too big. It’s an interesting theory…


I admire any couple who has been married for 40 years and now that Mr. Clark and I are in year 31 together, I can’t imagine the carrot life could dangle in front of me that would make me give up all the things our marriage is and has created over the years. What out there is so appealing that it makes you quit so close to the finish line?


Antoine de Saint-Exupery described love as, not “gazing at each other, but looking outward together in the same direction.” That seems like a pretty good way to approach the long haul marriage presents. Maybe, after all these years, Tipper and Al stopped gazing in the same direction. I just hope we don’t read about some global warming intern crawling out of the wood work to be Al’s new arm candy, once the smoke clears. Old wives like me hate reading about that - it’s just so tacky.


The other day, while working an emergency room social worker shift, I encountered a sad, but really touching love story between a pair who started out homeless and were finally right where they wanted to be, only to have him end up in the ER dying from some kind of horrible internal bleed.


While we were waiting for the doctors to work the miracle that ended up not happening, the wife told me their story. They met six years ago in a really rough homeless community. “He had my back,” she said, “and, I had his, and, we just ended up falling in love.”


In a few months they found their way to a less dangerous homeless place and since they both did odd jobs when they could find them, eventually they bought themselves a tent. (He had been a painter until a long fall off a high ladder ruined his back and she had been badly injured in a car accident years ago…no insurance, not much family, two people with limited abilities just trying to scrape by…)


She found a job at the Salvation Army as the night door person for the women’s dorm, which gave them an income steady enough to buy a little camper and get their names on the low income housing waiting list. Last year, she said, they made it to the top of the list and moved into an apartment. After a brief breakup last fall (“turns out we couldn’t live without each other,” she said) he dropped to his knees during the Thanksgiving dinner at the Salvation Army and asked her to marry him. She said, “yes!” and off to the courthouse they went, the following Monday.


Years of hard work and harder living had clearly taken its toll on these folks; they looked rode hard and put away wet. But, their love for each other shone through and lit up their faces, even as he lay there dying. She said she’d just qualified for disability, so their plan was for her to quit her night job at the shelter so they could travel. I asked her where they were going and she said “Panama City – we were going to leave next week. Neither of us has ever seen the ocean or Panama and we wanted to do that before one of us died. If only this had happened in a few more weeks…now we’ll never see Panama.”


It was gut-wrenching to watch her stroking his face, so strong and brave, holding his hand as his life slipped away. “You hang in there, Baby,” she said, staring deep into his eyes. “Don’t you worry, Baby. We’ll make it to Panama City yet,” was his reply. Their leathery, life-worn faces looked so bright and alive as they talked softly to each other, both knowing this was goodbye.


This couple seemed to have held on, to the very end, to what Tipper and Al lost somewhere along the way – the ability to dream the same dream, together, while moving forward in the direction of that dream, however slow the progress. Emily Bronte wrote, “Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” What a lovely way to describe true love, whether it’s found in a homeless shelter and lasts for life or fades away, gradually, in a fine home in Washington, D.C.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Clark!

How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were? – Satchel Paige


Mr. Clark turned 55 this week and I must say that sounds like a daunting age. The age old (and never cliché when you’re the one asking it) question is, “Where did all the time go?” One minute you’re graduating from college and the next you’re eligible to join AARP. In between there is a whirlwind of child rearing, family and work experiences, good times, hard times, sad times and so many wonderful memories. And, while 55 may sound “old” to some and “young” to others, part of what all those quickly passing years teaches you is that each and every age you reach is a blessing.


If you had asked me what a scary sounding age was at 24, I would’ve said 30. At 30, the answer was 35 and when that pushing 40 thing started to happen, I shut down and took a few years off from counting how old I was. Around 42, when I started hearing that I “looked good for my age,” I got okay with being “old” again and I cruised on through to 49 relatively age-trauma free. In fact, when I took my still mobile and quite feisty 90-year-old grandmother to another grandchild’s wedding in Mexico when I was 45, I realized with some happiness that my life might actually only be half over.


Somewhere in my 49th year it hit me that I was about to have use the number 50 to describe my age and for awhile the thought of that made me unable to remember what year I was born. It wasn’t Alzheimer’s or early onset dementia – it was conscious denial. If I couldn’t tell you what year I was born in, you couldn’t do the math.


