You are eleven years old today. The presents are wrapped. The party games are ready. The piñata is stuffed with chocolate and fruity candies. In a couple hours, we’ll head to Grandma and Uppa’s house to celebrate you with our extended family.
But right now, I’m sitting here in my sweats in the sunny window thinking about the boy you are at eleven years old.
There are so many things I love about you, Miles. Your squinty-eyed smile. Your gentle spirit. Your willingness to share with others.
I love how loud and high-pitched your voice is when you’re really happy. How giggly you are when you joke with your cousin, Emmett. How grateful you are when someone does something simple for you like makes you a snack or buys you a pizza. You once hugged me three times and told me I made the BEST HOT DOGS OF ANYONE ANYWHERE. You are so free with your “thank-you’s” and it makes everyone feel good to be around you.
When I think of you at eleven, I will think of you carting Ollie Cat around the house and saying, “Mom, just look at this cat. Is he not the cutest, nicest kitty in the world?”
I will think of you saying to me before you boys go out to walk the dogs, “If we’re not back in twenty minutes, come find us,” then winking at me and clicking your tongue. And I’ll think of you walking back down the street toward home in that stained red hoodie you wear every single day, Lucky trotting happily along by your side.
When I think of you at eleven, I’ll think of you sitting at your laptop with your headphones on, laughing with your brothers and Emmett and Jack and Ayden as you play your boy games that I’ll never understand.
I’ll think of you pogo-sticking around the yard yelling “Look, Mom! Look at me jump! Twenty-six…twenty-seven…”
I’ll think of you sitting on a pail in the barn with your hand outstretched to a little lamb. Your brothers typically head back to the house as soon as chores are done, but you like to linger with the animals and me…watching, noticing, enjoying.
Last week, Dad was out of town and I was down sick for the day when two baby goats were born. I peeled myself out of bed to check on them and make sure the babies were warm and dry in the cold afternoon. I was dead tired, dragging myself along, mustering the energy to set up the heat lamp, clip and clean umbilical cords, and get mama goat some extra nourishment after her labor. I turned around and there you were. “What should I do, Mumma?” you asked, knowing I needed you… knowing our animals needed you. You helped me set up the warming hut for the babies and get Honey situated with her food and water. We fawned over how cute the goat kids were and how happy we were that Honey had twins so they’d each have a play buddy. And even though I was sick and tired, my heart was so happy to be in the cozy barn with you.
I have a thousand “thank-you’s” for you too, Miles. Thanks for loving me. Thanks for being kind. Thanks for being my trusty sidekick and snuggle pal. Thanks for reminding us all that nachos are a breakfast food and every animal we own is the best animal ever. Thanks for enjoying life so dang much that everyone around you enjoys it more too.
Happy eleventh birthday, Miles. I love you more than you know!
I took a walk with my dear friend yesterday, and when I showed up to her house, we shared about our mornings and confessed we were both feeling a little Grinchy.
“Well, I’m glad we’re in it together,” she laughed, as we got into her van and headed toward our walking loop.
When our feet hit the path, we got right to it — arms swinging in sync, zipping our coats to our chins in the shady stretches and tilting our cheeks to the sky in the sunny clearings.
We talked about life as we stepped it out. Her upcoming birthday. Next weekend’s plans. Summer camping adventures. Aging parents. Teenage drivers. Mental health.
We descended the path to the lake on our third and final loop and stepped out onto the dock for a nice long inhale of sunshine.
“Thank you so much,” I sighed — to her and to God and to the blue-white ice shining up our whole world.
“Thank YOU,” she replied. “I feel so much better.”
“ME too.”
On the drive back to her house, I thought about how easy it would have been to bail on that walk. We could have canceled and sat home on our couches. Neither of us would have been mad at the other. But we showed up with our real selves and our real moods and the real knowing that we were probably going to feel a whole lot better after moving our bodies.
***
My alarm is set for 4:45 each weekday morning, and I leave for the gym by 5:30. Sometimes I didn’t sleep well the night before. Sometimes it’s below zero outside. Sometimes my hip is sore from an old injury or I wake with a kink in my neck from rolling over to the wrong side. Sometimes I have no motivation.
Honestly, though, I’m to a point in life where I don’t need motivation. Getting up is what I do. Pouring a hot cup of coffee for my drive into town is what I do. Starting the day with Pilates or yoga or weights, or stepping it out on the elliptical is what I do.
