Friday Tidings

This picture represents something coming to an end. My husband Tom and I stopped to take a selfie in the now empty home that had been his parents. We’d spent several weeks packing up a lifetime of belongings and moved his mom to an easier place for her to live.  Yet, it’s hard.    As I look at the photo, I can see the hint of sadness in Tom’s eyes.  This was where we’d gathered when we had young families and it’s where Tom had spent the last weeks of his father’s life.  Endings are not always easy. But I remind myself that when something, like a home that brought family together, has come to an end, it can also bring an opportunity for a new beginning somewhere else.   Family times and celebrations will continue as another generation takes the torch and creates special memories in new ways. So even though a season ends, a new one begins. I’ve lived long enough to learn that the cord that binds us together through all of life’s seasons isn’t the place we li...

It was blistering hot—something I still hadn’t acclimatized to in the Eastern Washington summertime. But there were 100 rows of strawberry plants that were 300 feet long that needed be weeded. That was something else I hadn’t adapted too—hard labor. I didn’t mind the work, it’s just that I wasn’t as adept at eliminating small weeds before they grew, seemingly overnight, into far bigger weeds. No one told me weeds grew so fast. Sweat was rolling down my back, and I stretched to take a break from my hunched-over hoeing. I saw a truck spinning dust from its wheels coming up the road. Conward, my father-in-law, stopped near where I was working. He got out and lowered his tailgate. He brought out some water that he’d put into recycled glass bottles. That was his signature style: reuse. We sat on the tailgate sipping water and he asked to see my hoe. He pulled out a metal file and went to work sharpening my hoe. I never knew hoes even needed sharpening. The things you don’t learn in coll...

I’d like to share a story about life’s interruptions with this year’s graduating seniors—who have lived an interrupted life.   A few days ago, I was busy splitting firewood. To be clear, a twenty-two-ton machine does the hard part. I just maneuver wood rounds beneath the huge maul. I put on my ear-protection headset, pull the starter cord, and get to work.  However, when I started, I didn’t notice the robin sitting on a nearby tree limb. I just kept splitting and throwing firewood over my shoulder into the adjacent woodshed. Then the robin flew in an arc just in front of me. I watched it return to the limb. I didn’t get the message until the bird did it three more times. I stopped the machine and removed my headset. The robin was chirping excitedly. I decided to stack the wood I’d tossed in the shed. More intense chirping. Then I finally noticed her nest. It was above my head, tucked into a safe place in the shed (or so she thought). I climbed on some firewood to peek ins...

  My little granddaughter has determined what she wants to be when she grows up—she wants to be married. So, when she came to visit, I let her try on my wedding dress. Her great-grandmother wore it first, nearly 70 years ago. As I put it on her, she was shaking with delight. It’s probably the Covid year that brought about her marriage yearning—she’s seen her mom’s career take place just upstairs. She’s seen her daddy stay home and care for her. While she adapted to wearing face masks and using lots of hand sanitizer, she was seeing much more—she was observing marriage in a most impressionable way. She watched her parents work together, dividing chores, and helping each other under hard circumstances—and they loved each other through it. Certainly, her child-eye’s view of marriage is incomplete, but she has felt the joy that comes when you have one another close and desire to be right where you are. It must have given her a sense of comfort and stability. My granddaughter will likel...