My most recent birthday made me 52 which feels just fine. With the exception of a few minor aches and pains, I still feel pretty much the way I always have. I don’t feel like I’m over 50 except sometimes, when the sight of that lady in the mirror catches me by surprise and, somehow, based on how good I feel, she should look younger than that.


Good genes are, of course, a key component to aging well; Mr. Clark and I are both blessed with that. His family stays healthy way on up in years and my family, well, the grandmother I traveled to Mexico with is now 96 and still going strong. My other grandmother has a sister still living on her own and driving a car at the age of 105. Imagine that!


Copious amounts of eye cream are another thing I believe in when it comes to aging gracefully. I remember hearing a woman I worked with when I was 22 or so talking about how she managed to look so young at the ripe old age of 38, which at the time sounded really old to me. It was exercise and eye cream…Well, I thought, if it worked so well for her, then taking those two precautions surely wouldn’t hurt me and so far, they have served me well.


Humidity also helps. Even though I’ve never gotten used to the climate here in the South, friends my age back in my native Colorado lack the “glow” I have; maybe it’s all that sweating I do...


Mr. Clark is like me – he doesn’t really look or act his age. In my mind a 55-year-old guy is sort of old and stodgy and grumpy and gray – weight of the world on his shoulders, not much fun to be around. Not Mr. Clark, he has the gift of a perennial child’s temperament in that he has a light heart and a cheerful air about him. He’s not a worrier; he wouldn’t know how to hold a grudge; and he rarely gets angry. He sings a lot; he really likes his work and he has several hobbies he enjoys. Those things, I’m sure, have contributed his youthfulness; the only way you might begin to guess Mr. Clark’s age is his salt & pepper hair.


For his birthday, our daughter gave Mr. Clark a card that said, “Men are like wine – some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age.” Pope John XXIII said that. I don’t know how old he was when he said that, but I bet he was no spring chicken. I do know that if Mr. Clark was a wine, he’d continue to improve with age because as a man, he certainly has done that.


Robert Browning said, “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be…” and for years I thought that was really cheesy and unrealistic. Not now though; these days I have it posted on the fridge and the thought makes me happy every time I look at it.

Birds

“A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.” – Chinese Proverb


The pair of cardinals that nested in the tree outside our kitchen window last year came back and built a nest in the same tree this spring. I was glad to see them because we so enjoyed watching them raise their first brood last summer. Cardinals mate for life and this pair seemed young, but they did a good job and it was a lot of fun to watch them raise their little family.


This year has not been as good to them. They had two babies hatched, well fed and almost fully feathered, big enough to peek over the side of the nest. Like last year, the parents worked diligently, flitting in and out of the tree, feeding, protecting and chirping to their young. It looked like they were all going to make it again and then, two days ago, I found a dead male cardinal near their tree, killed by my old tom cat.


I hoped it wasn’t our dad cardinal, but it turned out to be, because after I buried the bird I found, we didn’t see our dad flitting around the nest anymore. Now there was only the mom, working twice as hard to feed her family.


Then, yesterday evening, one of the babies crawled out of the nest and started trying to perch on a nearby branch. Judging by the way he flapped and swayed, he wasn’t quite ready to be doing this. He was chirping frantically, as if in distress, and the mom was flitting around, calling back just as frantically. The other baby wasn’t in the tree or the nest. Apparently, he’d already fallen to the ground and there, right under the tree, was the old tom cat.


Mr. Clark went out and got the cat then I went to see if I could find the fallen baby. No luck, so we turned off the kitchen lights and went out back, hoping the mom and her precariously perched baby would settle down, once things got quiet again.


The same scenario was playing out with a different cardinal family in the back yard. This time the baby was stranded on a patio chair, with both parents anxiously flitting around, trying to feed him and keep him safe from the screaming jays over head. That baby fluttered to the ground and into some nearby shrubbery and this morning, his parents are still going in and out the place where he disappeared, so maybe he made it through the night. Sadly, there is no sign of our mother cardinal or her baby, not anywhere near their nest or tree.


This happens every year - a heart breaking week or so during which way too many baby birds flop out of their nests and either survive until they learn to fly or die. I used to try to save them, but that never worked, so now I just keep the old tom cat in and watch the dramas unfold, saying a little prayer for each of the bird families dealing with this.


The week of birds falling usually comes right around high school graduation and, sure enough, last Friday night we heard the fireworks booming over the high school stadium, signaling that yet another crop of baby birds was about to leave that nest. I remember how proud I was when my kids graduated from high school and how sad (in a good way) I was when they left for college.