It’s not a question of whether or not I’m going this morning. I’m going.
It’s a question of what am I doing to improve myself today?
What am I doing to become better and stronger and healthier and happier today?
Author and retired US Navy Officer, Jocko Willink, famously says, “If you want to get better, stop looking for a shortcut and go find your alarm clock.”
And he’s right. You just have to do it. Do it tired. Do it Grinchy. Do it slowly. Do it alone or with a friend. Just do it often enough that showing up is your habit. Movement is your habit.
Meanwhile, learn to trust. Trust the process. Trust the small steps that lead to big progress. Trust it won’t always be hard to swing your legs out of bed — and before long you won’t even need that alarm clock. Trust me when I say I have never regretted getting up and moving this body, and you won’t regret it either. Trust that movement is medicine, and you are always only one workout away from a better mood.
It’s February — one of the toughest months of the year. Many of us who experience the seasonal blues are FEELIN’ IT, and a lot of winter still lies ahead. Even if every voice in your head is telling you to stay in bed or on the couch, I am telling you there is no better time to do this.
Your body needs this.
Your mind needs this.
Your spirit needs this.
Lace up your shoes or roll out your mat and promise yourself you can quit after ten minutes if you hate it — but I’m betting you have at least twenty in you.
I hit a deer on Thursday night. Well, I suppose, technically, she hit me. I was only a mile or so from home, and she came tearing out of the woods along a dark stretch of highway. By the time I saw her, I knew it was going to be a hard hit. There was traffic coming at me and traffic behind me and all I could do was brace for impact. She hit my van square on the nose, busting up the grill and releasing the front latch so the hood flew open and stayed open. I’ve had some interesting life experiences, but maneuvering two tons of metal through traffic at 60 mph while peeking through a one-inch viewing slot at the base of my windshield was a new one.
I managed to get off the road. I shifted into park, found my phone, called the sheriff’s department and, of course, my dad, before exiting my van.
The deer was thrashing around in the road, cars swerving around us and continuing on their way.
I walked over to her and stood over her sleek, beautiful body. Her legs twitched a bit, and I could see her ribcage rise and fall, though the pattern seemed rapid and shallow. She looked at me, but didnt seem to see me. She was already fading away.
I heard a man’s voice asking if I was okay. I said yes twice — perhaps to convince myself.
“This deer, though… she’s hurt bad. She hit me hard. Will you help me pull her out of the road?”
“I can try,” he said. “I’m not a very big man, but I’ll try.” We reached down to grab her and drag her by the legs, and she tried getting to her feet only to collapse back to the pavement.
“You don’t have a knife in your truck, do you?” I asked.
“No, I don’t. Are you thinking of…?”
“I just hate to see an animal suffer,” I said, watching the small puffs of steamy breath from the doe’s nose.
A second truck pulled up behind my van, and I heard a car door slam shut. A silhouette moved through the bright headlamps of the truck. A young, bearded man came into view and asked if we needed any help.
I explained that I wanted to help this deer out of her suffering, and asked if he had any tools in his truck. He nodded, walked to his vehicle, and came back with a fillet knife. He dragged the deer into the ditch, stepped over her body, and cut her throat in one powerful swipe. He released her head to the ground and she thrashed a bit as a small, high-pitched scream came out of her mouth.
“I’m sorry, girl,” I said aloud. “I’m so sorry.”
Then she rested down in the soft brown grass of the bank.
We stood over her for a moment together before I thanked the man for helping me — for helping us. “I really didn’t want to have to do that on my own,” I said.
“No problem,” he said, humbly.
We walked over to survey the damage on my van. It was bad. Undriveable. He asked if I was going to need a ride home. I told him my dad was on the way. He said he would wait with me. I told him I would be okay.
“Would you mind if I gave you a hug though?” I asked.
He smiled and leaned toward me. I squeezed him hard and thanked him once more before walking back to my vehicle, and he to his.
Minutes later, my dad arrived to the scene, followed by the police officer and our friend with his wrecker truck. We were quite the spectacle on the side of the rural highway.
I transferred all my needed belongings from my van into my dad’s car as the officer filled out the report. I pulled my floor mat out into the ditch and tried rinsing off the 18 eggs that had been in a carton on the passenger seat before crashing into a puddled, yolky mess on the floorboard.
I walked over to the doe one last time and looked down at her dark, lifeless eye, wishing her life hadn’t ended because of me.
I turned away.
Minutes later, my dad dropped me off at home. The living room was dark. My three sons sat on the couch watching Jurassic Park. A man on the screen screamed in horror as a dinosaur spit poisonous liquid into his eyes.
I sat down on the chair in the corner of the living room. The tears fell silently.
***
When you think about it, there are dozens of opportunities for us to die every day. Accident, illness, injury. Natural disasters. Poisonous spiders, carbon monoxide, trees falling on our beds as we sleep. Deer hurtling themselves in front of our cars at highway speed.
But somehow, we are here.
Somehow, we’re alive.
We’re hitting BREW on the coffee pot. Taking out the garbage. Brushing our teeth and folding the laundry. We’re going to work and church and the grocery store, and then we’re coming home.
We’re flipping the pages of our magazines before bed and tossing and turning to get comfortable beneath our flannel sheets before we sleep hard and do it again.
But every now and then we have a moment where we think This might be it…
We slip and fall in the shower and barely miss hitting our head on the bathtub spout. Our car fishtails on black ice and we narrowly miss a big old jackpine on the edge of the road. A deer jumps into the path of our vehicle and we have to learn to park a car blind.
Every now and then, we think it’s lights out, and we can’t even believe we’re standing in our kitchen telling the story to our best friend. Our kids are in the living room watching a movie where all anyone wants to do is escape the monsters. All they want to do is stay alive.
***
It’s the last day of 2023. The light is fading in my backyard. I’m running the vacuum and getting ready to set the table for our New Year’s Eve dinner. As I pass the dining room window, I see her there in the yard. She’s all alone by the big blue spruce, standing still as can be. I stop the vacuum and walk up to the window, looking out at her. She’s close enough that I can see the small puffs of breath from her nose, the twitching of her rounded ears, the shine of her black eyes.
We’re the only ones in this moment.
We are flesh and blood and beating hearts. We are bone and hair. Breath and air. River water and afternoon light. We are the story of another year, the sum of our experiences.
We are all the things we can’t yet know. Slip-ups, close calls, narrow escapes.
We’re standing here on this Dead End street, hours before crossing the bridge into next year. We’re thinking about our next meal. About staying warm. About everything and nothing at all.
I break my eyes away from her and turn back to the vacuum, pressing the power button with my thumb. The machine whirrs as I push it over the short carpet, capturing a half piece of popcorn, a tumbleweed of cat hair, the crumbs of our year.
When I finish the job, I glance back out the window. The last light of day is receding. A few faint stars have appeared in the northern sky. Beneath them, the spruce tree stands alone.
My Grandpa Bing has been gone for 12 years this week, but my memory of him is crisp and clear. I can still hear his gentle voice, the zing of his electric scooter, the smack of his lips as he pushed around a Halls Mentho-Lyptus cough drop in his mouth. I see his wobbly neck, age-spotted hands, perfect wave of white hair, and shining, mischievous eyes. I smell the blend of Old Spice/old man I encountered thousands of times as I leaned in to kiss his cheek, and I feel the bones of his eighty-something hands as they squeezed mine firmly, lovingly, every time I said goodbye ‘til next time.
There is a different kind of knowing that happens with the characters of your childhood. Kid brains absorb and catalogue the most weird and wonderful details, don’t they? I would be willing to bet many of you remember the family members of your childhood with distinctive clarity, along with the furniture and properties of their environments. The familiar sounds and smells carry themselves with us into adulthood and beyond.
I was amazingly fortunate to have a grandpa in my life for almost thirty years — to have seen my grandparents on the regular. To say they shaped me or supported me is an understatement. Their presence and stability in my life was profoundly influential. I know my siblings would say the same.
My younger brother, Mark, has a way of remembering people and capturing their essence with words and images. This blog post he wrote about our Grandpa Bing made me deeply nostalgic for the simple past. The Sunday meals. The local diners. Watching my grandpa, robed in small-town glory, make his Midwestern exit that we’d all be longing for a dozen years later.
Mark, thank you for bringing me back to Bernie’s. To the Rialto. To grandpa’s small-town celebrity shadow.