From my empty nest, their college years felt a little like watching young birds chirping and flapping about, almost ready to fly, but not quite there yet; enthusiastic about the journey, yet still so vulnerable. It’s a relief to have grown-up kids because I don’t worry about them they way I used to. Like the cardinal pair outside the kitchen window last year, they are young, but they have good life skills, solid homes and are happily mated for life…


If there is one message I’d give to graduates, it would be to live like the birds do – in the moment, fully engaged and productive. Sing your song loudly and proudly; and, whether cardinal or a crow, be comfortable in the colors you’ve been given. Take good care of yourself and your family, and as Henry Van Dyke said, “Use the talents you possess – for the woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except the best.”


As we all know and those birds experience, life can be fleeting; bad things happen; but knowing that need not diminish the power and enjoyment of today.

Hell in a Handbasket

Going to hell in a handbasket: describes a situation headed for disaster without effort or in great haste. – Wickipedia


Well, there was plenty to rant about in last week’s local news. First off, how ‘bout those local builders? After running the idea of gutting local building regulations up the flag pole at a commission meeting in early March and getting nothing but negative feedback from the public, the media and the bloggers, the Barrow County Builder’s Association is back - this time formally asking the board of commissioners to agree to significant changes in the unified development code.


The changes include: reducing minimum home size from 1,600 square feet to 1,350; eliminating the one lot per acre requirement in subdivisions; eliminating sidewalk and open space requirements; reducing tree requirements and buffer widths; and reducing the sight distance required on subdivision entry roads.


The BCBA is also asking for a reduction in sewer tap fees and for the county to let builders pay half of those fees up front and half when the certificate of occupancy is issued…Doesn’t that sound like the builders are asking the county – our broke county – to give up revenue and “loan” them half the required tap fee until the home is built? In exchange for…what?


Oh, that’s right. Once all these cheap little homes in ugly subdivisions are built the county will be flooded with buyers who just couldn’t find what they were looking for anywhere else…Right. The logic doesn’t fly.


Anyone who can afford to buy a home - and qualify for a loan - has a fine selection of unoccupied subdivision and foreclosure homes, right here, right now, in Barrow County. Do we really think the only thing holding back local home sales is a lack of homes in the under-$150,000 market? Come on!


These requests are future profit-based nonsense being marketed as some kind of economic stimulus plan. I’m amazed the board of commissioners is even considering these requests, especially in the context of the intensely strained 2011 county budget.


While we’re on the topic of the board of commissioners, kudos to Commissioner Worley for uncovering the lack of building license and permit code enforcement that’s apparently been going on for some time in our cash-strapped county. At last week’s meeting, Worley told the board in his district alone (District 3) he had found some $6,400 in uncollected revenue due to building without the required permits.


When Mr. Worley contacted the head of the county’s License & Permits department, Mr. Lyn Clement (back on March 15), Mr. Clement’s response was that his department has “been so slow” they haven’t been riding the subdivisions to see what’s going on.


Whoa! I have so little to do that I’ve stopped doing the little I have to do? Now there’s a department head really earning his keep while setting a fine example for other county employees. Mr. Worley also discovered problems with soil erosion not being monitored - to which Mr. Clement replied that was not his department’s job. Oops! There it is, right there in the job description – soil erosion. But no worries, if what Mr. Worley saw in that department’s personnel files is correct, no one in License & Permits has been trained to monitor soil erosion anyway, so maybe it’s better they’re not doing it.


Do these people not have job evaluations? How can you still be on the ailing county payroll and not know what your job description says? In these times, you better not only be fulfilling those job requirements, but exceeding them. I wonder how all those folks who lost their county jobs last year feel when they read about all this…


And, finally, the City of Winder: At a time when city fathers should be pulling together (on the heels of the recent passing of City Administrator Bob Beck) the mayor and at least one councilman are sparring over who has the power to hire Mr. Beck’s replacement. What makes this even more counter productive is the city charter makes it very clear the mayor - not the council - has the power to hire city employees.


The irony is that the mayor and Councilman Dixon (the most vocal proponent for council involvement in the hiring process) seem to be saying the same thing. The mayor says he will consult the council during the search for a new city administrator, which is the very thing Mr. Dixon is demanding…Come on, guys, let your hackles down and cooperate.