Writing it down is a magic trick any of us can learn — a means of manipulating time and space with the simple, free element of story. It’s more than just sharing a memory — it’s a powerful effort to keep our people alive forever. 💛
Our house was built in the early 1900s on the edge of the Loretto Mine in rural Upper Michigan. We have three bedrooms, but only one of them has a 3-foot-wide closet. We have storage shelves and cubbies in every nook and cranny. The basement is full of beehive boxes and canning jars and bins of outgrown clothes. I am constantly rearranging and reorganizing to try making our space work better for a growing family. We know we could move to a bigger home, but this acreage on the woods and river means more to us than a mansion ever could.
Our two younger boys share the bedroom in the photo above, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve minimized clutter and tried making their bedroom a space that could breathe. But every time I do it, they fill their shelves and beds with treasures — stuffed animals, favors from bday parties and church events, drawings of beasts they’ve dreamed up with giraffe legs and three heads. Sometimes my mama heart is exasperated by it all. What are we doing in this tiny house? How does so much STUFF find its way in? What’s going to happen in a few years when these three boys are all teenagers and want their own space?
Other times, like this morning, I catch a glimpse of my kids that stops me in my tracks. Look at these two in their tiny bedroom under the eaves of a cozy house on a Dead End street. Look at them surrounded by soft blankets and plush friends, with a bestest buddy sleeping soundly just a couple feet away. Look at their heads tilted toward one another. Look at the snakes woven through the headboards, the crooked lampshade, the little boy-ness of it all.
How could I wish for something more than what is here before me this November morning?
There’s a sign in the hall at the top of our stairs with a poem about the kind of love that grows in little houses. It has never felt truer than it does today.
My youngest son is ten years old. Every night at bedtime, there’s a particular way he likes to be tucked in with four blankets in a specific order — the safari one on just the feet, the tie-dyed one folded over, and so on. Curly Bear needs to be tucked tenderly beside his right shoulder. Night light on. “This Little Light of Mine” sung by Mom or Dad. Then he asks for a head scratch and smiles the most contended smile I have ever seen before sighing something like, “I’m just so happy,” or “I’m just so cozy.”
I sit in the moment with him, peaceful, content, and cozy in my own heart too.
***
When I was a kid, my parents tucked me in every night they were home. The gravity of this gift is not lost on me. I was afraid of the night, so I liked being packed in tight like a burrito with stuffed animals lining the wall beside my bed. My parents knew the drill, and I counted on it each night. No matter what struggles happened at school or with friends, I knew someone would be there at night to pull the blankets up to my chin and kiss my forehead.
My dad always said, “Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite, sweet dreams and I love you.”
My mom said, “I love you up to the sky, down to the ground, around the whole world, and more than that even.”
It was so simple, yet so meaningful — the final act of every day was being loved.
***
As an adult, I’m an early morning riser, and sometimes I’m so beat at the end of the day that I make the boys tuck ME in before Daddy tucks them into their own beds a while later.
When my youngest son was three years old, the boys were snuggled in against me in my bed. I sang them each their bedtime songs, then told Miles he should sing me a lullaby now. He said, “Well I only know one song.”
“That’s okay — let’s hear it,” I replied, expecting “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star.”
He took a big breath and broke out in “ROCK ME LIKE A HURRICANE!”
To this day, when we hear that song, I still teasingly say to Miles, “What a sweet lullaby.”
***
It doesn’t have to be complicated. A simple song will do. A poem. A book. A blessing. A prayer.
A blanket pulled up to the chin. A head scratch. A night light switched on.
A two-minute investment that adds up to hours and hours of your kiddo feeling loved, peaceful, and secure.
The corner of my dining room is crammed with humming incubators. Gold and lavender chicks trip over one another, chirping loudly, steadily, trying to figure a way out of the rounded dome.
There’s a bottle lamb in a tote in the living room.
My basement shelves are stacked with tomato seedlings. Their names are Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Sunrise Bumblebee.
Tulips reach leafy arms from beneath receding snow on the south side of the house.
My yard is bright in the warmth of the waxing moon. Ripples of light are the high harmonies on the river’s thawing song.
April. The world is rubbing sleep from her eyes. She’s filling her lungs with damp air and smiling at the sound of her boots pressing air bubbles up from the muddy hollows.
My eyes are wide again, too — wider than the gibbous moon. I have that sense of happening in my body, A skipping lightness in my chest.
Is it an awakening? A homecoming? An answered prayer?
I don’t know its name. I just know we’re here. I just know we’re coming out the other side.