Councilman Eberhart’s prayer plea at the end of last week’s contentious council meeting may have been the most productive thing said, “…we can disagree, but we shouldn’t be disagreeable.” Amen, Mr. Eberhart, Amen.


It’s never to late to be what you might have been, the expression goes, and I hope that’s true for the City of Winder and Barrow County. It’s past time for a return to reason and rationality in local government. Please, contact your commissioner and/or councilman and let him/her know what you think he/she is doing right and what you’d like to see go differently. After all, we’re in this handbasket, too, and too much is at stake not to get involved.

Small Towns

My parents were high school sweethearts raised in a small town in Eastern Colorado wheat country. She was the class president and he was the class clown/naughty boy and together they cut quite a rug for 20 years or so. Both had big dreams and not such a fondness for small town life, so they left their town right after they married and never went back, except to visit their parents – my grandparents – after I was born a couple of years later.



I have such fond memories of those visits. I was the first grandchild for both families and they spoiled me rotten. My mom’s parents were wheat farmers who lived out in the country. My dad’s dad was a dentist with an office right downtown and my dad’s mom was a stay at home mom.


I used to spend a lot of time in my grandpa’s dental office. He’d let me go through his drawers of gold and silver for fillings and crowns, and spin his old dental chair around and around. He’d let me put on one of his dental aprons and pretend to fix his teeth, using a tray of his real tools. And, he’d take me around, buying me treats and showing me off to his buddies who owned the other downtown businesses.


There was a jeweler and a department store, a sandwich shop, an ice cream parlor and a five-and-dime. There was a shoe store with a shoe repairman in the back. I always liked the way that shoe store smelled – like leather and saddle wax and, faintly, of the bubble gum the shoe man always gave me when I visited his store with my granddad.


I remember the fondness with which these men greeted each other and the clear bond of owning businesses downtown they seemed to feel. I remember how they always knew their customers’ names and how jovial and excited they seemed whenever a customer came in. It seemed like a nice community – safe, kind, caring – yet business-like. There was no more chatting or joking around once a customer ask a question or wanted to make a purchase.


In many ways, my memories of that small town downtown are similar to the stories I’ve heard about the way downtown Winder used to be. And, how I’d like to step back in time and visit that downtown, just for a day.


It was a bustling place with pretty much everything anybody needed, right there within a few blocks of Broad Street. There was the a hotel and a movie theater, a restaurant or two, a grocery store, a jewelry store, a department store, and a general merchandise store that sold a little bit of everything, from boat parts to tires to furniture and house wares. There was a bank and a post office and plenty of foot traffic; Winder was a (manufacturing) plant town back in the day the workers did their shopping at lunch time and on Wednesday afternoons when the plants closed down.


Some of the owners of some of those businesses are still downtown, greeting customers and working long days, they way they have for years and years - Larry Evans, Larry Jones, G.W. Steed, some of the folks at The People’s Bank…Imagine the changes they’ve seen.


It makes me sad that downtown Winder is struggling – struggling the way all small town downtowns struggle when the winds of change blow through. My grandpa’s downtown is almost gone now; most of the businesses have either gone out of business or relocated up by the “new” interstate. My grandpa’s dental office has been boarded up for years; no one wants to invest in such a rattle trap place…


Until we moved to Winder, I’d always lived in big towns. An odd set of circumstances landed us here some 21 years ago and, while it’s been an adjustment, I have no regrets. I like it that my kids got to grow up in a small town. I like it that they grew up with people they still call close friends. I like it that my daughter and a surprising number of my kids’ friends ended up marrying their high school sweetheart, just like my parents did. And, even though many of these children, now adults don’t live in Winder anymore, they always come back for holidays. It’s good to see them and to know that their roots run so deep.


Downtown Winder may be in a time of transition, but that doesn’t mean it can’t change into something kids will still have good memories about.

Mother's Day

“Making the decision to have a child – it’s momentous. It is to decide to forever have your heart go walking around outside your body.” - Elizabeth Stone

Mother’s Day is a day of mixed cheer for me. It is happy in that I have two wonderful grown children who I wouldn’t change a single thing about. In fact, they’re so wonderful they both married people I also wouldn’t change a thing about. In addition, they have jobs and homes and happy, full lives; they live close by and visit often. From my point of view as a mom, you can’t be any better blessed than that.

The down side of the day for me is that my mom died when I was 19 and she left a hole in my life that nothing else has ever filled. I can’t really remember what it felt like to have a mother and, even though my dad’s a great guy who’s always more than been there for me, I still feel like an orphan on Mother’s Day.

Of all the jobs I’ve had, being a mom has always been my favorite. It’s the only thing I always knew I wanted to do and one of the things I’ve been really good at. As a child, I toted dolls around, taking gentle care of them. And, as a young woman, I couldn’t wait to be a mom. I was in such a hurry that I had kids before I figured out what else I wanted to do – a move which complicated things later, but in a good way.

By 25, I had two little ones, born 13 months apart, and things were pretty wild at our house. Mr. Clark was a young computer guy with a good job, so we made the decision that I would be a stay at home mom. At the time it seemed like the only way to go, but I remember our mostly much older parent friends shaking their heads at the foolishness of me choosing to be mom at the expense of any other career path.

Financially, they were right; emotionally, I’ve never had any regrets. Being able to be a central part of my kids’ lives without having to juggle them with a career is another blessing I’ve had that I wouldn’t change a thing about.

It makes me sad to hear young women talk about returning to work full-time (and putting their baby in day care full-time at 6 weeks) as a reality they can’t do anything about. And, while I understand in some cases that might be true, it makes me even sadder to hear something like, “Of course I’d like to stay home with the baby, but we’ve got two car payments and we can’t make them if I don’t go back to work…”

Was driving older cars ever even considered?

My mom always stayed home with my brother and me, and while I remember getting the sense at times that doing so made her a little nutty, I also remember how nice it was to grow up feeling like the center of our own safe universe. Mom was always there; dinner was always on the table; we always had a ride wherever we needed to be; and, if someone tried to wrong us, the lioness in her would rise up in our defense.

I tried to provide my kids with the same sense of safety and stability. And, while I opted to work part-time once they went to school, my kids were my unequivocal priority and they always knew that.

Recently I was hired to photograph mothers and daughters at a luncheon celebrating the girls’ high school graduation. It was a pleasant event that brought back happy memories about how much fun it was to have kids at home – to be so connected with them, their hopes, their dreams, their friends, what’s going on in their lives. It’s different and, at times, awfully quiet once everyone is grown…

Listening to those moms talk, it struck me - how vivid mothers’ memories are. There is a clarity about our memories of our children and our experiences as mothers that belays the time that has passed. We remember our pregnancies, our babies, our toddlers, children and teens as if it all happened yesterday – with a clarity of memory we save for few other things.

Abraham Lincoln said, “I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me.” Maybe that’s the reason for the vividness of memory – as mothers we put more hope, prayer, love and energy into our children than any other part of our lives…

Sometimes I wonder what my mother would think of her 50+ year-old daughter and those adult grandkids; and, I wonder how our lives would’ve been different, had we had the benefit of her prayers and interest all these years...One things for sure, as long as I have a breath left in me, my children will be followed by my prayers and interest, no matter how many Mother’s Days go by.

Fear

“I’m not afraid of storms, for I am learning to sail my ship.” - Louisa May Alcott

Fear is a big deal for me; it always has been. For reasons that can be explained by events in my life and for reasons I’ll probably never understand, I am an excessively fearful person. In my world, disaster lurks around every corner and calamity is only a blink or two away. As you can imagine, this is no way to live.

I’ve done a lot of reading about fear – in the Bible and self-help books; I’ve gone to seminars about fear; and, talked to more than one therapist about it. Fear, it seems, is universal; I just carry it way to far.

I’m on the constant look out for new ideas about fear and new strategies to deal with it, so, when the televangelist on the stair-stepper TV at the YMCA started talking about how Jesus talked about fear more than any other topic during his brief time on earth, I stopped in my stair-stepper tracks, turned the volume up and took note.

According to this man, whose name I did not catch, while Jesus talked a lot about love, God’s love and how we’re supposed to treat each other, what he talked about most was fear - or, rather, how not to be afraid. What an amazing thought! I had no idea fear is such a big deal that even Jesus talked about it all the time way back then. What a balm to my fear-weary soul…

The man on the stair-stepper TV went on to cite numerous examples of Jesus talking about fear – how “God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of sound mind.” (II Timothy 1:7)…How “His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me” (an interpretation of what Jesus said in Matthew 6:26)…Jesus said, “Fear not! Take courage! Do not fear!” (and similar encouragements) before working the miracles he worked and solving the problems he solved…It seems that wherever Jesus went, he helped people deal with fear.