The nape of our neck remembers the sun. Our ears await the first chirps of peeper frogs, the shouting return of Canada geese. Our eyes recall the shape of dandelion and fiddlehead, robin and sparrow.
If Winter is the test, Spring must be the star in the top right corner of the paper beside all of our names, a note in cursive letters…
If you know me, you know being in front of a group isn’t easy for me. When I was a kid, I loved spelling, but at the same time, I HATED being a good speller because it meant I had to stand in front of my classroom until the very end of the spelling bee…
Then I had to stand in front of our elementary school gym full of big kids and little kids and teachers — so many teachers…
And THEN, at regionals, an even bigger room packed with grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles…
My knees knocked and my right upper lip twitched while I strung together consonants and vowels to create the complicated words I’d memorized from the massive, obscure study list.
I could have faked sick. (I did that sometimes when life was too intense for me.) I could have faked a mistake in Mrs. Witter’s fifth grade classroom and sat in the bleachers during the school-wide spelling bee, rather than on the stage.
But I really did love spelling. And I cared about doing my best. So I chose to be brave.
Far greater than my love for spelling is my love for theatre. I’ve been in several plays throughout my life, and I’m always exhilarated, terrified, and extremely sentimental in the days leading up to production.
Tech week is intense — you rehearse every night and get little sleep and try your darndest to get used to bright lights in your face once again. You help other cast members through their own jitters and throw them a lifeline when they forget a line, knowing they’ll throw it back when you’re bobbing in the sea yourself.
The energy is HIGH. It buzzes through your whole body. You’re tired, but you can’t sleep. When you do, you can bet your bottom dollar that your whacked-out dream brain will have you naked and mute on stage. All the grandmas and aunties from the spelling bee will be there, smiling sympathetically at you while you cross your knees in failed modestly and attempt mouthing your next letter — your next line. Was it a double ”r” AND a double “s” in embarrassed?
But today isn’t a dream. It’s opening night. Realer than real. And even though the present reality is that I’ll be off in a couple hours for a giant session of well-orchestrated pretend play with a group of once-strangers who are now friends, things still feel pretty intense right now in my quiet house on this dead end street.
So I’m choosing BRAVE again, this time at forty-one years old. I’m choosing to press on through knocking knees and clammy palms. Eyes looking in my direction. Smiling aunties. (Thank you, GOD, for smiling aunties).
Because I love art. Because I love community. I love story. I love that I get to be the good guy in this play and fight for a cause bigger than myself.
It’s all worth it.
If you’re in the Iron Mountain area this weekend, come see our show. We’re doing it for ourselves and we’re doing it for you. The story you see on stage is one part of the whole — there is so much time, effort, energy and heart in every production. And probably some breathing into a paper sack.
We hope you like it. We hope it inspires you. And we hope it nudges you to be brave too.
“It takes a great deal of courage to stand alone.” – Juror Nine
I know — the title of this reflection is forty, but I couldn’t find the words last year. Forty felt kind of, well, monumental.
Honestly, I didn’t feel super sad or sentimental saying goodbye to my thirties. There was a lot of good and beautiful stuff in there, but some really hard stuff too. A lot of searching and striving. A lot of hiding.
When I was about to turn forty, I made a bunch of promises to myself, and a year later, I can truly say I kept them all.
Okay, okay, there is one I didn’t keep — staying on top of laundry and dishes. Maybe next year? 😉
I’m not writing this reflection to say, “Look at me! Look at my magnificent life.” I’m writing so I can remember who I am right now in this moment in time.
If you’re my friend, you know I have a rotten memory. I’m always steeped in feelings and the details of real life tend to float away on me. Writing is one way I preserve them. So write, I will.
***
Forty was a year of adventure.
Let’s just start with my hubby and I ziplining off a 50-foot tower.
I hate heights so much, guys. When I was a kid, we were eating in a mall food court on the third floor and our table was close to the railing. I couldn’t even swallow my food because I was close to the edge. So ziplining was NOT high on my priority list (pun intended…). But our 4-H club brought us to an adventure park and all the cool kids were doin’ it, so we did it too. I said my final prayers and screamed and squealed all the way down and somehow maintained control of my bladder. I wish I could say I got to the bottom and said, “Again, again!,” but it was probably more like, “Is there a bench somewhere nearby?”
Still. I did it.