One of my favorite Biblical fear stories is the one about Jesus and his disciples crossing the Sea of Galilee. (Mark 35-41) Jesus was tired, so he fell asleep during the journey. A strong storm came up and the disciples got so afraid they woke Jesus up. A probably still groggy and slightly annoyed Jesus asked his disciples, “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” Then he “arose, rebuked the winds and the sea;” and calmed the storm.

I can’t begin to imagine how tired the human side of Jesus must have gotten, dealing over and over again with people putting fear ahead of faith in their dealings with him – and life.

My friend, Josie, is dealing with her second round of breast cancer. The chemo is nasty and her prognosis isn’t good. Yet, she maintains great faith in the face of what could be great fear; and, one of the things that helps her do this is her unfaltering trust in God.

We were talking the other day and, ironically, the story of Jesus and the disciples and their trip across the Sea of Galilee came up. Josie said the part of the story she likes best is the very beginning – before they even set off – when Jesus told the disciples, “Let us go across to the other side.”

“That’s a lot like having cancer,” she said. “You don’t know where you’re going; you don’t know what the journey’s going to be like; probably it’s going to be pretty scary. All you can do is what Jesus said - just stay focused on ‘getting across to the other side.’”

The televangelist ended his message with the notion that fear is a tool that teaches us when to pay attention. Fear is “trying to tell us something,” he said, adding that all we have to do is listen to the message, then put our faith back in God and do good.

“You need to have that conversation with fear,” he said, “but you don’t have to invite fear in for dinner and you sho’ ‘nuf don’t want to ask fear to spend the night.” I got similar advice some years ago from a Buddhist therapist I was seeing at the time…”Walk with it (fear); sit with it; listen to it; but don’t invite it in…Be strong; believe in good.”

No one knows when or how Josie’s battle with cancer will end. One thing is for sure, with “God as her refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble,” (Psalm 46:1) she will stay focused on “going across to the other side.” May God bless and keep her as her journey unfolds.

Optimistic

“The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist fears this is true.” – James Branch Cabell

It is easy to be negative - to focus on what’s wrong, rather than what’s right. I’m as guilty of this as the next guy, probably more so, in fact. Too often the first thing I notice is the flaw and the first thing out of my mouth is a criticism. I’m not proud of this, but it seems to be the way I am.

That said, imagine my surprise at a very pleasant change in perspective I am encountering as a result of doing some work for this paper in and around our town.

The last of the spring fundraisers just occurred and one of my jobs for The Barrow Journal is to cover these events. I am a hermit with questionable fashion sense and big social events scare me, so it takes more than one deep breath and gulp of courage for me to get out of the car and actually go into a fundraiser, awards banquet or gala. Too often I’ve just written a harsh column or hurt someone’s feelings in some way, or the paper has covered some piece of news that has folks all riled up…I always expect the worst as I walk in, but I never encounter it.

Instead, I encounter what appears to be genuine politeness from the people I (or the paper) have called attention to and I usually get a warm welcome from the organizer of the event. A surprising number of people go out of their way to tell me how much they like my column or appreciate the paper. And, as the evening unfolds, I get to see, make notes about and photograph groups of people who belong to a community they clearly care deeply about. They applaud the accomplishments of their peers enthusiastically and, even in this economy, contribute generously to the cause at hand.

I walk into these events with a slight sense of dread and I walk out feeling warm at heart, having experienced and documented the connections that make up the glue that holds a community together. And, this community, at least based on what I see at these events, seems like a strong one…

It’s been a rough ride for the City of Winder lately and this paper, myself included, has been right there, reporting and commenting all along the way. Like it or not, difficult news, pointed news, what some would call “bad” news interests people; it generates more buzz than good news. It’s easy to get caught up in the mindset of the latest scandal, lawsuit or controversy and think of our town as a problem-laden place as full of issues as it is snarled traffic…

Then I got the assignment of writing the pieces that accompany the “Why everybody goes to downtown Winder” advertisement page currently in its’ fourth of eight weeks in this paper.

Another set of deep breaths and courage gulps, as I approach local business owners about what they sell and why they’re located downtown. I must admit, I wasn’t optimistic. The recession is still hitting people hard; our county has one of the highest unemployment and foreclosure rates in the state; and, downtown Winder has been in the news quite a bit lately.

Imagine, again, my surprise when what I encounter is cheerful optimism, obvious excitement and nothing but enthusiasm about being located downtown. Sure, they’re struggling; of course they’re working hard; and, yes, they’re worried about the economy. But these people come to work every day with a smile on their face, ready to provide their customers and this community with the best service they can, at the most reasonable price they can afford. They understand everyone’s having trouble right now, and it seems to only make them want to work harder at contributing what they can.

Their enthusiasm, and the enthusiasm I encountered at this season’s events, has completely turned my view of what’s going on in Winder and our community around. It’s not all gloom, doom and scandal out there; there’s some really good stuff happening…

It feels good to be optimistic, especially this time of year. Flowers are blooming, birds are building nests and the trees are alive with song. The first rose just opened on my yellow rose bush and for lunch today, the first tomato sandwich of the season (vine-ripened in Florida, fresh to me via the local produce man – another hard working business person doing what he can to bring the best to his community at an affordable price.)

Sometimes small town life is just what it’s cracked up to be, and oftentimes that is really a pretty good thing.

Free to Good Home

Ask and ye shall receive…Last week was a busy week and I didn’t get a chance to sit down and write my column until this morning - two hours before the deadline. I had nothing, nothing at all to write about. Just as I started to write about how I had nothing to write about – a topic columnists are only allowed to use once in a blue moon – there was a big hoopla at the front door with my dogs sounding more than an adequate alert.

There on the porch was a friendly, but clearly lost, hot and confused Pomeranian. I went out and he ran away, but came back when I called. He was in good shape, nicely brushed and obviously well-cared for. He was definitely someone’s dog who, based on the leaves and twigs stuck to his belly, had wriggled out from under his fence.

Great! I thought, and not in a happy way - a column topic and an animal rescue – both at the same time. Just what I need!

As lost dogs often are, this little fellow was unsure whether he wanted to come to me or keep running down the street in that frantic way a dog who is lost and is trying to get home, but has no idea where home is, runs – usually right into traffic.

As he made the decision to go for it and headed towards Broad Street, my neighbor came out and joined me in running down the street, whistling for the dog, hoping he’d stop before he hit the busy downtown traffic.

Thankfully, he liked her more than me, as he came right back to her and let her pick him up. Once he calmed a little, he was okay with me carrying him back to my house, where he lapped up a bowl of water and tried, but failed, to calm down. I guess Pomeranians are a high strung breed…

I have unruly four dogs who are poorly trained (all rescues – some animals can spot a sucker from a mile away) so complex traffic control issues arise when an animal in need of help crosses our path. After all these years (and countless rescues) Mr. Clark is used to the drill and has no problem sharing his home office with whatever animal we’re aiding next, so up to Mr. Clark’s office with goes this little guy, as I head out to the vets offices to post “Found Dog” notices. I also called animal control and WIMO about him, and made a makeshift sign to stick out front…Surely, his owner(s) will come home and discover him missing soon, I thought, as the time that was supposed to be going to my column slipped away…

Fortunately, the folks at The Barrow Journal are forgiving with regard to column deadlines, so, with a bit of a time extension, here I sit, sequestered in my home office with my four dogs typing away, while Mr. Clark and the little guy upstairs bond, enough, we hope, for him to stop yipping…

Columns, like found dogs and so much of life, are often a surprise. I sit down with one set of expectations, only to have something completely different turn up. Sometimes that’s a good thing and sometimes it results in a bunch of scrambling around and mopping up to do…Sentences that were misconstrued…Animals whose owners never show up…

My most surprising rescue was the elderly, blind, really stinky poodle I actually sent Mr. Clark to retrieve, after I’d seen her shivering, clearly beside herself with fear in a cage at animal control, during one of my visits there to shoot a “Pet of the Week” picture for another paper some years ago.

“We can’t just leave her there!” was my cry. “She’s so old and scared and blind...Nobody’s going to adopt her.” And, so “Blind Dog” or “Beezer,” as we called her, became a part of our lives. I tried to give her away twice and both times she bit the person I gave her to as soon as they got home. I guess “Blind Dog” knew where she belonged and that turned out to be with us for the remaining few years of her life.

“Beezer” had been abused and had several broken bones that hadn’t healed right, so she couldn’t walk very well. She couldn’t see at all and no matter how many baths I gave her, she always smelled bad. She didn’t like being left alone, so we carried her around the house (and when we went out) in a back pack. The other dogs never even barked at her; I guess they agreed with us about how pitiful she was…

“Blind Dog” loved French fries and hamburgers, so one of our frequent trips with her was to the drive through…I even took her to Colorado with me once, to visit family. I put a little pink scarf around her neck and she smiled her wide crooked-toothed smile at everyone she couldn’t see as she rode through the airport in her backpack on my back.