Another huge adventurous highlight of the year was our family’s trip to Disney World in October. Our boys were 9, 11, and 13, which were REALLY FUN ages for a grand adventure. No diapers! No strollers! No meltdowns after fifteen minutes of being hot!
We had an absolute ball. Chad, Gray and Reed did all the big kid rides and Miles and I had a ball riding the carousel and Small World 🙂 We DID stretch our courage and ride Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. Terrifying, but fun.
Also, Flight of Passage. Holy dizzying virtual reality! And also FUN.
The boys also got to experience their first plane ride…
…and first time playing in the ocean at Daytona Beach — an absolute dream come true!
Our family trips are usually local outings to Marquette, Green Bay, campgrounds, etc, so a trip like Disney World was pretty epic. We are forever grateful to Roxanne and Sally for making this trip possible for us. It truly was magical!
***
Forty was a year of friendship.
So many of my dearest friends also turned forty, so we partied hard. And when I say partied hard, I mean Cabernet and PJs. Kristen, Roxanne and I spent a whole week together in Florida. We did hit Epcot and Blue Springs to see some amazing manatees, but for the most part we just enjoyed being together and reflecting on the decades of friendship we’ve shared.
In the spring, Michelle, my childhood bestie, and I, toured around the Black Hills, dodging Big Papa Bison and trying not to fall off cliffs beneath the chiseled faces of our presidents. It’s a beautiful thing when the friend who knew you better than anyone at ten years old is still your partner in crime and shoulder to cry on at forty.
In June, Jenny and I spent a weekend in Marquette catching up on life, lamenting the state of our country, and enjoying sunshine on our faces and Lake Superior breezes in our hair. We always wish we had more time together, so this weekend was a true gift.
In late summer, we enjoyed one of our favorite weekend traditions of friends camping out on our property. The whole weekend is always wild and free. There was an attempted bicycle ride across the river, hours of floating with cold drinks in hand, campfire games of telephone, and way too many s’mores.
It is such a blast having kids of all ages run as a pack, play hide and seek in the dark, and best of all, beg to do my farm chores!
This year, we added a new rock-painting tradition to our camping weekend. We lined our fire ring with brightly colored creations from this year, and I can’t wait to watch all the nooks and borders of our little campsite along the river fill up with more colorful memory rocks in the years ahead.
Just before Christmas, Michele, Brit and I continued another yearly tradition of hauling gifts to Brit’s workspace and having a big wrapping party. This year, Kristen and Kelsey joined in on the fun. It was like a red and green Christmas explosion. We always stay up waaay too late. We laugh and cry and wish each other a Merry Christmas before driving packed SUVs and minivans back home and wondering how in the heck we’re going to keep it all hidden for the next few days!
I honestly can’t imagine having better friends than the ones I have.
***
Forty was a year of theatre. So much theatre!
Our entire family participated in a community theatre production of A Christmas Carol in the fall of 2021, and we were hooked so hard! Chad, Miles and I returned to the stage in Check, Please! a few months later. Gray participated in a high school drama club production of Carol vs. Christmas, and I teamed up with Erin, my own high school drama club coach, to co-direct Spoon River Anthology, a play I was in during my junior year of high school under her supervision. This was truly one of the most special experiences of my life. I have to wipe a tear every time I look at these photos!
Theatre adds so much value to our family life, and Chad and I are excited to participate in another community theatre production, 12 Angry Jurors, NEXT WEEKEND!
Along with being in several plays, we traveled all over the place to attend productions. Art has always been an important part of my life, and getting to share it with so many of my loves filled my heart right up. We saw A Charlie Brown Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Neverland, Moana, Frozen, Hairspray, Hamilton, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Every show was delightful, from the community theatre level on up to Broadway.
***
Forty was a year of learning new things.
Along with ZIPLINING and directing AN ACTUAL PLAY, I learned how to:
…deliver a stuck lamb.
…embroider with my sister and my niece, the creative queens of the family.
…help the boys enter lambs and goats in the fair, which included learning to shear squirrely ruminants. THAT was an adventure!
…truck all over God’s green earth building a herd of dairy goats for future farm pursuits.
…successfully grow peppers — finally! Turns out a greenhouse is the golden ticket on that. We’re turning up the heat! 🌶
***
Forty was a year of laughter.
I know I sometimes take life too seriously, but forty was a TON of fun.