If you had told me (or Mr. Clark) we would not only rescue, but fall in love with a stinky, old, blind poodle we had to carry everywhere, we wouldn’t have believed you. But, life, like columns and found dogs, is full of surprises…Now, if you know of anyone missing a red Pomeranian, please, send them our way!

Our Hopeful Garden

“Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps.” - Amos Bronson Alcott

Mr. Clark and I just finished planting our garden and boy, will we sleep good tonight. Few things are as fulfilling as spending the day digging in the dirt and at the end of it, surveying a garden patch full of new plants, as yet un-sprouted seeds and some freshly spread compost; that is some of life’s most pure hope. Short of a newborn baby, a brand new high school graduate or a pair of newlyweds, there’s nothing quite so hope-filled as a freshly planted garden. It’s just a wonderful sight.

This year Mr. Clark and I compromised on our ongoing seed vs. plants debate by doing some of both. Our agreement was that since Mr. Clark is the seed guy, he will tend to and appropriately thin the seeds – a task which I hate. In exchange, I got to buy some plants that normally he would’ve made me start from seed and just put them in the ground and watch them flourish. We’re both pretty excited about the garden – actually gardens - this year.

You see, in addition to our usual garden, which has been too shady for years, but also got the big-nursery-borne-lethal-fungal-blight that rampaged through the country last year, Mr. Clark dug a whole new garden plot in a sunnier, we hope never to be blight-rampaged part of the yard. Initially I wasn’t so excited about that – two sets of hoses to drag around, two gardens to weed, two areas to keep the dogs and squirrels and moles out of…Why do we want that?

But, as usual, Mr. Clark’s cheery outlook and innate optimism won out.

“The peppers, basil and zinnias did fine in the old garden last year,” he said, wiping the sweat off his brow as he fervently tilled the soil in the new garden. “But, I want tomatoes and squash, beans and peas, and a few greens – none of those survived in the blight garden last year. That’s why I’m digging this new plot”…And doubling our work, I thought, but, he’s right. What’s the point of gardening if there’s no vine-ripened tomatoes in the deal? So, two garden plots we now have.

We went to The Home Depot and the Walmart to get our plants and seeds today – which was Easter Sunday and I felt a little weird about that – like shouldn’t we be doing something more spiritual? But, we were not alone; the aisles were full of enthusiastic shoppers - some in church clothes, others not – all visibly excited about the work ahead.

Something I notice about garden shop shoppers is that they all seem really happy – way happier than people shopping for Christmas presents or shoes or cars or other things. The married couples engage in animated discussions about their plans, while obviously skilled and well-read gardeners debate various types of hybrids and plant breeds. Mothers (or fathers) and daughters (or kids) laugh and joke as they explore the plant-filled aisles. And, there are always the single shoppers, usually older, in deep concentration, intent on finishing their personal landscape with a new set of plant miracles this year…The garden shop of any store is a vibrant, spirited, creativity-laden place this time of year and I’ve always had in the back of my mind that at some point I’d kind of like working there…

I got my love of gardening from both of my grandmothers – one a farmer’s wife, the other a skilled city gardener. I remember experiencing from a young age the wonder they felt as they led me through their gardens, showing me their new trial or well-established and flourishing plants…My one Gramma’s farm always smelled of red and white petunias in the summer, while my other Gramma’s rock garden was an ever changing experiment in new types of plants.

My love of playing in the dirt continued as a young mother, trying to landscape starter home after bigger-but-still-starter home on an always too tight budget. I remember wondering why my friend Brenda (also a young mother - from Connecticut) tried year after year to get Hostas to thrive in (my home state) Colorado’s arid dry soil, only to understand once we moved to Georgia and my lilacs and columbines consistently failed in this hot, red, always too moist soil…

“Bloom where you’re planted” is a slogan I have kept posted in my home for years and isn’t that the task? To be content, honest and aware of who and where we are at any stage of life? Gardening is more than just putting plants in the ground; it’s an affirmation of hope and life, and, if we are to succeed, a statement of where we are…What better day than Easter Sunday to once again experience those things?

Now, if only the new garden doesn’t get the blight…