I’m still giggling about approaching these two boys wearing “I ❤️ HOT MOMS” shirts at the county fair and asking them if they wanted a photo with a real live hot mom. Maybe they didn’t find it humorous, but my friends and I sure did.
Im still looking back and smiling on a weather situation in Florida that had us all giggling. Kristen, Roxanne, Rox’s son and I were out on a big walk and got caught in a steady rain. We were absolutely drenched by the time we turned back onto Roxanne’s street. A friendly neighbor pulled over and gave an umbrella to Rox’s little boy. He looked at the three of us drowned rats and said, “You girls are on your own!”
Another favorite memory that was sort of horrible at the time, but is now quite humorous, is Kristen and I only having seven minutes of layover time in the Detroit airport and having to run, with luggage, through a concourse, the trippy DTW light show tunnel, and to our gate. We still can’t believe we made it. And we’re still trying to catch our breath.
***
On a more serious note, forty was a year of loss.
In February, one of our ewes gave birth to twin lambs. The ewe lamb, Maude, was separated from her mama and became chilled. I went to YouTube University and learned how to tube feed lambs, then tried all day to save her. At the end of the day, we lost her. It was a hard day on the farm.
One of the most significant losses of my life happened last May when my grandmother, “Nana” passed away at the age of 98 years old. Being at her bedside during her final days and final minutes was the most cherished part of my entire year. I will never stop being grateful that I had my grandmother for forty years of my life. She hugged and loved and cheered me on for my first four decades, and God granted me the privilege of holding her hand while she moved from our arms into His.
***
Forty was a year of remembering how to love my very own self.
I went through a lot physically and emotionally from 2009-2020, and it took a toll on my body. I had three c-sections in less than four years, and nursed three monstrous boys. In 2015, I lost a dear friend shockingly and unexpectedly while vacationing together in New York City. In 2016, I injured my hip and, after a year of pain and decreased mobility, underwent surgery to repair tears in my labrum. Just about the time I was feeling ready to start getting back in shape, the pandemic hit and debilitated the whole of us. I grew up with a mom who was VERY concerned about germs (refraining from specifics — you’re welcome, Mom!), so let’s just say there was a lot of hiding and stress-eating in 2020. By the end of the year, my anxiety was awful, my body hurt, and my weight was the highest it had ever been.
Physical fitness has always been important to me, so one of the promises I made to myself when I turned forty was to lose weight and build strength. I’ve been back to the gym regularly for over a year, setting my alarm for 4:30 so I can get my workouts in and get home in time for homeschooling and farm chores. I’m now teaching five classes a week at the YMCA, and with a mix of yoga, Pilates, circuit training, and a low-carb diet, I’m fifty pounds lighter in my body and exponentially lighter in my spirit. Every time I lift a fifty pound bag of chicken feed, I marvel at how heavy it is — I was carrying around that much extra? No wonder I hurt!
Reclaiming my physical health is one of the most important things I have ever done — and it hasn’t been easy. Road trips were hard. Thanksgiving and Christmas were hard. Eating tuna out of a can at Disney World while my kids ate Dole Whips was hard.
But the thousands of small decisions have paid off. Along with promising myself to lose the last twenty pounds in the year ahead, I’m committing to loving and caring for myself as I age.
I love life SO much — and there is so much I still want to do for my family, my community, and myself. I’m going to need a strong body, strong mind, and a whole lotta prayer to keep having fun for forty more! 🎉
So that’s that. Forty. It was a good year. Maybe my best year. At forty years old, the girl in this photo is more herself than she’s ever been. She’s more alive than ever before. Best of all, she has more to give than she ever has.
Miles, on the day before your sixth birthday, you asked me to take one last picture of you so you could remember what it was like to be five. I can see you there, kneeling in the yard with the ducks around you, eating grain out of your small mittened hand. You had this sweet, contented smile on your face — so at home with your animal friends.
This photo of you and Meri that I took yesterday, on your last day of being nine, is so much like that duck photo. Look at you in the sunshine, delighting in your little lamb. The two of you are obviously dear friends, and you have that same contended grin on your face.
There is so much I could say about the kind, smart, generous boy you are, but I think what I want to say most right now is that you are JOY.
Happy Birthday, Miles. I remember you at five. I remember you at nine. All your ages are written on my heart.
REVISIONS OF GRANDEUR 